Product Description

To celebrate his 100th birthday, Elliott Carter's Complete String Quartets have been newly recorded by the Pacifica Quartet, Musical America's Ensemble of the Year for 2009. Volume 1 (8.559362) was critically acclaimed: a knockout (Limelight), Music with heart as well as a brain (4 STARS, The Times), the best possible introduction to Carter's music (5 STARS, The Guardian) and has recently been nominated for a 2009 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Recording.

This disc presents the three remaining string quartets by the composer hailed by Aaron Copland as one of America's most distinguished creative artists in any field .

Track Listing

1. String Quartet No. 2: Introduction
2. String Quartet No. 2: 1. Allegro fantastico
3. String Quartet No. 2: Cadenza for viola
4. String Quartet No. 2: 2. Presto scherzando
5. String Quartet No. 2: Cadenza for cello
6. String Quartet No. 2: 3. Andante espressivo
7. String Quartet No. 2: Cadenza for violin 1
8. String Quartet No. 2: 4. Allegro
9. String Quartet No. 2: Conclusion
10. String Quartet No. 3: Duo 2. Maestoso (giusto tempo) - Grazioso - Giusto, meccanico / Duo 1. Furioso (quasi rubato sempr
11. String Quartet No. 3: Duo 2. Giusto, meccanico (cont.) - Scorrevole / Duo 1. Giocoso
12. String Quartet No. 3: Duo 2. Scorrevole (cont.) - Giusto, meccanico - Grazioso / Duo 1. Leggerissimo - Furioso
13. String Quartet No. 3: Duo 2. Grazioso (cont.) - Maestoso / Duo 1. Giocoso - Andante espressivo
14. String Quartet No. 3: Duo 2. Largo tranquillo - Appassionato - Largo tranquillo / Duo 1. Andante espressivo (cont.) - Leg
15. String Quartet No. 3: Duo 2. Scorrevole - Appassionato / Duo 1. Furioso (cont.) Andante espressivo - Furioso - Coda
16. String Quartet No. 4: Appassionato
17. String Quartet No. 4: Scherzando (stesso tempo)
18. String Quartet No. 4: Lento (stesso tempo)
19. String Quartet No. 4: Presto

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14792 in Music
• Released on: 2009-02-24
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds

freep.com (Detroit Free Press), Mark Stryker, March 8, 2009
The Pacifica Quartet completes its cycle of Carter's landmark string quartets with Nos. 2, 3 and 4 for the Naxos label (****), a companion to an earlier CD of Carter's First and Fifth quartets. Carter's quartets are famously knotty evocations of democracy in action, filled with argumentative dialogue, stubborn individualism and constantly migrating tempos. The Pacifica untangles the complexities and locates the emotional core with striking ease but without unnecessarily prettifying the music.

In the Second Quartet, arguably Carter's most definitive piece, the Pacifica reveals an unforced muscularity that sounds positively relaxed compared to the frightening intensity of the classic 1960 recording by the Juilliard String Quartet. The Pacifica doesn't make these works sound easy, but it does make them sound natural

Buffalonews.com, Jeff Simon, March 8, 2009
Elliott Carter, A Nonesuch Retrospective (Nonesuch, four discs) and String Quartets Nos. 2, 3 and 4 performed by Pacifica Quartet (Naxos). Time for a little musical heresy: What if Elliott Carter were a minor composer with major ideas, major musical bloodlines and major musical reputation? The fact that he is now the first unquestioned titan of American classical composition to reach the age of 100 has done nothing but underline the latter many times over. "Tough to play, tough to listen to" is the cliche about Carter's music and, like so many cliches, it bears more than a little truth. It's seldom even attempted unless by those who intend to do it justice. And that is where this exceptional four-disc box from Nonesuch and single budget disc of his later quartets on Naxos come in. "Tough to play" isn't an issue for any of these performances that give the music its optimal opportunity to be heard.

