Carter, Elliott

Elliott Carter: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2

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vital 20th century chamber works.
some new things to discover from the old
Cf

Elliott Carter: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2

Manufacturer: Nonesuch
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Quartets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

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Elliott Carter: Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello & Harpsichord; Sonata for Cello & Piano; Double Concerto for Harpsichor
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ASIN: B000005IVL
Release Date: 1992-05-07

Tracks:

String Quartet No. 1: Fantasia: Maestoso - Allegro scorrevole
String Quartet No. 1: Allegro scorrevole - Adagio
String Quartet No. 1: Variations
String Quartet No. 2: Introduction
String Quartet No. 2: (I) Allegro Fantastico
String Quartet No. 2: Cadenza For Viola
String Quartet No. 2: (II) Presto scherzando
String Quartet No. 2: Cadenza For Cello
String Quartet No. 2: (III) Andante Espressivo
String Quartet No. 2: Cadenza For First Violin
String Quartet No. 2: (IV) Allegro
String Quartet No. 2: Conclusion

Customer Reviews:

vital 20th century chamber works........2005-03-23

Elliott Carter's first two string quartets are modernist manifestos, works that combine a penetrating comprehension of the format with beautifully articulated avant-garde concepts.

This is the only recording of these works in print, I believe. One of the few, at least. The Composers Quartet ensures that anyone introduced to Carter's quartets by this recording with not be disappointed (unless they are dull). These are excellent performances (the recordings were done under Carter's supervision) and the price is good, so apart from the obvious allure of it being perhaps the only in-print performances of these works, it has other advantages. Both compositions demand the highest level of intellectual and technical virtuosity, levels beyond most ensembles, but this group wields the material powerfully. The recording quality is pretty good, although less sharp than the Julliard Quartet's release of Carter's first four quartets (which is unfortunately OOP). However, compared to that release, the CQ's performance of quartet no.1 is substantially better and faster, with keener rhythms and delineation of texture.

Regarding these works themselves, they are some of the greatest quartets of the era. I only like a few other 20th century quartets more than Carter's first and third. The first quartet on this recording are based on Carter's ideas of metrical modulation, the rhythmic characteristics of each instrument's parts manipulated independently. It is a fantastic work, and it demands much from both performer and listener. The Pulitzer prize-winning second quartet is a formidable work in which each of the four instruments is played with different parameters. The musical gestures unfold in a series of confrontations and ordered coordination, with main movements bridged by mini-concerto-like cadenzas for viola, cello, and violin. Here too Carter employs mad rhythmic complexity, as in the first, although it is given much different context. It's brilliantly original and ineffably dramatic.

Highly recommended!

some new things to discover from the old.......2005-02-01

Very curious listening again returning to this one of the first recordings, (there is another from University of Illinois Urbana) but this one has, still retains many profound qualities for music no one had ever heard, I mean put yourself back into the late Sixties when you first perhaps heard the First Quartet, and how much can you truthfully say you comprehended,understood with some degree of conviction. The opponent here I guess is the Arditti readings, although those were part of their first USA Tour, the late Eighties,so the readings were somewhat tenuous,and not "risk-taking" as we would find today, and as we usually find within the Arditti language of interpretative visions. They are a bit cold,all that modernity does that to ones constitution; matter-a-fact playing most of the time,almost "flip-a-switch" motion ostinato.So this makes their Carter all the more compelling, for overly emotional simply doesn't work.The Juilliard Quartet find a nice balance between intellect and the heart or the gut, the testasterone part engaged.But I've heard Brahmsian detritus,rotundities from the Carter Quintets, one with Strings and Piano another with Winds and Piano.( Mr. Barenboim is the culpret, too much Wagner,Bruckner and Strauss in his interpretive diet.) Here though on this CD there are some fine desolate places, threadbare,abandoned that was an important part to what we can refer to as "post-early" Carter, beyond his "Pochantas Days". I certainly like the sul ponticello this group gets, marvelously placed in this First Quartet. There may be too much "image", too much wanting to find a narrative, or some programmatic element to help weed and make comprehensible all this desolate,thorny,strident music together. The First Quartet in retrospect now is really surface bound, no deep mysteries anymore, the individual part role playing, the music materials assigned to specific players,(Violins sclaes, the cello points of punctuation, the viola anti-rhythmic threes and fives) at specific times and places, inhabiting their own musical lanaguage, and the infamous "metric modulation" "old hat" now today, is there anything more simpler in concept than this?. There is also a grittiness to the overall sound here, I don't know if that is the state of technical in-expertise of the times or the real playing, I suspect a little of both. This makes one admire this recording,and these musicians for the players hear retain, take into themselves Carter's deep vision of this First Quartet. The Second Quartet as well, more classical in shape in motion, less extroverted and less everything, less expansive, almost like Carter was "shell-shocked" by what he did/accomplished in the First Quartet.You may come to prefer this recording to all others, as you listen. It finds an emotive place someplace between the cold and abstract and the more comprehensible romantic surface that Carter never seems to quite lift his aesthetic from, even his octagenarian solos, and "Night Fantasies" spring from the unforgotten past of nostalgia and reverance for that which can never be.

Cf.......2000-04-19

A fine performance. For many flattering words on this recording, check out the reviews for the Julliard Quartet box set of the 4 Carter 4tets.

Elliott Carter: A Symphony of Three Orchestras; Varèse: Deserts; Ecuatorial; Hyperprism

Average customer rating:

I love this CD!
fantastic Carter and Varese, strangely combined
Mixed Varese, but excellent Carter
What, you would prefer a 30 minute CD
next to "essential Varèse" - irrelevant coupling

Elliott Carter: A Symphony of Three Orchestras; Varèse: Deserts; Ecuatorial; Hyperprism

Manufacturer: Sony
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ASIN: B000002C05
Release Date: 1995-12-05

Tracks:

A Symphony of Three Orchestras
Deserts
Ecuatorial
Hyperprism

Customer Reviews:

I love this CD!.......2007-05-15

I have owned this CD for years. It's definitely one of my favorite compilation CDs of modern classical music. The Carter symphony is a masterpiece.

fantastic Carter and Varese, strangely combined.......2005-08-06

Though the combination of Carter and Varese is odd, I can't see giving this disc, part of the superb Sony PIERRE BOULEZ series, anything less than 5 stars. It is the only available recording of Carter's "Symphony for Three Orchestras" (1976 -- 15'41), and the Varese is uniformly excellent as well. It strikes me as simultaneously bizarre and marvelous that Carter's work, which was written to celebrate the American Bicentennial, with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, was commissioned by Pierre Boulez! Boulez was then the conductor of the New York Philharmonic. The piece is based on Hart Crane's poem "The Bridge." It is a tragic vision of America, and the music begins in the highest registers, and descends until, with a series of violent crashes, it ends in the lowest registers with tuba and double bass.

The "Symphony" does not actually feature three orchestras -- it's not in competition with Stockhausen's "Gruppen." Carter divides the orchestra into three groups, and each group plays four movements, so the result is 12 overlapping movements in all. The recording of the NYP is from 2/22/77, and who better than Boulez to produce a crystal-clear rendering of this teeming complexity! There is only one thing that I would change, and that is that the piece is too short.

Here's a fantastic quote from Carter from the liner notes: "I do not want to give the impression of a simultaneous motion in which everybody's part is coordinated like a goose step. I do not want to write the kind of music that just marches on and marches off. I want it to seem like a crowd of people, or like waves on the sea -- all things that signify a much more fluid, and, to me, more human way of living."

There is an entire disc of Varese in this series, and so what is included here is really Part II -- the lead composition in the other disc (Part I) is "Arcana" (see my review). This material is just as good, and while some complain that Boulez left the electronics out of "Deserts," I say enjoy it as is -- if you didn't know about the electronics, you'd think it sounded great, which it does.

