LPO/Benjamin review – music of crystalline clarity and hedonistic pleasure

12 February 2026 at 07:31

Royal Festival Hall, London
George Benjamin conducted this meticulously programmed and beautifully executed concert of his own Palimpsests alongside music by Scriabin, Stravinsky and Ravel

Shimmering colours, translucent textures and illuminating shafts of light were the order of the day as the London Philharmonic’s composer-in-residence George Benjamin donned his conductor’s hat, bringing his trademark rigour and precision to a meticulously programmed concert of Scriabin, Stravinsky, Ravel and Benjamin himself.

Sensuality ruled in Scriabin’s The Poem of Ecstasy, a single-movement symphonic ode to joy. Languorous strings and woodwind indulged in voluptuous foreplay, spurred on by priapic brass, only to fall back repeatedly as if momentarily sated. Benjamin exerted an impressive control over his vast forces – nine horns, no less – refining the composer’s unrestrained textures before ramping up the adrenaline for a climactic explosion of hedonistic pleasure.