ALTITUDE for Brass Band by GEORGES BENJAMIN (UK, 1960)

[#320] Sep 08, 2025 UK | 1977 | Brass Band | Grade 5 | 8’40 | Brass Music

Premiered by Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band conducted by Elgar Howarth

on 12 May 1979 in York University, York, Great Britain

Purchase score at Faber Music

“Altitude” by British composer, conductor and pianist Georges Benjamin is our Composition of the Week.

Altitude was commissioned by Elgar Howarth and the Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band in 1977, and premiered by them on May 12, 1979, at the York University, York, England.

The music is scored for the traditional English brass band instrumentation:

Soprano cornet in Eb, ripiano cornet in Bb, 4 solo cornets Bb, 4 cornet 2nd and 3rd, 3 Eb-Horns, 2 barytons, 2 trombones, bass trombone, 2 euphoniums, 2 Eb-Tubas, 2 Bb-Tubas - Perc (3): 2 timp/tam-t/2 susp.cym/cyms/xyl/(mar)/t.bells/glsp/SD/BD/tgl.

“Altitude was written in the summer of 1977, at the request of Elgar Howarth. The music portrays an imaginary fight at an extreme height – cold, solitary, tranquil, and yet swift and mobile. The form is roughly as follows: - (i) A fast, but harmonically static opening section, with a long melody in the tubas; (ii) A slower, more flowing section, beginning with a descending theme played by a solo cornet; (iii) Tense development of previous material, culminating in a full fortissimo statement of the cornet’s theme. (iv) A long, gradual crescendo superimposing several layers of texture, and building up to a climax in which the opening theme appears augmented in the trombones and tubas; (v) Final appearance of the cornet’s theme; (vi) Repeat of the beginning (with alterations in orchestration) converging on a single note (D) and disappearing in a flash.” Program Notes by George Benjamin

Altitude has a duration of 9 minutes, and it is available at Faber Music on rental.

View the score here

Born in 1960, George Benjamin began studying piano in 1974 with Peter Gellhorn and Yvonne Loriod, and composition with Peter Gellhorn and Olivier Messiaen. In 1977, he entered the Paris Conservatoire and later continued his musical studies at King's College, Cambridge, with Alexander Goehr (1978–1982).

In 1980, he became the youngest composer to have one of his works performed at the BBC Proms (Ringed by the Flat Horizon). This piece, along with the two earlier ones—A Mind of Winter and At First Light—was recorded in 1987 by Nimbus. That same year, he conducted the world premiere of Antara in Paris, a commission from IRCAM.

From 1985 to 2001, George Benjamin was a professor of composition at the Royal College of Music in London and was frequently invited to conduct orchestras such as the London Sinfonietta, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon. He is one of the directors of the ensemble Musique Oblique. In 1992, he became the founding artistic director of Wet Ink, a new contemporary music festival created with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

In 1993, he contributed to the first edition of the Meltdown Festival in London, where Sudden Time premiered. In 1995, he conducted the Ensemble Modern for the world premiere of his work Three Inventions for Chamber Orchestra at the 75th Salzburg Festival. He composed Palimpsest I for a world tour by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Pierre Boulez. The same orchestra premiered Palimpsest II in 2002 as part of its retrospective season devoted to George Benjamin’s work. After another orchestral piece, Dance Figures (2004), a stage work expanded his catalogue in 2006: Into the Little Hill, performed that same year at the Festival d'Automne in Paris, earning him the 2008 Composition Prize of the Royal Philharmonic Society (UK).

The opera Written on Skin (2012–2013), premiered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, was performed numerous times across Europe as well as at the Tanglewood Festival in the U.S., receiving several awards, including the South Bank Sky Arts Award, the British Composer Award, the International Opera Award, and the Grand Prix of the Académie Charles Cros. His third opera, Lessons in Love and Violence, premiered in May 2018 at the Royal Opera House in London, in a production by Katie Mitchell with a libretto by Martin Crimp. During the 2018–2019 season, he was composer-in-residence with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Musikfest and at the new Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

In 2001, George Benjamin received the first Schonberg Composition Prize, awarded by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Since 2001, he has been a professor of composition at King's College London. He served as artistic advisor for the BBC’s 2004–2005 20th-century music retrospective Sounding the Century. In 2018–2019, he was composer-in-residence with both the Berlin Philharmonic/Musikfest and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

He was awarded the title of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government, elected to the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, and received the title of Commander of the British Empire in 2010. In 2014, he was named Composer of the Year by Musical America. In 2017, he was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, and in 2018, he was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. In 2019, he received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement from the Venice Biennale.