Mixed Varese, but excellent Carter.......2003-12-04

This disc fills up the remaining vocal and instrumental works that were not included on the first reissue of Boulez conducting music by the French-born American modernist Edgard Varese. Since these three works only add up to just over half an hour, Sony have added the 16-minute A Symphony of Three Orchestra, written for Pierre Boulez to conduct by that doyen of American modernism, Elliott Carter.

Deserts was one of Varese's last works (only succeded by the Poeme electronique and the unfinished Nocturnal). The brass and wind (along with typically Varesian percussion eruptions) dominate the sonorities here, conjuring up bleak open chords in a largely slow-moving texture. This work doesn't have the energy or dynamism of Ameriques or Arcana, and is rather less of an essential listen, particularly when (as he also does in his DG remake) Boulez chooses, for some reason best known to himself, to omit the electronic interludes for two-track tape, which--while crude in technical terms--are arguably the most dynamic and exciting parts of the work.

More impressive is Ecuatorial, a work for male chorus and a small orchestra including organ and two ondes martenots, based on a Mayan prayer. This conjures up a powerful ritualistic atmosphere, which is only intensified by the chant-like singing of the voices.

Last of the Varese works is Hyperprism, a four minute Futurist extravaganza in miniature. The work begins with trumpets intoning repeated notes against a backdrop of massed percussion (including sirens and lion's roar). A brief flute melody leads to a more complex chordal section, before the trumpets return to end the piece. This is a great piece, witty, provocative and sonically intriguing.

Carter's A Symphony of Three Orchestras is as complex as you'd expect in 1970s Carter. The orchestra is divided into three groups, each of which simultaneously play four movements of music--though these movements do not overlap, every clashing interaction between them is carefully calculated, and there is no aleatory writing. The work starts high in the treble, and gradually descends into the bass (thus reversing the usual dramatic profile of such a work). It's an extraordinarily imaginative sixteen minutes, with some great treble writing at first, a wonderful trumpet solo which starts off the descent and some incredibly complex passages in the central section that lead into a ferocious climactic set of chords. The work ends with the same material as at the start, though now in the bass instead of the treble--uneasily, it sounds completely different.

This is a good collection overall, even if it has only fifty minutes of music on it. The performances are excellent--Boulez is an expert in these works--but the omission of the electronic sections in Deserts is a major demerit. For this reason I would recommend that those in search of the Varese look for the rival Chailly recording; those wishing the Carter have no easily available alternative recording to consider (and even if there were a rival performance, it would have to be very good to beat this one).

What, you would prefer a 30 minute CD.......2000-01-12

Sony had already released the lion's share of their Boulez Varese on a previous CD and this was all that was left. So the choice was an extremely short CD or a coupling by a different composer. I don't find that odd in and of itself. I must admit that I do not enjoy the Symphony nearly as much as the first two reviewers (and I am a big Carter fan), and find these the least interesting of the Varese works, so would not recommend this CD to someone just coming to either composer. For completists, it will be essential however.

next to "essential Varèse" - irrelevant coupling.......1999-12-22

Indeed, Carter's Symphony for Three Orchestra is spectacular. In brief, this is a most sophisticate and organized work. However it is to a large extent irrelevant to include it in a CD which is basically a tribute to Varese. Varese was a visionnary of sound; Carter domesticated it.

I assume Carter's Symphony is just a filler. Sony had already re-edited an essential-Varese-by-Boulez", with numbers such as "Ameriques", "Ionisation", "Integrale"... earlier and more adventurous pieces.

Boulez, as usual, extricate the essence of 20th century masterpieces.

Elliott Carter: Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello & Harpsichord; Sonata for Cello & Piano; Double Concerto for Harpsichor
Average customer rating:

like listening to barbed wire (double concerto)very good(cello sonata)

3 Carter masterpieces

A good place to start with Carter

An outstanding introduction to a contemporary music giant

The Essential Elliott Carter

Elliott Carter: Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello & Harpsichord; Sonata for Cello & Piano; Double Concerto for Harpsichor

Manufacturer: Nonesuch
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Elliott Carter: A Symphony of Three Orchestras; Varèse: Deserts; Ecuatorial; Hyperprism

ASIN: B000005IZ1
Release Date: 1992-03-24

Tracks:

Sonata For Flute, Oboe, Cello & Harpischord: Risoluto
Sonata For Flute, Oboe, Cello & Harpischord: Lento
Sonata For Flute, Oboe, Cello & Harpischord: Allegro
SONATA FOR CELLO & PIANO: Moderato
SONATA FOR CELLO & PIANO: Vivace, molto leggiero
SONATA FOR CELLO & PIANO: Adagio
SONATA FOR CELLO & PIANO: Allegro
Double Concerto For Harpischord & Piano With Two Chamber Orchestras: Introduction
Double Concerto For Harpischord & Piano With Two Chamber Orchestras: Cadenza For Harpischord
Double Concerto For Harpischord & Piano With Two Chamber Orchestras: Allegro scherzando
Double Concerto For Harpischord & Piano With Two Chamber Orchestras: Adagio
Double Concerto For Harpischord & Piano With Two Chamber Orchestras: Presto
Double Concerto For Harpischord & Piano With Two Chamber Orchestras: Cadenzas For Piano
Double Concerto For Harpischord & Piano With Two Chamber Orchestras: Coda

Customer Reviews:

like listening to barbed wire (double concerto)very good(cello sonata).......2005-10-08

The Double Concerto begins promisingly enough with mysterious percussion rustlings from which string tremelos emerge,soon echoed by the solo piano and harpsichord.All this has undoubted poetry but it has to be said,returning to the piece after some ten years that grasping the whole is pretty tricky and the climactic moments (track14!) are somewhat akin to listening to barbed wire.For all Carter's harmonic formulations(or perhaps because of) the pitch content often sounds rather lifeless,it's as if there's no centre of any kind.Yes,the various skitterings of the two soloists are enjoyable but i can't imagine this piece ever being taken up in a big way.
The cello sonata is the best piece on the disc.The rhetoric is more conventional than the concerto,even neo-classical and Carter is on much more sure territory here:There's a fantastic jazz-like swing to the second movement and the opening moderato with the mechanical ticking on the piano accompanying the passionate cello is one of Carter's most inspired creations.

3 Carter masterpieces.......2005-10-01

The Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord is immediately appealing. Carter's signature complex crossrhythms are present but they are delightfully airy and not at all forbidding. This is an excellent place to start your exploration of Carter's vast and imaginative work. The Cello Sonata is also quite accessible . It's a big and exciting piece. The Double Concerto is another matter! It took me many listenings before I really started enjoying it but it was worth the effort. These performances are thrilling.

A good place to start with Carter.......2004-05-17

Carter is considered to be perhaps the greatest living composer, and I didn't know any of his music, so after browsing the internet (and in particular,Amazon) for a place to start, I obtained this CD. I have been delighted with it. All of this music takes some acclimation, but that's the nice thing about a CD--you can stick a CD of new music in the car stereo and play it as often as you need to until it starts to reveal its treasures. In the case of this CD, all three works are rich in complexity and have required quite a bit of listening, but the effort was well worth it--two of the three works have revealed lots of treasures. The Cello Sonata is full of wonderful, even magical moments. The Sonata for Flute, Oboe... has been only slightly less rewarding. I like its playfulness. The only work on this disc that has proved resistant so far is the Double Concerto. Carter's unique twist on tonality that makes the other works so interesting seems to have disappeared in the Double Concerto, written later in his career, and I haven't found much to like in it. But the CD is worth obtaining for the two sonatas. They are great works.

