The Observer (Stephen Walsh), 24 January 1982
‘Every one of Benjamin’s pieces is a model of concision and directness, but there is something special about the vividness of A Mind of Winter, his setting of a Wallace Stevens poem for soprano and chamber orchestra. He captured the atmosphere of Steven’s winter with a sequence of chilling gestures: flurries of high woodwind and string writing that sounded like a biting winter, and the frosty brilliance of string harmonics and glissandos. The piece not only evoked the sounds of winter, it conjured the psychological world of the poem. The vocal line seemed to float free of the surrounding texture, as if the singer were intruding upon a natural landscape.’
The Guardian (Tom Service), 6 December 2002
‘Benjamin’s A Mind of Winter, a setting of Wallace Steven’s poem The Snow Man, wasted no time in plunging the temperature. Strings and suspended cymbals opened into a frozen A minor chord; the wind whistled and howled.’
The Times (Geoff Brown), 7 December 2002
‘This is a beautiful piece…the handling of colors, the command of textures, and the subtlety of harmonies are almost uncannily fine.’
The New Yorker (Andrew Porter), 21 December 1987