Under the leadership of the late Teresa (Tracy) Sterne and then Bob Hurwitz, Nonesuch has vigorously championed Carter's music from the outset. Which means that the Nonesuch box goes all the way from the neoclassic "Minotaur" of the '50s to his stern, powerful expressionist breakthrough first piano sonata and quartet to the works of the composer in his '70s, including the "Night Fantasies" for piano, played by the estimable Paul Jacobs. It was the great critic Peter Yates, who called Carter a "cautious radical" that means to some ears his predecessor Ives seems so much wilder, bolder and more evocative and Carter's near-exact contemporary from France Messiaen seems vastly more brilliant. Added to the Nonesuch set is James Levine's DGG recording of Carter's "Variations for Orchestra" from 1955. The Naxos disc is everything Carter could want from his latter quartets.

NewMusicBox, Trevor Hunter, March 23, 2009
There's a funny thing that happens when a cultural figure like Elliott Carter sees his own centenary: he outlives entire eras of musical thought and invective, multiples of them, many of which he was a major part of in the first place. From the scant number of Americana- and neoclassical-infused works of Carter's "youth" (mind that he was in his 30s when they were being written) to the torrent of works from the past decade*, he has lived through the fads, lived past the fads, and arrived at the point where the fads had nothing to do with his music anymore. This is not to say that Carter is old hat, so to speak; the premieres, celebrations, and television appearances should be enough to disprove that. But rather that Elliott Carter, the man and composer, is no longer a symbol of anything particularly threatening to anyone. The man and his ilk do come from a period where a certain (exceptionally small, it should be noted) segment of society felt put upon by the dominance of his pedaled wares; but the Euro-tinged modernism he espoused after World War II eventually evolved into a new beast, one a little less anxious for philippics and lofty dialectics, and one with less control over acceptable discourse and fellowships. Musical artists in different venues have had less and less of a contra-Carter cause as time wore on.

Sure, there are those around who hold long grudges, but those of us who are unencumbered by that history, be it through youth or culturo-political clemency, can afford to see Carter's work through a prism that's as unencumbered by outside factors as any composer has been allowed during their lifetime.

Which makes the works on the Pacifica Quartet's second and cycle-completing disc an interesting case. Pacifica owns Carter's five string quartets, as anyone who has heard them do the complete set in concert can attest. But for the Carter virgin, they can be a bit overwhelming, especially the three quartets presented on this disc. Even without historical baggage, the musical baggage is still there; is there any piece that's more difficult in the quartet repertoire than Carter's Third? More so than ever, Carter seems to have no interest in entertaining. Whether he does or not is more a consequence of the listener's own inner mechanisms, but by surface-level appearances it's not on his priority list. For instance, No. 3 starts out with an almost Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima-style sound wall, at least as much as can be achieved by only four string instruments playing only four-note chords, but while Penderecki was all about a visceral aggregate effect, Carter's visceral effect here is a symptom of a musical dialogue. This is why it's difficult. Carter gives you the gut punch only for a scant few seconds, after which he keeps demanding your full attention, defying those who would want to revel in the shock and awe. In fact, if there's one single thing that makes these pieces particularly demanding, it's this very habit of deprivation. Only in the third section of the 4th quartet does Carter show any sort of generosity to the audience, allowing his stringed actors to wallow in their dissonant, vitreous beauty for almost seven minutes.

But, if not generous, these pieces are still vivid and completely gripping. This is why Pacifica is the perfect group for these works--its interpretation steers the middle ground between the Charybdis of stale academic exercise and the Scylla of Ozymandias-style Great Work, and infuses the music with breath and life, screaming and raging. There is no denying that these works can be esoteric; but there is also no denying that, if you let them, they will tear you up. They writhe with irrepressible communicative intent. After all, these are highly theatrical works, conceived of as dialogues: The second and fourth sound like an argument between four excitable yet fairly reasonable participants, while the third comes across as a tragicomic scene between two couples, one pair trying to maintain calm over the second's alkaloid-fueled agitation. There's all the range of emotions one would find in a short play: drama, humor, passion, etc.