An outstanding introduction to a contemporary music giant.......2004-01-11

This disc collects three classic performances of major works from Elliott Carter's early maturity. The two sonatas date from the end of Carter's period of neo-classical writing, at a point where his music had started to achieve its trademark rhythmic complexity, though the harmonic and melodic writing is less dense than it was to become, and still largely tonal. In contrast, the concerto is a classic example of the hyper-complex, dense atonality that was to characterise the composer's mid-period works.

The Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord was written in 1952 and combines the neo-classical style Carter had learned so well from Nadia Boulanger with an increasing density and complexity of rhythm. (The composer, in his helpful inlay notes, observes that the work owes something to Debussy, and that is certainly true.) The sonata is in three movements: the first a rather ambiguous Risoluto, the second a slow movement with more vigorous undercurrents that briefly break through in a scherzando passage towards the end, and the finale a sequence of vigorous dances that sometimes overlap. This performance features four legendary figures in the performance of contemporary American music, and is the finest I've heard.

Equally fine is the rendition of the Cello Sonata by Joel Krosnick (ex-Juilliard Quartet) and Paul Jacobs. This four-movement work has always struck me as the finest of Carter's tonal works and the ideal introduction to the composer. Its opening movement counterpoints intense, lyrical melody in the cello against regular percussive rhythms and jazzy chords in the piano. The second movement is a jazz-inflected scherzo, with the cello solo's notes often failing to coincide with those of the more rhythmically regular piano part. The third movement is an intense, rhythmically complex slow recitative for the cello and the finale a vigorous rondo that ends by returning to the music of the first movement, only with the instrumental roles reversed.

The hyper-complex, atonal Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano with Two Chamber Orchestras, written between 1959 and 1961, is a very different work. A single-movement structure, conveniently separated into seven tracks on this recording, it begins with a percussive outburst that leads into an introductory section with musical exchanges between the two antiphonally divided ensembles that gradually grow in complexity. This is followed by a vigorous cadenza for the solo harpsichord and then a lively scherzo that is dominated by the sound of the piano and its accompanying ensemble. The music then gradually slows to a near halt for an elegiac section whose mood is only temporarily broken by a vigorous duet for piano and harpsichord. There then follows a brief presto, dominated by the harpsichord and its associated ensemble, a series of interrupted cadenzas for the piano and a coda in which the music disintegrates in a process similar to that of the introduction, only in reverse. This is music that takes some time to get to know, but it is unquestionably worth the effort.

This disc is the ideal introduction to Carter's music. The Cello Sonata is the most accessible of all Carter's major works, and should appeal to almost everyone, and while the Double Concerto is less accessible, hearing it in the context of the works that lead up to it is the best way to understand it. Given that this recording contains an outstanding selection of works, presented in performances that have stood the test of time, it merits the highest possible level of recommendation to Carter fanatics and newcomers alike.

The Essential Elliott Carter.......2001-02-18

Carter has been composing so much good music over the last decade that it's easy to forget he was writing classics before many of us were born. The pieces on this disk are a case in point--two generations of musicians have grown up since the earliest of them, the Cello Sonata, appeared in 1948. The sonata has been recorded probably more often than any other of Carter's works. New performances are appearing almost every day, but it's hard to see how they can better Joel Krosnick's warm, fluent interpretation. The rendition of the Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello, and Harpsichord is the best of several available--exuberant, dancelike, unbuttoned--and the performance of the Double Concerto is the only one available at present. That would scandal if the playing weren't so supple and sensitive. This disk is essential Carter: three masterpieces, each from a different decade, and each one a milestone in the composer's development. It is the one CD I would recommend to anyone approaching Carter's mature work for the first time.

Elliot Carter: String Quartets 1-4; Elegy

Average customer rating:

1+3:excellent 2+4:cerebral
Carter's quartets, the finest of the late 20th century!

Elliot Carter: String Quartets 1-4; Elegy
Elliott Carter , and Arditti String Quartet
Manufacturer: Etcetera
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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György Ligeti Edition 1: String Quartets and Duets - Arditti String Quartet

ASIN: B0007RUT4S
Release Date: 2005-06-21

Customer Reviews:

1+3:excellent 2+4:cerebral.......2005-10-26

Quartets 1 and 3 are the more immediately exciting.The latter might be fiendishly difficult to negotiate with the quartet divided into a pair of contrasting duos (never playing the same material) but the results are not in the least bit dry.I love the pizzicato writing which gets going after the rampaging opening.Intonation is frequently askew but the perfrormance has plenty of attack.
No.1 nearly breaks out into Shostakovich territory 3minutes into the last movement.This is the most visionary of the quartets.

Carter's quartets, the finest of the late 20th century!.......2005-08-12

The Arditti Quartet was the first to record Elliott Carter's first four string quartets -- this is the reissue of those recordings, originally on two separate discs, released in 1989. No remastering has been done, only the packaging is improved, with an elegant slimline disc, new cover art, and some new photos. The original liner notes on the quartets by David Harvey are retained, but there is a brief update on the Arditti Quartet. With the Sony disc of the Juilliard Quartet's 1991 recordings out of print, this reissue comes just in time. If you want to hear the finest cycle of string quartets of the late 20th century, don't miss it.

The Arditti Quartet's Carter is more fiery and energetic than the Juilliard Quartet's (see my review). By comparison, the Ardittis sound a bit crazed and frenetic. Comparing in the other direction, the Juilliards sound a bit stolid and pompous. To put it in more positive terms, the JQ version is weightier, more serious. The Sony disc has better sound quality, and much more extensive liner notes. But this recording is a must both for devotees of Elliott Carter, and for devotees of the Arditti Quartet.

Look too for the Arditti Quartet's recording of Carter's Quartet No. 5 on Montaigne (see my review) -- it's the only one.

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The Music of Elliott Carter, Vol. 6

Manufacturer: Bridge Records, Inc.
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

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Brian Ferneyhough: Flurries; String Trio; In nomine a 3; Streichtrio; Incipits

ASIN: B000BDH57M
Release Date: 2005-10-01

Tracks:

Violin Concerto - Impulsivo
Violin Concerto - Tranquillo/Angosciato
Violin Concerto - Scherzando
Four Lauds - Statement - Remembering Aaron
Four Lauds - Riconoscenza per Goffredo Petrassi
Four Lauds - Rhapsodic Musings
Four Lauds - Fantasy - Remembering Roger
Holiday Overture

Product Description

In celebration of Elliott Carters 97th birthday, Bridge Records is proud to be issuing Volume Six of its Elliott Carter Edition. This series of recordings has garnered high critical praise including three Grammy nominations, BBC Music Magazines Best of the Yearand the ASCAP Deems Taylor Prize. Volume Six features violin virtuoso Rolf Schultes highly anticipated recording of Carters Violin Concerto, and listeners will surely be thrilled by his electrifying performance. Schulte, in a spectacularly gripping account of Carters masterpiece, gives us state-of-the-art violin playing, and British conductor Justin Brown leads the Odense Symphony Orchestra of Denmark in a reading that captures the detailed and panoramic emotional range of this score. Schulte then steps into the spotlight with a superb account of Carters collection of violin solos- Four Lauds. Rolf Schulte was the dedicatee of the final movement of this set, Fantasy- Remembering Roger (1999! ), and his performance here takes up where his Violin Concerto reading leaves off. What ultimately makes Schultes readings of Carters music so exceptionally satisfying is his complete mastery of the technical aspects of this music. Schultes playing is so assured and deeply committed that he has the rare ability to transcend the musics surface difficulties, and reveal its humanistic emotional core. Volume Six concludes with a performance of Carters early Holiday Overture, a brassy and celebratory composition that heralded the end of World War II and led to the beginning of Carters mature style. Notes by British musicologist Malcolm McDonald, and a number of rare photographs of the composer complete this disc.

