Track Listing

1. I
2. II
3. Concerto For Orchestra
4. A Celebration Of 100 x 150 Notes
5. Remembrance
6. Anniversary

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11771 in Music
• Released on: 2005-06-14
• Number of discs: 1

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
"Ursula Oppens and Michael Gielen are fine exponents of Carter's intriguingly complex music."

Customer Reviews

Two interesting but thoroughly ugly concertos, followed by a display of colour
I discovered the ever-controversial composer Elliott Carter through his recent works like the "Symphonia" and the Cello Concerto. "What's the big deal," I thought, "he's no more out there than Lutoslawski or Lindberg, so why the public rage against him?" Well, on this Arte Nova release, a reissue of a 1992 disc, I got an answer. Michael Gielen leads the SWF Symphony Orchestra, with Ursula Oppens as piano soloist.

The two-movement "Piano Concerto" (1964-1965) is notable for its overt dramatic arc. The piano is a lone individual against the orchestral mob, and their interaction is violent. The piano is surrounded by a small ensemble of seven players who seem to support the piano, but are ultimately false comforters to the piano's Job, as Carter puts it. This form has been used successfully in Lutoslawski's cello concerto and Schnittke's viola concerto, and here it holds interest. And as ever, there are delightful experiments with varying rhythms. But there's a major problem with Carter here: his music is totally void of colour. I listen exclusively to modern repertoire, so I've no fear of the atonal, but you'd think an orchestra has more sonorities to offer then the same drab thumps that characterize this piece.

The same problem plagues the single-movement "Concerto for Orchestra" (1969). Still, one can admire the virtuosity present in the writing of all orchestral parts, and the way in which the spotlight is passed from each of the four instrumental groups to another is somewhat elegant. But in addition to Carter's monochromatic palette, the recording of these first two pieces is not ideal, it sounds as if the entire orchestra were playing inside a clown car.

With the "Three Occasions for Orchestra" (1986-1989), Carter has mellowed, and colour is definitely present. These three pieces were composed at different times and merely collected together for convenience. The first, "A Celebration of 100 x 150 Notes" was writen for the Houston Symphony to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Texas. It's a fanfare lasting exactly 150 bars that, for has its uncomprising modernism, has some downright charming writing for brass. "Remembrace" was written as a memorial for Paul Fromm, its sad expanses foretell the middle movement of his "Symphonia". "Anniversary" was written on the occasion of his fiftieth wedding anniversary to his wife Helen Carter, it's an airy piece, though feels somewhat fluffy and insubstantial after a few listens.

The disc comes with liner notes amounting to two pages. These lack any analysis of the pieces, giving instead mere context on when they were written. For more in-depth coverage of the music, I'd recommend David Schiff's THE MUSIC OF ELLIOTT CARTER (Cornell University Press, 1998).

For listening for mere idle pleasure, the recent Carter serves much better. These pieces here have some fascinating rhythmic and programmatic features, which does provide a reason to buy the disc for Carter fans, but the two concertos are pretty ugly music.

Ugly Ugliness
and dull....there are pieces that are Beautiful Ugly like Beethoven's Grosse Fugue or Varese's Arcana - but the music on this CD is just Ugly Ugly - Carter knows instruments, but his palette is soooooooooooooooo dull - this is the Concerto for Orchestra - to describe the work as busy music would be an understatement - only the beginning and end of a Carter work is mildly ear-catching - in between you have an unsustainable music - this is no exception - and with a lot of music after WW2, the more organized a work is on paper, the more chaotic it seems when heard - no exception there, either - the Concerto for Orchestra is a work which a dedicated conductor and orchestra should perform without anyone actually hearing it -

Some have mentioned how Carter differentiates musics by using specific instruments and intervals - so what? and what about the resulting music? The Piano Concerto uses the soloist and a chamber group to distinguish itself from the rest of the orchestra - ah yes, if they were in two different cities, perhaps - The most interesting thing about the Piano Concerto for me, aside from its two-movement form (borrowing from Berg's fiddle concerto), is the ugliest bass clarinet solo ever conceived this side of a mouthpiece - a more hideous creation could not be immagined -

The Three Occasions is good if you drop the last two, which leaves you One - at just over three minutes, it has some nice fifths, which would be appropriate for a fanfare (except for the blips at the end) - Less is more -

A classic Carter recording reissued
This budget-price recording, featuring two Elliott Carter specialists, the pianist Ursula Oppens and the conductor Michael Gielen, has long been a highlight of the composer's discography. Now reissued in rather more attractive packaging, it remains an essential disc for those who know and love Carter's highly complex, densely atonal music.

The 1965 Piano Concerto is one of the composer's most difficult--yet most rewarding--pieces. It's written in two movements, and to add to the complexity of the music, there's a small sub-orchestra that acts as an intermediary between the soloist and the full orchestra. (No wonder that Carter now says he could never again write works like the Piano Concerto--they'd just take up too much time.) It's a highly dramatic work, with the piano constantly at odds with the orchestra, and the sub-orchestra attempting to bring about some kind of rapprochement between the soloist and orchestra. In the end, this fails, and in a truly terrifying climax the pounding drums finally silence the soloist--only for her to start up again in a slow, quiet coda.

Of the three recordings--all very good--that I've heard of this concerto, this is the strongest. Mark Wait's on Naxos lacks the truly apocalyptic resonances of the climax, and Oppens' earlier New World recording, to my mind, operates on a slightly lower level of tension than the present reading.

The Concerto for Orchestra was written soon after the Piano Concerto, and is a similarly dramatic work, if slightly less fierce. It has an openly literary program, being inspired by St John Perse's poem "Vents," which depicts the destruction and renewal of America through violent windstorms. After an opening tutti, the work evokes the winds of the four seasons by focusing on a different section of the orchestra for each season, before reaching a violent climax and fading away.

Of the easily available rivals to this recording, Oliver Knussen's recording with the London Sinfonietta is the most competitive. It features somewhat better playing and clearer detail, though it doesn't quite have the dramatic sweep of the present recording. Leonard Bernstein's Sony recording, while dramatic, disqualifies itself as a first choice through the many inaccuracies in the playing.

The disc closes with a less ambitious, more recent piece, the Three Occasions for Orchestra. Compared to the two earlier works, this one shows the slimming down of style that has been prominent in Carter's work over the last 20 years, to my mind, with mixed results--though the textures are clearer, more joyous, something of the dramatic sweep and intensity has been lost. The work begins with a complex fanfare, continues with a bleak elegy and concludes with a celebratory last movement. While not major Carter, it can perhaps be considered significant as it forms a sort of miniature prototype of his key 1990s work, Symphonia.

Knussen's London Sinfonietta recording is, again, the competitor here. It is technically superior, but I find Gielen has a warmth that Knussen doesn't quite match.

Overall, this is an essential disc for any Carter enthusiast, though, due to the highly complex nature of the two concertos, it may not be the ideal place for a newcomer to start (I'd still direct such people to the Elektra Nonesuch disc of the Double Concerto, the Cello Sonata and the Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord).