Carter (A) Nonesuch Retrospective
A centenary tribute concentrates on Carter’s middle-period music
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Elliott (Cook) Carter
Label: Nonesuch
Magazine Review Date: 7/2009
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
Stereo
Catalogue Number: 7559 799221
![](https://reviews.azureedge.net/gramophone/media-thumbnails/075597992212.jpg)
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Sonata for Piano |
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer Paul Jacobs, Piano |
Dust of Snow |
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer Gilbert Kalish, Piano Jan DeGaetani, Mezzo soprano |
(The) Rose Family |
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer Gilbert Kalish, Piano Jan DeGaetani, Mezzo soprano |
(The) Minotaur |
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer Gerard Schwarz, Conductor New York Chamber Symphony Orchestra |
Elegy |
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer Gerard Schwarz, Conductor Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra |
Sonata for Cello and Piano |
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer Joel Krosnick, Cello Paul Jacobs, Piano |
String Quartet No. 1 |
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer
(The) Composers Quartet Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer |
Sonata |
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer
Charles Kuskin, Oboe Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer Fred Sherry, Cello Harvey Solberger, Flute Paul Jacobs, Harpsichord |
Variations for Orchestra |
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer
Chicago Symphony Orchestra Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer James Levine, Conductor |
String Quartet No. 2 |
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer
(The) Composers Quartet Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer |
Concerto for Harpsichord, Piano and Two Chamber Or |
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer
Arthur Weisberg, Conductor Contemporary Chamber Ensemble (The) Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer Gilbert Kalish, Piano Paul Jacobs, Harpsichord |
Night Fantasies |
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer Paul Jacobs, Piano |
Triple Duo |
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer
(The) Fires of London (The) Fires of London Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer |
In Sleep, in Thunder |
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer
Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer London Sinfonietta Martyn Hill, Tenor Oliver Knussen, Conductor |
Author: Richard_Whitehouse
Central to these performances is Paul Jacobs, who, with Charles Rosen, confirmed that Carter’s piano-writing has an expressive eloquence to match its intellectual brilliance. Listening to his command of rhetoric in the Piano Sonata, Carter’s first (untypical) masterpiece, or the incisive interplay with Joel Krosnick in the Cello Sonata, which marks a new departure, is to be reminded of his unstinting advocacy. As a harpsichordist, Jacobs is unfailingly lucid in the deft play on Baroque stylisms of the Sonata for flute, oboe, cello and harpsichord; and his partnership with Gilbert Kalish in the epic Double Concerto brings a tensile energy yet to be equalled – for all that the stereophonic placing now feels a little too extreme. Other pianists have found greater poise in Night Fantasies, but none has exceeded Jacobs’s grasp of its stream-of-consciousness intensity. Nor has the Composers Quartet been outdone in making the magisterial First Quartet so inclusive an experience, though the vehemence of its successor undersells the music’s acerbic humour.
Otherwise, Jan DeGaetani pertly characterises the early settings of Robert Frost, and Gerard Schwarz brings warmth to the Copland-like Elegy and suggests that The Minotaur ballet is not so indebted to Stravinsky as is often assumed. Oliver Knussen gives notice of a fervent advocacy in the song-cycle In Sleep, In Thunder, but Martyn Hill is too elegant to convey the violent contrasts of Robert Lowell’s verse, whereas The Fires of London tend towards the heavy-handed in the scintillating Triple Duo. Their inclusion is still welcome, and the quality of remastering, annotations and presentation does the project justice. Carter devotees will find this a mandatory purchase.
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