Elliott Carter: Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei (1993-96) / Clarinet Concerto (1996) (20/21 series) - Oliver Knussen

Average customer rating:

A massive orchestral piece coupled with a spritely concerto, both skillfully written
Great Performance - Excellent Piece
gradus ad parnassum
Overrated and frankly Unmusical
Carter: A performer's music

Elliott Carter: Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei (1993-96) / Clarinet Concerto (1996) (20/21 series) - Oliver Knussen
Elliott Carter , Oliver Knussen , Michael Collins , London Sinfonietta , and BBC Symphony Orchestra
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Boulez conducts Boulez
Elliott Carter: Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello & Harpsichord; Sonata for Cello & Piano; Double Concerto for Harpsichor

ASIN: B00000JSAJ
Release Date: 2000-01-11

Tracks:

Clarinet Concerto: Scherzando
Clarinet Concerto: Deciso
Clarinet Concerto: Tranquillo
Clarinet Concerto: Presto
Clarinet Concerto: Largo
Clarinet Concerto: Giocoso
Clarinet Concerto: Agitato
Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei: I. Partita
Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei: II. Adagio tenebroso
Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei: III. Allegro scorrevole

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Composed by Elliott Carter at the ripe old age of 84 and debuted in 1998 (a time when the composer was more prolific than ever), Symphonia could be one of the contemporary music maverick's grandest works to date. In about 45 minutes, the piece--inspired by the 17th-century poem Bulla by Richard Crenshaw--sonically mimics an airborne bubble, bouncing from one environment to the next until--you guessed it--it's gone for good. The opening movement, Partita, swings between atmospheric string passages and sharp clusters of percussion and brass. The second, Adagio tenebroso, is a melancholy cauldron (and the composition's darkest moment), and Allegro scorrevole, the finale, is where the composer pulls out all the stops and creates even more sharp contrasts, which gradually make the bubble (one can assume) explode. Even in its atonal and ragged state, there's a gorgeous poetry at work here. 1996's Clarinet Concerto is an added bonus, a composition where the lone clarinet part threads its way through various instrumentations (and themes), creating an unexpected, but delightful ending. Throughout these atmospheric and challenging works, the London Sinfonietta and the BBC Symphony Orchestra deliver remarkable performances. A great pairing of world premieres. --Jason Verlinde

Customer Reviews:

A massive orchestral piece coupled with a spritely concerto, both skillfully written.......2006-08-28

This Deutsche Grammophon disc, an installment of the "20/21" series of contemporary music recordings, contains two works by the great American modernist Elliott Carter which he embarked upon well into his 80s. Oliver Knussen leads the London Sinfonietta and clarinettist Michael Collins in the concerto, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the "Symphonia".

Carter's music is controversial, as a glimpse at reviews here would reveal, but I found the works here far from harsh and abrasive. Most of the soundworld isn't too different from that of well-regarded figures like Lutoslawski or the early Lindberg. While it's understandable that fans of earlier eras of art music would find Carter not their cup of tea, there's nothing here that should evoke a violent reaction. It's certain tuneful; for fans of contemporary music, there's a lot of truly catchy material here that will stay with you long after the disc comes to an end.

So what's Carter's approach? He is fascinated by the idea of polytempos where two lines start off at the same pace, but eventually one appears the slower and the other the faster. The liner notes compare it to seeing two pendulums start off swinging, but one winds down before the other. This is a concept of great possibilities which gives the music many angles from which to view the action. If one wants to hear a less uncomprimisingly modernist use of the technique, I could recommend Per Norgard's "Concerto in due tempi" (on a Chandos disc with his masterpiece Symphony No. 3), but if this piques your interest, Elliott Carter's music is very much worth hearing.

The massive "Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei" (1993-1996) is Carter's largest orchestral work, loosely based on Richard Crashaw's poem "Bulla" where artistic inspiration is compared to a bubble. "I am the prize of flowing hope." As he began work on the piece when was 85 years old, he wasn't sure he would live to complete it, and so he wrote its three sections for independent commissions before finally tying them all together. The opening "Partita" is, as its title indicates, playful where various portions of the orchestra contend in sport. Here various themes appear again and again, but they're never quite repeated. The second movement, "Adagio tenebroso", is like night to the first movement's day. A dark series of brooding landscapes, some have seen in this movement a meditation on all of the 20th century's horrors. The final "Allegro scorrevole" returns us to sunnier territory, with a general wispiness and scintillating percussion, something like a more unhinged version of Ligeti's "Melodien". Carter's orchestral writing is exciting, as he really explores all possibilities of the ensemble, just listen to the big chord that opens up "Symphonia", played on both extremely low registers and the very highest.

The "Clarinet Concerto" (1996) introduces, of course, a soloist, but it also displays a new concept in Carter's use of the orchestra: breaking it up into small, semi-autonomous units. Here the players are organized on the stage into six individual groups, such as piano, harp, and pitched percussion in one, unpitched percussion in another, and so forth. The first six movements of the concerto highlight each of these groups in turn, making for an intimate feel and a shifting series of partners in conversation for the soloist. The clarinet writing is often light, airy, and fleet-footed, a strong contrast to an orchestra that can't quite move so freely.

The liner notes are excellent. They contain the full text of Crashaw's poem "Bulla" in its original Latin and in translation, a description of the pieces by critic Bayan Northcott, and some remarks by Oliver Knussen that sketch Carter's biography and general aesthetic. All in all, this is a very entertaining disc for fans of modernism.

Great Performance - Excellent Piece.......2006-06-08

I enjoyed Symphonia very much and I am getting hooked to listening to it again and again. The Clarinet Concerto was not too bad and perhaps my only complaint is the recording. There are certain moments when I wish I can hear more of the solo instrument but it is overpowered by the orchestra. If that was a harp concerto, I wouldn't say a word, but an instrument of such a vigorous dynamic control shouldn't be overpowered that easily.

All in all, I am very happy with my CD and will listen to it on and on!

Danny

gradus ad parnassum.......2006-05-26

The Symphonia is pure music at its most pure...in short: words fail. Carter, along with other contemporary composers of what is unfortunately termed atonal music (with this pejorative is the built in but incorrect assumption that consonance and dissonance are not bound by period and by cultural factors) is often criticized for writing alienating mathematical music (don't even get me started about the notion that math and music are one in the same. It simply isn't true). And this music IS complex, but it is also most rewarding. It wants a patient listener. It wants a listener without expectations about what music "should be like". Such a listener will, with familiarity, find a unique and a real beauty. He will discover, in fact, the Sublime.

Overrated and frankly Unmusical.......2006-05-09

I have studied modern composition and have learned the hard fact that Carter's music might be good for an analysis class but it's just NOT musical.Surely that is what is important.
I am baffled he is so highly rated-the general public this time are right in not liking it.Carter's music is actually very unmusical and also plain dull as a previous reviewer said.He is highly skilled at orchestation but so what.I am no great fan of atonal music but Ives(who he admires)at least was very MUSICAL-Carter is not.
How does he expect the public to like it when even composition students don't get it(Babbitt and Stockhausen are even more extreme examples of music turning into a scientific exercise).It's no wonder contemporary music concerts are low in numbers when they're doing this stuff-I would'nt go and I have studied it!!
It's about time he and others like Babbitt(don't tell me that is good music!),Stockhausen,and Maxwell Davies are finally seen for what they are and not put on a pedestal by major orchestras-very clever note manipulators who just ain't musical.Stravinsky was a clever note manipulator BUT was always naturally musical-even in his serial music.

Carter: A performer's music.......2005-06-29

As a composer I have respect for Carter's music: his meticulous rendering of notation, his seeing through a musical vision and committing it to paper, his challenging a performer's idea of ensemble and rendition. But I don't like the music much, either live or on recording. In a live performance it's stimulating to watch a performer's committment to a work of Carter's; and if the work is an ensemble piece, to watch and hear the performers managing the complex musical lines governed by an invisible pulse. Unfortunately, the visable is lost on a recording. But either way, the resulting harmony for me is dull. The musical intervals are dull. Carter is the least sensual of composers because his harmony is rarely felt vertically. In lieu of a 'sound' palette within a complete chromatic spectrum - the stressing of pure sound over pitches to compensate for the lack of tonality - the pitches themselves become all-important. These pitches and the strands of musics and conflicting tempi are the sound of Carter. Harmony is fragmentary, often uneventful.