The pacing and sense of space is also more dramatic than musical. A character in a play isn't going to repeat a line of dialogue several times to allow it to sink in, and neither is a string player in a Carter quartet. While this prevents the immersion in sound mentioned earlier, it allows--and, importantly, Carter allows it to allow--for constant flashes of beauty and aggression in the same breath, like an impishly skillful writer. Listen to the "Largo tranquillo/Andante Espressivo" in the Second Quartet, or conversely, the admittedly very brief allowances in the last section of the Third, before it all descends to hell. In the former, the sheen is punctured by stabs from the cello, while in the latter, the forward drive is ever so briefly stalled by darkly luminous intervals held in the upper register of the violins. Carter is actually using the lack of a literal narrative coherence in the abstract art of music as an excuse to perform even more acrobatics and emotive modulations, trusting the listener to intrepidly follow him along the jagged road.

Because in the end it is about entertaining you. He didn't make a big show of it, but that's actually exactly what Carter is trying to do during every moment of music he writes. But this is the idea: Carter's middle quartets are entertaining pieces, but they're not passively entertaining pieces, no more than you can let the emotionally piquant dialogue of a Bergman film wash over you and expect to get anything out of it. These works ask your attention, and your respect. Give both.

Customer Reviews

Elliott Carter's String Quartets on Naxos
To celebrate Elliott Carter's 100th birthday (2008), the Pacifica Quartet undertook the formidable task of recording the composer's five string quartets on the budget-priced Naxos label. The first recording which included the first and the fifth quartet proved successful indeed for music of such bristling complexity. The recording received a well-deserved Grammy Award. This second CD, which includes quartets 2,3, and 4 completes the cycle. It is on the same high level as the first CD. The Pacifica Quartet has been playing together since 1994. It consists of Simin Ganatra and Bibbi Bernhardsson, violins, Masumi Per Rostad, viola, and Brandon Vamos, cello. The quartet is to be commended for this effort in recording Carter's quartets.

Elliott Carter's quartets span 44 years, with the first quartet dating from 1951 and the fifth quartet composed in 1995. Each of the five quartets has its own individual character and each requires careful listening. The first quartet is the longest of the five. It established Carter as a modernist composer. The final quartet is an almost divertimento-like work, lighter than its predecessors. The second, third, and fourth quartets each are deeply challenging. They are modernist works of high intellect and emotion. Each of these works is less than one-half hour in length, but they are dense and highly concentrated. The music is atonal with highly shifting and varied rhythms, textures, and moods. Carter uses each instrument, and the entire ensemble, in original and idiosyncratic ways.

The Pulitzer-Prize winning string quartet no. 2 (1959)
became known for its radically individualistic treatment of the four instruments, which many listeners took as capturing the separateness and individualism of modern life. Each instrument plays in its own tempo and with its own characteristics, seemingly oblivious to its companions. The work is less than 25 minutes in duration and is in nine short movements. In the even-numbered movements, marked by roman numerals and by a tempo indication (which is only a loose guide as tempos shift frequently) the four instruments play with each voice competing with and commenting on each other. The sixth and eighth movements are the longest in the work and evidence a difficult, passionate conversation among the four separate voices. The third, fifth, and seventh movement consist of short, cadenza passages for each instrument, viola, cello and violin, with, in each case, the remaining instruments commenting on and fighting against the leader. The work begins with a brief opening introduction which presents the four voices of the quartet and their characteristics, and it ends with a "conclusion" in which each voice fades away.

