A Mind of Winter

The score to Benjamin’s A Mind of Winter.

George Benjamin’s A Mind of Winter sets the brittle, oblique poetry of Wallace Stevens for soprano and chamber orchestra. This 10-minute exploration of Stevens’ ‘The Snow Man’ showcases Benjamin’s filigree approach to texture and timbre, especially in the whisps and shards of high woodwinds and strings that give the piece its mysterious chill, orbiting around a solitary muted trumpet.

A Mind of Winter seems as fresh now as it did when first performed more than thirty years ago. The colours it conjures…are still a thing of wonder.

Guardian (Andrew Clements) 17 June 2015

A beautifully wrought soundscape of crystalline bleakness out of which a soprano voice emerges. Its continuation delights by its unfailing inventiveness.

The Independent (David Wright), 20 March 1990