Another problem I have with Carter's music is his ability to sustain these musical events, or musical discourses, with little recourse to repetition. There is a strong philosophical bent to his music. The simultaneity of events in Time, the rapidity of events, the slowness of events, the different human characteristics in Time - all of this is reflected in his music. But there is repetition in life as well. Repetition is avoided in much of Carter, leaving the listener in a perpetual state of anxiousness. With so much information going on simultaneously, so much musical interest moving constantly forward, the music tends to cancel itself out. A dullness sets in. (In the music of Ives, a tremendous influence on Carter, one can hear different tempi of melodic strands and rhythms occuring simultaneously, but one or two are often recognizable by musical quotation of familiar tunes, or tunes that feel familiar.) Perhaps music is not the most appropriate media for such philosophical musings.

As for the disc in question, I am not entirely convinced that the Symphony works as a whole. Apparently the movements were composed independently of each other, with the intention of uniting them later. One can hear an attempt at harmonic and rhythmic cross-referencing between the movements, but the impression is half-bait. More successful is the diverse character of the movements themselves: The first muscular and energetic, the second slow and somber, the third light and quick. But undermining this is a tendency for each movement to reach it's musical climax near the end, increasing the suspicion that the movements were originally thought of as independent works. (After favoring the idea of the one-movement form in his instrumental works for decades, Carter has returned to the varied movement form since the late 80's.)

The Concerto for Clarinet is more successful in that the varied movements are tied together as a whole. The clarinet part is virtuosic, impovisational, with an air of jazz about it.

All of the performances are, I'm sure, exemplary. Oliver Knussen, the conductor, is a well-known admirer of Carter.

In the end, I feel that Carter's music appeals more to the performer than to the listener. He has said himself that the perfomer or performers are utmost in his mind. I am sure that there are listeners fascinated by his music for purely musical reasons; but many, if they had to hear it, would rather 'see' it performed live, or not at all.

The Music of Elliott Carter Vol. 7; Boston Concerto, Cello Concerto, ASKO Concerto, Dialogues

Average customer rating:

The masterpieces just keep coming!
spectacular works from Elliott Carter!
Dialogues repeats the success of the much ealier Piano Conce
Late Carter at its best
A Major Release

The Music of Elliott Carter Vol. 7; Boston Concerto, Cello Concerto, ASKO Concerto, Dialogues

Manufacturer: Bridge Records; Inc.
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
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Elliott Carter: The Complete music for Piano
Elliott Carter: Piano Concerto; Concerto for Orchestra; Concerto for Orchestra; Three Occasions

ASIN: B000C6NO6E
Release Date: 2005-11-15

Tracks:

Dialogues
Boston Concerto
Boston Concerto
Boston Concerto
Boston Concerto
Boston Concerto
Boston Concerto
Boston Concerto
Boston Concerto
Boston Concerto
Boston Concerto
Boston Concerto
Boston Concerto
Boston Concerto
Cello Concerto
Cello Concerto
Cello Concerto
Cello Concerto
Cello Concerto
Cello Concerto
Cello Concerto
ASKO Concerto

Product Description

This highly anticipated recording, a Bridge co-production with the BBC, presents first recordings of four major Elliott Carter compositions, all composed within the past six years. Conducted by the distinguished British conductor, Oliver Knussen, these recordings tell the amazing tale of an American composer, well into his nineties, composing at the peak of his powers. Malcolm McDonald writes that Carter is not far short of his own centenary, and continuing to produce highly complex, sophisticated scores with an energy that would hardly be conceivable even in a much younger man. The composer traveled to London and Amsterdam to oversee the performance and recording of these four works. Dialogues for piano and chamber orchestra was a BBC Radio 3 commission for the brilliant young British pianist Nicolas Hodges and is scored for piano solo and a chamber orchestra comprising 18 instruments. Carter writes that Dialogues is a conversation between the soloist and the orchestra: responding to each other, sometimes interrupting one another or arguing. Hodges, Knussen and the London Sinfonietta give a reading of electrifying intensity. Boston Concerto was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and is based on a William Carlos Williams poem, Rain, a verse chosen to convey the composers enduring love for his wife Helen, the dedicatee of Boston Concerto. Describing the diaphanous textures of this work, Bayan Northcott writes of Boston Concerto that despite occasional deep sonorities, the whole work has a kind of distanced lightness, seeming to hover in mid air. Carters Cello Concerto is a twenty minute span introduced by the soloist alone, playing a cantilena that presents ideas later to be expanded into a series of linked movements. The concerto is played by long-time colleague and valued Carter interpreter Fred Sherry who, during the composition of the work, consulted with Carter about the finer details of the cello writing. Scored for a large orchestra that frequently plays with intimately drawn orchestral textures, the Cello Concerto was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and was first performed by the CSO with Yo Yo Ma, cello soloist and Daniel Barenboim, conductor. Carter completed the concise 12 minute Asko Concerto in January 2000 to a commission from the Asko Ensemble of Amsterdam and the recording on this disc is of its first performance in the Concertgebouw on April 26 of that year. The composer writes: Although the music is in light-hearted mood, each soloistic section approaches ensemble playing in a different spirit. Bridge has also just issued Volume Six of this series which features Rolf Schultes performance of Carters Violin Concerto (BRIDGE 9177).

Customer Reviews:

The masterpieces just keep coming!.......2006-02-24

All of these works, written between 2000 and 2003, are superb additions to Carter's flawless string of masterpieces. In fact Carter's "late period" may be his most fertile and beautiful of all. Of course, as we know, Carter was something of a "late bloomer", as he did not begin to produce works in his "mature style" (beginning with his String Quartet No. 1) until he was in his mid-40's. From that point he produced his complex music slowly (by neccessity) but as he has aged he has produced more and more great music, including short incidental chamber and solo works. The works on this superb CD are among his best ever. It is great to see an icon of 20th-century modernism bring his distinctive style intact into the 21st century. Don't wait for Yo Yo Ma to record the Cello Concerto...Fred Sherry's reading is matchless, understandable considering his long-standing association with Carter. Knussen brings all his intellectual rigor and warmth of soul to these works, imbueing them with color and vigor. The recording by Bridge is perfectly crystal clear and perfectly balanced.

spectacular works from Elliott Carter!.......2006-02-13

Easily the record of the year 2005 in contemporary classical, this latest Bridge release presents four of Elliott Carter's latest compositions in superb performances and recordings. Another recording of the "ASKO Concerto" (2000 -- 10'38") was previously released on ECM along with the opera "What Next?" (see my review), but this is actually the first recording, a recording of the live premiere by the ASKO Ensemble on 4/26/00 at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. The other three works are also premiere recordings, but never before heard -- the piano concerto "Dialogues" (2003 -- 13'28"), the "Cello Concerto" (2001 -- 20'06"), and the "Boston Concerto" (2002 -- 16'54"). Nicolas Hodges plays piano, Fred Sherry plays cello, and Oliver Knussen conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta and the ASKO Ensemble.

Excellent liner notes by Bayan Northcott provide insight into the works' contents. The booklet includes a great painting for the cover by Pavel Tchelitchew, apparently from Elliott Carter's collection, and several photos, including two of the composer and his late wife Helen to whom the "Boston Concerto" is dedicated. These are magnificent pieces at the highest level of sustained imagination, wit, and craft. This music of Elliott Carter makes no concessions to popular sensibilities, but it has the elegance, balance, drive and sparkle of Mozart.

