Boulez, Benjamin and Brahms 4

The Concert

A bewitching programme of contrasts: Pierre Boulez’s glittering sound world, late Johannes Brahms, and a lyrical world premiere from George Benjamin – to celebrate Sir Simon Rattle’s 70th birthday. 

The Music

2025 marks the centenary year of the legendary composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, and Sir Simon Rattle pays tribute with Éclat. An exploration of sound itself, for Rattle it’s ‘one of Boulez’s seminal pieces, a piece where you not only conduct, but you almost compose as you go along. It’s a piece you can only do with a group of musicians who really trust you, and vice versa’. 

George Benjamin’s Interludes and Aria (from Lessons and Love and Violence) is a world premiere, created specially as a gift for Rattle’s birthday, adapting the beautifully textured excerpts from Benjamin’s powerfully intense opera.   

Brahms’ Symphony No 4 (his last) was written on a grand scale, termed ‘tragic’ by the composer, yet full of melody and warm orchestral colours. 

The Performers

The LSO inhabits a range of musical worlds, steered brilliantly by Sir Simon Rattle. The versatile soprano-conductor Barbara Hannigan, who created the role of Isabel in Lessons and Love and Violence, reprises an aria here.

Pierre Boulez was, for me, one of the great heroes, and one of the most influential people I ever met. 
Sir Simon Rattle