Search - E. Carter, New Music Concerts Ensemble, Pacifica Quartet :: CARTER, E.: String Quartets (Complete) / 100th Anniversary Release (3CD+1DVD Box Set Release)

Elliott Carter on Naxos

Robin Friedman | Washington, D.C. United States | 02/12/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In celebration of the 100th birthday of the American composer Elliott Carter (1908 -2008), the budget-priced Naxos label released on two separate CDs Carter's five string quartets performed by the Pacifica Quartet. On Carter's birthday (December 8, 2008), Naxos released a CD of ten varied works for solo instruments, small ensembles, and chamber orchestra performed by the New Music Concerts Ensemble of Toronto under its director Robert Aitken, a long-time friend of the composer. This CD was accompanied by a DVD including discussions between Aitken and Carter and rehearsals of some of the works on the CD.



The three CDs and the DVD have been combined in this attractive Naxos set which offers the listener the opportunity to hear a good deal of the music of this difficult, controversial composer. The quartets in particular constitute seminal works of late 20th Century music which receive inspired performances from the Pacifica Quartet. The recording of the first and fifth quartet received the Grammy Award for chamber music in 2009, and the recording of the second, third, and fourth quartet is of the same high standard. Carter received the Pulitzer Prize for the second quartet in 1959 and received another Pulitzer for the third quartet in 1971.



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 makes heavy demands on listener and performer alike. Each requires careful listening. The first quartet is the longest of the five. It established Carter as a modernist composer. (Some of his earlier compositions were indebted to the American folk style of composers such as Aaron Copland.) 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 three 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 works performed on the New Music Concerts Ensemble CD are mostly more recent than the five quartets. They were composed from 1988 when Carter was 80, to 2005, when he was 97. These works of Carter's old age tend to be shorter and quirkier than his large-scale works such as the quartets. Of the ten works presented, the two most recent works are the most substantial in terms of length and instrumentation. Carter's "Mosaic" dates from 2005. It is scored "for solo harp and seven instruments". This work features virtuosic writing for the harp, performed here by Toronto harpist Erica Goodman.



The other extended work is "Dialogues", composed in 2004 and scored for piano and a chamber orchestra of eighteen instruments. David Swan of Toronto performs the difficult piano part. This work is almost a chamber concerto in a single movement in which the piano writing is juxtaposed against the orchestral ensemble or against individual instruments.



As with all music, Carter's works should be approached initially from the heart more than from the mind. For all the difficulties of these scores, the music should not be over-intellectualized. These works are expressive in a personal, if tough idiom. Listeners who are willing to explore music that is challenging harmonically, melodically, rhythmically, and structurally will benefit from getting to know Elliott Carter. I am pleased to have the opportunity to expand my own musical experience with these CDs and others in the Naxos American Classics series. I also want to thank Dr. Scott Morrison for calling this new set to my attention and for his kind earlier references to my reviews on each of the individual CDs in this new compilation. Links to the individual CDs in this box set are provided below for interested readers.



Carter: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 5

Elliott Carter: String Quartets Nos. 2, 3 and 4

Elliott Carter: 100th Anniversary Release - Mosaic, Dialogues, Enchanted Preludes, Scrivo In Vento (CD + DVD)



Robin Friedman









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