Viva la Carter! Happy 97th!

Dialogues repeats the success of the much ealier Piano Conce.......2006-01-16

Among the Carter blockbusters the Piano Concerto (1967)is one of the undoubted triumphs as was clearly evident in the recent retrospective held in London.Many decades on and it's once again the same form which shows Carter to best advantage.The compact 'Dialogues' (a mini piano concerto)is composed in the familiar rebarbative musical language but there's an urgency to the invention and even an joyfulness which immediately excites the senses. Nicholas Hodges is on brilliant form and Knussen exudes a tremendous sense of authority in Carter's music.

Late Carter at its best.......2006-01-01

Elliott Carter's compositional career has already lasted far beyond what anyone could have expected, with works still flowing from his pen at the age of 97. This disc confirms the composer's continued late success; all four works on it date from the composer's nineties and three of them are previously unrecorded.

Dialogues, for piano and small chamber orchestra, is one of those works whose titles does describe the musical content very effectively. Starting (and ending) with the soloist playing unaccompanied, the music moves through a series of contrasting moods and colors, sometimes piano alone, sometimes orchestra alone, sometimes both playing together (or against each other). What stays with this listener, though, is not the structure of the work, but its rhythmic and harmonic vibrancy and its range of color.

Both the Boston Concerto (for full orchestra) and the ASKO Concerto (for fifteen instruments) share an overall design which has become common in Carter's recent work--a kind of concerto grosso where ever-shortening tuttis alternate with contrasting passages for subsections of the ensemble. The ASKO Concerto is a playful piece indeed--particularly in the bassoon solo that precedes the final, brief tutti--but it is the Boston Concerto that is the major work of these two. Here, pitter-pattering tuttis that evoke the sounds of rain alternate with lyrical and dramatic episodes--and in the slower episodes some of Carter's most emotive and lyrical writing (in passages such as the Boston Concerto's string cantilenas I see a clear parallel between late Carter and the lyrical side of late Lutoslawski). Certainly, I'd have no hesitation in regarding the Boston Concerto as one of the two finest Carter works since Symphonia (and it shares a sense of weightlessness with the latter work's finale).

The other work I'd rank up with the Boston Concerto is the Cello Concerto, even if it is by some way the hardest piece to get into here. It shares some of the abrasive nature of the concertos of the 1960s, even if the scoring is much lighter and, as in most of Carter's recent concertos, the soloist plays almost continuously. Here, in complete contrast to Carter's 1960s concertos, the orchestral parts are often extremely simple (though sometimes explosive in nature), while the soloist winds its way through an impassioned monologue ranging from lyricism to ferocity through icy cold sonorities and almost jazzy rhythms, eventually reaching a ferocious climax before sputtering out in a whimsical passage for the soloist alone.

The performances here are excellent--Oliver Knussen has known Carter's music for decades and it shows, while the BBC Symphony, London Sinfonietta and ASKO Ensemble are all effortlessly adept in this repertoire. Nicolas Hodges and Fred Sherry are excellent soloists and where there is competition (in the ASKO Concerto) I would say Knussen's performance trumps the earlier reading.

This is a disc every Carter fan probably already owns, but those who don't will need no encouragement to snap it up. Meanwhile, those wondering what the fuss is about could do a lot worse than start here.

A Major Release.......2005-12-27

I've put off reviewing this CD, even though I've had it for a while, because when you like a recording as much I like this one, it's hard to find the right words. Suffice it to say this is perhaps the most exciting collection of Carter's music in years: four major works, including three first recordings, all completed since 2000, when the composer was well into his 90s, superbly played and impeccably engineered. The release was delayed for a number of reasons, most notably the illness last summer of Oliver Knussen and his well-known fastidiousness in editing. But it's here now, and Carterphiles should rejoice.

Critics and listeners have noted a newfound transparency in Carter's late music, and it is much in evidence here. As in the past, Mr. Carter separates the orchestra into smaller groups, but these days, he generally lets them speak one at a time, instead of having them talk over each other, as he does, say, in the Concerto for Orchestra and the Symphony of Three Orchestras. The 17-minute Boston Concerto provides a fine example of the approach. The work is a concerto grosso, with light tutti passages, which evoke the patter of rainfall, separating more sustained and substantial statements from various groups of instruments. Carter has spoken of the structure as resembling a club sandwich. It's all captivating, but the highlights for me are the beautiful sunset glow of the brass choir and an espressivo passage for violins and cellos that makes me wish Mr. Carter would write a string symphony.

The Dialogues for Piano and Chamber Orchestra is a worthy addition to the composer's impressive catalog of solo-instrument concerti, but the Cello Concerto is much more than that. It is stunning, and as fine a concerto as Mr. Carter has ever written. The Dialogues was written for Nicolas Hodges, who performs masterfully. The Cello Concerto was written for Yo-Yo Ma but is performed here by Fred Sherry, a longtime Carter associate who provided technical advice during the composition. He gives an assured reading with a strong tone and a lovely sense of the ever-unfolding line. I've heard Mr. Ma perform this concerto live, and - no disrespect intended - I don't miss him. Mr. Knussen's accompaniment in both works is sufficiently dramatic.

The ASKO Concerto, which concludes the disk, is the only work on the program that has been recorded before. As I've said elsewhere, it is a good-humored and colorful little chamber symphony that packs a lot of incident into its 10-minute length. The witty instrumentation of the concerto sections includes a duo for violin and trumpet and a bassoon solo.

Bayan Northcott's succinct and comprehendible notes afford a helpful, play-by-play guide to the goings on.

Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit; Carter: Night Fantasies; Two Diversions; 90+

Average customer rating:

Masterful recording
Disappointing
Ravel & Carter, brilliantly conceived and performed
More Carter, Do We need It? I guess!
Aimard Rules

Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit; Carter: Night Fantasies; Two Diversions; 90+

Manufacturer: Warner Classics
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Fantasies | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
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The Music of Elliott Carter Vol. 7; Boston Concerto, Cello Concerto, ASKO Concerto, Dialogues

ASIN: B0009OBYUW
Release Date: 2005-06-21

Tracks:

I Ondine
II Le Gibet
III Scarbo
Night Fantasies
I
II
90+

Tracks:

Illustrated Talk By Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Commentaire Illustre De Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Erlauterungen Und Klangbeispiele Von Pierre-Laurent Aimard

Customer Reviews:

Masterful recording.......2007-04-24

I count myself among the very lucky ones who attended Aimards's three hour "perspective concert" at Zankel Hall on April 1st of this year, in which he played and provided commentary to 3 centuries of keyboard compositions. This disc contains a predecessor of this concert in the bonus cd which contains some commentary on Ravel and a lot of very useful information that greatly helps to further appreciate Carter's works. I considered the interpretations revelatory and at the same level of Aimard's Ligeti Etude and Messiaen Vingt Regards recordings, both of them classic discs.

Glenn Gould's dogma "the only reason to make a new recording, is to do it differently" is beautifully fulfilled by Aimard's version of Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit. Since some fellow reviewers harshly criticized Aimard's interpretation, I spent part of my weekend in a side by side comparison of this interpretation and my other Gaspards: Bavouzet (BD&G), Haas (Philips), Michelangeli (live in Prague), Nojima (Reference Recordings), Perlmutter (Vox), Pogorelich (DG) and Thibaudet (Decca). Many of these interpretations are considered among the classics. Yet, I prefer Aimard above all of them.

On the bonus disc Aimard makes a convincing argument that Liszt was an inspiration to Ravel by exploring new venues in piano technique, that were essential as building blocks for this three piece cycle, that may still count itself among the greatest challenges of the piano repertoire. Yet, while Liszt's "au bord d'une source", "lac Wallestadt" and "jeu d'eau a Villa d'Este", were clear inspirations for Ravels' "Ondine", "jeux d'eau" and "barc sur l'ocean", Ravel's own compository signature erases most of Liszt's marks. The same is true for influences like the Hungarian's "mephisto waltzes and polka" when it comes to "Scarbo". Aimard considers Gaspard as music of the night, highly justified based on its title.

