The Washington Post praises Nicolás Lell Benavides’ music for finding “a way to sketch complete characters in swift sure lines.” In his new work based on poems by Nobel Prize-winner Pablo Neruda, tenor Joshua Blue becomes the piece’s protagonist, singing from beyond the grave about his undying affection for his lover and their closeness despite physical separation.
When composing Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout, Gabriela Lena Frank also leaned on South American literature. Peruvian novelist José María Arguedas’ belief that cultures can coexist without conflict inspired Frank’s bold, festive, and momentarily mournful vision of Andean folklore.
The program is bookended by two valedictory string quintets. It begins with LA Phil violist John Hayhurst’s Adagio—inspired by the final words of Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen, and Michael Lando—and concludes with the piece Brahms described as his “farewell to my music.” While 57-year-old Brahms believed his time in the limelight was over, his biographer Walter Niemann disagreed, calling the quintet “the most passionate, the freshest, and the most deeply inspired by nature” of Brahms’ entire catalog.