Elliott Carter: Elliott Carter - A Nonesuch Retrosepective (4 CDs)

Elliott Carter (1908-2012)

Paul Jacobs, Gilbert Kalish, Fred Sherry, Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, James Levine

4 CDs

CD (Compact Disc)

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Klaviersonate (1945);Dust of Snow; The Rose Family; The Minotour; Elegy für Streichorchester; Cellosonate (1948); Streichquartette Nr. 1 & 2; Sonate für Flöte, Oboe, Cello, Cembalo; Variationen für Orchester; Konzert für Cembalo, Klavier, 2 Kammerorchester; Night Fantasies; Triple Duo; In sleep, in thunder

Artists:: Paul Jacobs, Gilbert Kalish, Fred Sherry, Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, James Levine u. a.
Label:: Nonesuch
Year of recording ca.:: 68-85
UPC/EAN:: 0075597992212
Release date:: 24.2.2009

Product-Information:

This CD box set is now available for sale in the Nonesuch Store; however, free, instant album MP3 downloads, included with other discs in the Store, are not currently available with box sets.

To celebrate Elliott Carter’s 100th birthday, Nonesuch released Elliott Carter: A Nonesuch Retrospective, a four-disc set, on February 24, 2009. The discs include most of the recordings Nonesuch made of Carter’s music between 1968 and 1985; The Observer calls the collection »covetable and historic.«

These recordings include performances by many acclaimed musicians, including Paul Jacobs, Gilbert Kalish, the Composers Quartet, Jan DeGaetani, Fred Sherry, Arthur Weisberg, the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine. The original Nonesuch records were produced by Joanna Nickrenz and Marc Aubort, and later, Teresa Sterne, Max Wilcox, and Oliver Knussen. A 58-page booklet—with photos, score examples, texts, an essay by Paul Griffiths, and tributes by musicians and composers including Virgil Blackwell, Tod Machover, Ursula Oppens, and Fred Sherry—accompanies the discs.

A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and the first composer to receive the United States National Medal of Arts, Elliott Carter is internationally recognized as one of the leading American voices of the 20th-century classical music tradition. First encouraged toward a musical career by his friend and mentor Charles Ives, Carter attended Harvard University, where he studied with Walter Piston, and later went to Paris, where for three years he studied with Nadia Boulanger. He then returned to New York to devote his time to composing and teaching. Carter was recognized by the Pulitzer Prize Committee for the first time in 1960 for his groundbreaking String Quartet No. 2. Stravinsky hailed Carter’s Double
Concerto for Harpsichord & Piano with Two Chamber Orchestras (1961) and Piano
Concerto (1967), as «masterpieces, ” while Aaron Copland called him «one of America's most distinguished creative artists in any field. ”

As Paul Griffiths writes in the box-set booklet:

Born when Enrico Caruso was cutting cylinders, Elliott Carter has lived through most of the history of recording, and contributed to that history through his associations with various companies. First among these was Nonesuch, beginning in 1969 and continuing for over twenty years. Two albums of the 1970s, featuring his first two string quartets and Double Concerto, played a conspicuous role in carrying his music to a wide audience, and so in bringing him the acclaim that encouraged him to go on, with undiminished vigor, into a ‘late period‹ that has lasted more than thirty years. Nonesuch was not only the first label to give Carter’s music international distribution and continuing support, it also placed his work in an appropriate context of discovery and adventure.

Elliott Carter turned 100 years old on December 11, 2008. His centenary is being celebrated internationally with performances in New York, Madrid, Turin, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Vienna, and London. A complete list of works and performances, as well as downloadable photos, images, biographies, and a video interview, can be found at carter100. com.

Reviews

FonoForum 07/09: »Niemand, der sich für den Nestor der amerikanischen Musik interessiert, wird an dieser CD-Box vorbeikommen. Zum einen finden sich in ihr einige selten zu hörende Frühwerke aus Carters tonaler Periode - etwa das Ballett ›The Minotaur‹ oder die ›Elegy‹ für Streicher. Zum anderen gibt es eine Wiederbegegnung mit mehreren früh gestorbenen Musikern, die Carter nahe standen und viel von ihm (ur)aufgeführt haben, die Sopranistin Jan DeGaetani etwa, oder, allen voran, Paul Jacobs, der hier die Klaviersonate und ›Night Fantasies‹ mit großer Autorität interpretiert und auch in der Cellosonate sowie, gemeinsam mit Gilbert Kalish, im enorm komplexen Doppelkonzert für Klavier und Cembalo zu hören ist.«

Disk 1 von 4 (CD)

Sonate für Klavier (1945/1982)

1 1. Maestoso
2 2. Andante

3 Dust of snow (für Mezzosopran und Klavier) (1942)
4 The rose family (für Mezzosopran und Klavier) (1942)

The Minotaur (Ballett) (1947)

5 Ouverture (1. Szene: King Minos' palace in Crete)
6 Queen Pasiphaë prepares for a tryst with the sacred bull
7 Entrance of the bulls and the sacred bull
8 Dance of the bulls and Pasiphaë with the sacred bull
9 Interlude: Pasiphaë's heartbeat becomes the pounding of hamers used in building the labyrinth
10 Building the labyrinth to imprison the Minotaur who destroys men (2. Szene: Before the labyrinth)
11 Entrance of King Minos
12 Selection of Greek victims to be sent into the labyrinth
13 Ariadne, princess of Crete, dances with Theseus, a Greek victim
14 Greek victims are driven into the labyrinth
15 Theseus's farewell to Ariadne as he enters the labyrinth
16 Ariadne unwinds her thread as Theseus, entering the labyrinth, pulls the thread after him
17 Theseus fights and kills the Minotaur (as his movements are transmitted to Ariadne who is holding the other end...)
18 Ariadne rewinds her thread to lead Theseus out of the labyrinth
19 The thread breaks. Ariadne is greatly dismayed
20 Theseus and some fo the Greeks emerge from the labyrinth and rejoice
21 The Greeks and Theseu, forgetting Aridne, leave Crete