In his interpretation he focuses on three principles: photographic precision, rhythmic continuity and preventing of romantic dynamic contrasts. In this approach he is helped by close miking and a very well tuned, clear and colorful instrument. My comparison with the other recordings revealed Aimard as the most precise performance of all. While many consider Michelangeli's version, in which amazing and demonically flourishes of technique erupt, as the technically strongest performance. I am not so certain. The metronomic precision with which Aimard closely follows the text even in its most demanding passages is amazing. Aimard's recording is a fast one. Michelangeli is again a little faster here and there, but not much. Yet, following an approach of rhythmic continuity a la Glenn Gould's 2nd Goldberg's, this Gaspard is the most tranquil of all. In addition, and most importantly, Aimard clearly subscribes to the current notion of Ravel as (post)classicist and not (post)romantic and chooses, again staying true to the notes, to remove dynamic contrasts that were common during the 19th century. What results is a nocturne of great delicacy, compositional ingenuity and refined pianism.

Thanks to youtube many pianists can now post their own recordings. Forgetting about much of the well intended amateurs, there are some more than decent ones by fellow non-professionals. In a number of cases Gaspard is included in their repertoire. Yet, although most of the notes tend to be there at more or less the intended timepoints, these versions complete lack the music's innate language and poetry. As such, Aimard is in no way an unartistic robot. One could surmise here that Aimard assumes that all listeners know how difficult this music is to play, and won't bother with another recording of a warhorse. Yet, let there be no mistake, that playing the work so much according to the "letter of the law" and yet so rich in atmosphere is an enormous challenge. It is often said that "less is more", but it is certainly not easy to seemingly do so little, and yet succeed so well and so personally.

Finally, it would be good for all those who consider Aimard's Scarbo insufficiently demonic (get Michelangeli, or Pogorelich, if you like your Ravel that way) to read the Bertrand poems that inspired the composer. Scarbo is a teaser, not a devil. As such a piece that is demonically difficult to play, certainly does not have to sound like one.

While Aimard is pure, precise and "nightly" many other approaches are valid. Thibaudet for example decided to use Ondine's notes in a way that would suggest water to the fullest. Perlmutter may be more poetic in le Gibet and Haas may be more narrative, while Michelangeli defined the limits of pianism in the pre-Hamelin era. For those who like Aimard's approach in Ravel, I would like to suggest Bavouzet's recording of the complete pianoworks.

Aimard's Carter benefits from the same strengths as his Ravel: it is amazingly precise, has a strong basic pulse and integrates among all the challenging contrapunctal contrasts. Thanks to the aforementioned half hour lecture on the bonus disc I was able to enjoy the included four works like never before.

In all, a must have.

I hope that sponsors can be found to produce a DVD of the type of perspectives lecture/concert that Aimard gave at Carnegie Hall, since it would likely open the world of 20th century piano music to many who were so far scared away.

Disappointing.......2006-08-18

I've been a huge Aimard fan, but this CD is a major disappointment. One would think this French pianist armed with staggering technique would provide a landmark Gaspard recording, but this performance is nothing of the sort. He grossly underplays the sensuality and poetry throughout, and virtually ignores the devilry in Scarbo. Oddly enough, his Night Fantasies is excellent--he nicely clarifies the thorny textures. Unless you want a curiously neutral performance of the Ravel, I'd skip this CD.

Ravel & Carter, brilliantly conceived and performed .......2005-09-04

Pierre-Laurent Aimard is a leading performer and interpreter of the contemporary piano repertoire. His recording of Ligeti's etudes, for instance, in the Ligeti Edition series, is amazing (see my review). This particular disc is a brilliant concept, combining two piano nocturnes by Ravel and Carter. Ravel's "Gaspard de la nuit," (Kaspar of the Night -- 23'10") is a lively and accessible piece in three movements, written in 1908. Based on the poetic fantasies of Aloysius Bertrand, the imagery features a water nymph, a gnome, and a scene at a gallows.

Carter's "Night Fantasies" (22'13"), written in 1978-80, does have a minimally programmatic content -- Carter says it is "a piano piece of continuously changing moods, suggesting the fleeting thoughts and feelings that pass through the mind during a period of wakefulness at night" -- but it is more complex and abstract than Ravel's sonata (are you surprised?). Carter utilizes one of his characteristic structural elements, contrasting meters, here of course in the right and left hand instead of different instruments or components of an orchestra. Also included are two shorter pieces by Carter, "Two Diversions (7'37) and "90+" (5'29").

Carter's sonata has been recorded several times already, but I am not sorry that I waited until now to hear it. Aimard has gone to great lengths to make the work accessible, through his sensitive interpretation, through the combination with Ravel, and through a 25-minute tutorial on the bonus disc, in English, French and German. Aimard gently leads the listener through the works' structure, in a smooth, easy-to-take voice, illustrating with passages on piano.

Overall, a great new disc from Warner Classics, presenting a master of modern piano!

More Carter, Do We need It? I guess!.......2005-08-26

Do we need yet another recording of Carter's "Night Fantasies"?? No I doubt it, although Aimard is such a wonderful performer, sensitive to the music's context, intellectual to all the vagaries,timbres and forms of modernist expression that it is indeed difficult to merely ignore and skate across this CD. Yes "Night Fantasies" is a very good work,a master-work for some probing the whys and wherefors of the Master Signifiers in Music; typical Carter with his interst in cross-referencing of materials, cloistered chorals, 'fugitive' filigree fast furioso wistful lines as interruptions, points of differing,differed timbre, cross diagonal poly-rhythms,telescoping of "what-is-to-come" expansion,more time expended,(longer metrical values) contractions of time,of gesture, of moment, modulations of pulse,so you know something some materials are changing and transforming themselves, all this/these technical aspects has its curiosity and I am sure Carter's music is studied late night within the cloistered preserved citadels of academia,(I can smell the high ceilinged wood beams,gables and cathedral like and white, vanilla hued plastered walls)but this is a rare piece of music for Carter,for he had a need to write a piece going back to the genre of the "nocturne" of the introspection contained in/of Schumann,the private gaze into oneself, and as extroverted as many of the moments are here,the piece suggests something beyond itself,perhaps the genre of musical history explored and re-explored. I think Aimard understands this at some level judging from his rather self-conscious comments,(included here on another CD and we really cannot say that for all the pianists who have played this work, many we will never know.
Likewise Ravel's three movement phantasy here has wonderful,points, a work also based upon contractions and expansions of time,floating,gesticulating,summoning imagery across time/ Aimard treats Ravel's advanced timbre like nature,as a labyrinth to enter, to proclaim like something erupting from beneath a place, perhaps below the piano,all with technical clarity,and Aimard sacrifices the pulse if it means a poetic moment that we will remember.

Likewise the two piano studies here more Carter the "90+" with its array of contrasting struck and sustained moments, the articulations for students hopefully and the "Two Diversions" is great stuff to begin of the modern repertoire, But not a place to simply begin and END with Carter but go on to explore other more interesting parts of the repertoire. Of course the highlight on this 2 CD box is Aimard commenting on all that is played, and his imagery and the factual background I thought was a bit self-conscious,with coangulated,arduous phrasings,and overlabored metaphorical references,perhaps the three languages does that,English, French and German; the content looses something in translation.

Aimard Rules.......2005-08-03

Pierre-Laurent Aimard is one of the most brilliant pianists now on the scene, especially brilliant in his understanding and performance of contemporary music. Several notable pianists have performed and recorded Elliott Carter's NIGHT FANTASIES, but Aimard's is the most lucid and effective. AND it is accompanied by a 20+ minute illustrated analysis of this remarkable piece (with French and German versions, also spoken by Aimard), on an accompanying disc. The Ravel is beautiful.