The string quartet no. 3 (1971) also received a Pulitzer Prize. This is the shortest (22 minutes) and probably the most challenging quartet of the three. Carter groups the ensemble into two "duos". Duo I consists of the second violin and the viola, and Carter directs them to play with rubato and expressive freedom. Duo II consists of the first violin and cello which play in strict time. The work is in six movements and both Duo I and Duo II play a number of themes against each other throughout the work. Duo I plays four blocks of music, marked Furioso, Leggerissimo, Andante expressivo, Giocoso. Duo II plays blocks marked Maestoso, Grazioso, Giusto, mecanico, Scorrevole [a scherzo],Largo tranquillo, and Appasionato. In the six movements, each Duo sometimes plays alone, but more often a block from one Duo is juxtaposed against a block from the other Duo making a shifting movement of sound. For example, the work opens with the Maestoso passage of Duo II playing against the Furioso of Duo I. The final movement opens with the Scorrevole of Duo II played against the Furioso of Duo I. The work evolves with the various combinations of four and six against each other. It is an extraordinary difficult piece to perform and to hear but highly rewarding. (I thought of the poetic form known as a Sestina as a loose analogy. In a sestina, the words which conclude each of the six lines of a stanza move from one line to another in a fixed pattern -- as do, in a way, the various themes of Duo I and Duo II in this quartet.

The final quartet on this CD, quartet no. 4 (1986) is somewhat more traditional in form than its companions. This work is in four movements, marked Appassionato, Scherzando, Lento, and Presto, and is about 28 minutes in length. Carter himself contrasted the theme of this work with that of quartet no. 2. While the former quartet stressed individualism in the four voices, in the latter quartet Carter tried to capture "the democratic attitude in which each member of a society maintains his or her own identity while cooperating in a common effort." The opening movement features a searing theme in the first violin which is supported by the other three members of the quartet. The second movement is a hushed scherzo in which all four voices participate. The third movement is highly intense with deep, interwoven harmonies. The movement is also punctuated by long pauses which is one of the hallmarks of this work. The finale too is marked by long, dramatic silences and by the contrasts between presto passages and the much slower, meditative sections. This quartet is difficult, but it may be the most accessible of Carter's five quartets to the new listener.

Over the years, I have learned a great deal about American music from Naxos's "American classics" series. This CD, together with the companion CD of Carter's first and fifth string quartets offer the adventurous listener an outstanding opportunity to get to know the work of a major American composer.

Total time: 74:15

Robin Friedman

You Won't Even Believe It
It would be difficult to recommend this album highly enough. For one thing, the repertoire is incredible. In my opinion, along with Messrs. Bartok, Beethoven, and Haydn, Mr. Carter is one of the most brilliant composers of the genre. These quartets are, however, phenomenally difficult to comprehend and perform. And, because of this, they seldom are well-enough executed for audience enjoyment.

Here though (and no disrespect to the Arditti Quartet, who did a fine job), we have the best renditions of these works. Simin, Sibbi, Masumi, & Brandon: Congratulations and Thank You!

Sometimes you really, really get your money's worth...
Perhaps, in some golden future, the catalog will be overflowing with recordings of the Carter Quartets. I'm willing to bet that the Pacifica's recordings will still be among the favorites. This young group (in their thirties by the look of the CD art) understand the music and they know how to pull it off. I'll focus on the Third Quartet, which is as difficult to play as anything in the literature. There are multiple asynchronies in the piece: a pair of instruments joining up for a quiet encounter while the other pair rages along in an entirely different world. Every seeming combination of music and instrument faces off at some point in a condensed twenty minutes. As with the best of Ives, the listener may focus on a part or on the whole. For this music to be played properly, each part must be played with conviction and at a level that allows the other parts to be heard. That's difficult enough in the standard repertory. With Carter, the demands are much greater. In this recording, languid or quiet passages proceed without being hurried by the mayhem going on elsewhere. That requires considerable musical focus.

Music isn't (or shouldn't be) a competitive sport. But sometimes comparisons can be illuminating. I've enjoyed the Arditti Quartet's recording of the first four Carter quartets for some time. But I have come to prefer the recordings by the Pacifica. They are less forced, less harsh, and more subtly layered.

The recording itself is quite nice. It's in a space that's appropriate for chamber music: just the right balance of ambience and direct sound. The details of the performance are clear without being clinical. I hope that the Pacifica and Naxos team up for more recordings. Perhaps they could start with Dutilleux and Schoenberg...