Search - Elliott Carter, Isang Yun :: Lauds and Lamentations: Music of Elliott Carter and Isang Yun - 2 CD BOXED SET

Master musicianship

Joe Barron | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania United States | 07/17/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"OK, yes, granted, it's overpriced and it spreads one CD's worth of music over two, but the music-making in this set is extraordinary. Most of the pieces by Carter are available elsewhere, but the Four Lauds - extroverted violin solos the composer has arranged into a Bach-like suite - are not, and they are worth the cost of the ticket all by themselves. The Oboe Quartet is one of Carter's most attractive works of recent years, and Holliger and Co. serve up a muscular reading that is perhaps less elegant than the premiere recording on Bridge, but every bit as convincing. The music of Yun was new to me, but I found it immediately engaging. Holliger traverses the extended landscape of "Piri" with delicacy and impeccable phrasing, and anyone who can hold one's attention through a 14-minute oboe solo as consistently as he does deserves some kind of musican-of-the-decade award. Crisp, 3-D sound."