Elliott Carter: The Complete music for Piano

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Excellent recording of a modern classic
lively atonal music
Fine playing of three piano masterworks

Elliott Carter: The Complete music for Piano

Manufacturer: Bridge
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Elliott Carter: Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello & Harpsichord; Sonata for Cello & Piano; Double Concerto for Harpsichor
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ASIN: B000003GK2
Release Date: 1997-11-18

Tracks:

90+
Pno Son: I. Maestoso
Pno Son: II. Andante
Night Fants
Elliot Carter And Charles Rosen In Conversation - Elliot Carter/Charles Rosen

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Opening with a fleshy, resonant version of "90+," which was nominated for a 1998 Grammy award, this Carter collection is special not only for Charles Rosen's execution but also for the CD-closing conversation between performer and composer. Rosen opens the chat with a demonstration of how harmonic dissonance at once backlights and highlights Carter's famed rhythmic explorations. And Carter tells him, "This is the way we experience many things, the idea that one thing comments on another constantly." That's how Carter's music is, also constantly: frontal harmonic shocks, whether ringing tremulously or jumping in bursts of flash--as in Rosen's read of the Piano Sonata--are in dialogue with silence, rhythmic twists, and plainly beautiful constructions that sound in-process. The addition of "90+" and Bridge's customary rounded, warm sonic spaciousness make this collection superior to Rosen's Etcetera Carter collection. And for a more restrained, abstract look at "90+," try Ursula Oppens's version. --Andrew Bartlett

Customer Reviews:

Excellent recording of a modern classic.......2004-09-03

Having loved the Carter Piano Sonata since first hearing it years ago, and on learning that the really fine pianist (and equally accomplished music scholar) Charles Rosen had made a
recent recording of it, I picked it up right away. And I was
not disappointed. This is an excellent performance of a modern classic.

lively atonal music.......2002-07-09

This is not dry academic music but exciting music, performed by Charles Rosen with energy and surprises. It is great to hear Mr Carter's interview on the last track, talking about music.
Here is the Man!

Fine playing of three piano masterworks.......2000-04-21

Almost every CD of new works should feature a conversation with the composer. There never was a time when this wasn't necessary. Rosen is a great question-asker, and Carter creates a context for us out here with reflections from the history of music. And such gems as Carter's interest in jazz is discussed, the freedom from the tyranny of the barline,improvisation and his interests in early Renaissance music where again the pulse of a regularly recurring downbeat was blurred.I don't see any jazz in Carter,but then he does say that music today is not modern enough,I thought was a good perspective. But all this piano music can be encountered with these simple ideas in mind. The Piano Sonata was Carter's first success, and this piece reflects the times,perhaps like a dialogue amongst composers, something that is still part of this scene today.The lyrical with tonality leftovers is here you may hear Aaron Copland(however only in its surface features.No Carter was finding his own voice and this is a sprawling romantic gesturing piece with flights of virtuosity. The Six-Eighth feel is utilized to escape the severe roaring lower register octave moments,which begins the piece,much like the Brahms F minor Sonata, in fact the first movement is like a dialogue between the sustained piano sound and the arpeggiated chord.Carter was not afraid of overtaxing the extreme higher registers as well,where the moments almost turn etude-like. The second movement with its open lyrical sonorities may remind you of the Copland Sonata especially the way it resolves itself with the presto metric changes in break neck finale. Night Fantasies was a quadruple dedication;Ursula Oppens, Gilbert Kalish,Paul Jacobs and Charles Rosen,all marvelous pianists who have made their careers exclusivily with new academic bound music. The nocturnal concept of the Night was a means of invoking the cross again between the sustained sound and the arpeggiated, and Carter's music always works best with a programmatic element at work to guide his opaque sonoric abstractions.But Carter's structural plan is much more complex than that, at least from the confines of his writing desk. There are many piano textures at work here,some 12 different piano sonorities,broken chords,register displacements,internal changes of single tones,staccato with sustained tones,single tones interrupting a sustained tone, and always with a penchant for interrupting each others moments regarless of where tones are situated on the piano, like a fantasia with an all interval 88 chord scheme as a structural base. There is great analytical diversity here seemingly endless to discuss, that I suspect will keep the scholarly lights burning on the Commons. But simply listening to the work does evoke and suggest this sense of the fantasia noctural with simple sustained single tones very separated so we hear them clearly. 90+ is shorter work equally brilliant sounding,but more reserved almost introspective but not any less structurally vigorous.It is based on 90 staccato tones utilized again as points of interruptions. What this approach does is propell the work forward, similar to light, gentle lighting or electric charges cattle-prodding the durational frame.This keeps the work moving where nothing ever really lands anywhere with rhythmic security until the final pages of the work. Rosen is a Carter pianist and understands his music very well and brings a clarity and goal oriented conviction to his playing,always featuring the surface aspects of this music, the roaring piano sound,allowing the full weight of the sonority to be heard,but controlled and balanced.Rosen's penchant for Romantic piano literature also helps infuse his playing of Carter with this conceptual emotive base the music needs, for Carter is a thoroughly modernist romantic.

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Songs for Winter Solstice
Sensitive Playing

Romances & Elegies for Viola & Piano

Manufacturer: Ecm Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B0000261H6
Release Date: 2000-04-18

Tracks:

Lacrymae op.48
Romance
Elegy
Elegie op. 44
Romance oubliee
Adagio
Elegie op.30

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This elegiac music seems very well-suited to the dark sound of the viola. Kashkashian plays it simply and very expressively, without slides or sentimentality; glowing and shimmering, her tone is pure, warm, inflected. The program has great variety. Britten's mournful Lachrymae (Reflections on a Song of John Dowland) comes to an agitated climax and ends with an old chorale. Vaughan Williams's Romance is a peaceful pastoral; Carter's Elegy is somber, gentle, and hardly dissonant; Glasunov's Elegy is very romantic. Liszt's Romance is very rhetorical--half recitation, half lamentation--but ends serenely. Kodály's Adagio, solemn and inward, comes to a passionate climax; the opening returns in the highest register. Vieuxtemps's romantic virtuoso piece has musical substance as well as passion, rhetoric, a big climax, and a wild, brilliant ending. --Edith Eisler

Customer Reviews:

Songs for Winter Solstice.......2005-12-21

Perhaps none of the composers of this lovely set of works for viola and piano had in mind the death theme surrounding the winter solstice, the end of the season of growing, a time for pause and even sleep to prepare for the rumblings of rebirth, but that is what comes to mind while listening to this very well chosen collection of elegies.

Violist Kim Kashkashian and pianist Robert Levin seem extensions of each other, so well melded are these performances. While most will be familiar with the gorgeous Benjamin Britten 'Lachrymae, reflections on a song of Dowland', there are enough unfamiliar works to spark even the most experienced listener. Some highlights are the Vaughn Williams 'Romance', the Adagio of Zoltan Kodaly, and the Vieuxtemps 'Elegie'. The spectrum even manages to include Elliot Carter's 'Elegy' so you can rest assured there is a wide spread of periods and oddly enough they all create a cohesive program.

Kashkashian's tone is never forced, always refined, and never pushing towards heart on the sleeve. This is a beautiful recording, especially for winter nights. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, December 05

Sensitive Playing.......2000-09-01

I was pleased to see this recording By Kim Kashkashian. The interplay between the viola and the piano is exceptional and it is clear these two performers have a fine sense of the music. The typical ECM recording excellence adds to this effect. This is twentieth century and somber music. The warmth of Kashkashian's viola makes this recording the perfect match for a fine bordeaux and a quiet evening of listening.

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