Elliott Carter: Chamber Music

Some of the greatest chamber pieces by Elliott Carter, America's patriarch of modern music. Released by the superb French label Montaigne Naïve.

"The joy of this particular disc (aside of course from the première recording of the 5th quartet) is the super selection of telling music that accompanies the main point of the issue. To me it's tricky to get to grips with Carter's mountainous achievements without the key pieces which fill the gaps in the story of his evolving language. For his chamber music, there are few more key compositions outside of the five quartets than the 1948 Cello Sonata and the Duo for Violin and Piano of 1973-4.

The former is given here by the impeccable pairing of Ursula Oppens, Carter soloist almost par excellence, and the Arditti's Rohan de Saram. It's a fascinating work, in which it's absolutely apparent that Carter is sitting on the edge of a new world, thinking "well what do you do with these two hugely different instruments? How do you make them talk to each other?". Of course by the standards of what followed this is easy-as-pie to follow, but it and the First Quartet must be seen as the pivotal early pieces in Carter's long journey.

The Duo has long been available in an excellent version made by its dedicatees, Paul Zukovsky and Gilbert Kalish. Irvine Arditti and Ursula Oppens join forces to make this version a major contender. But what a fabulous piece it is. Time and again the music throws me back to Schoenberg's masterpiece for this pairing, the late Phantasy op. 47 - if you are looking for signposts into Carter then that work and perhaps the 4th quartet and the op. 45 String Trio are good ideas, but the natural way must be to listen to Carter himself - and to do so in chronological sequence. Carter's writing clearly draws from the Schoenberg but he builds his immaculately crafted piece to a lyrical conclusion that the Viennese master rarely imagined in his maturity.

There are three brief additional items - 90+ for piano in honour of Petrassi, a 1994 Figment for solo Cello and a Fragment of a quartet written in the same year in the memory of David Huntley. None of these will sway you one way or the other but it all adds up to a very compelling programme."

- N. E. M. Goulder, Amazon.com

Elliott Carter
Chamber Music

1) 5th String Quartet 1: Introduction
2) 5th String Quartet 2: Giocoso
3) 5th String Quartet 3: Interlude I
4) 5th String Quartet 4: Lento espressivo
5) 5th String Quartet 5: Interlude II
6) 5th String Quartet 6: Presto scorrevole
7) 5th String Quartet 7: Interlude III
8) 5th String Quartet 8: Allegro energico
9) 5th String Quartet 9: Interlude IV
10) 5th String Quartet 10: Adagio sereno
11) 5th String Quartet 11: Interlude V
12) 5th String Quartet 12: Capriccioso
13) 90+, for piano
14) Sonata for cello and piano 1: Moderato
15) Sonata for cello and piano 2: Vivace, molto leggiero
16) Sonata for cello and piano 3: Adagio
17) Sonata for cello and piano 4: Allegro
18) Figment for solo cello
19) Duo for violin and piano
20) Fragment for String Quartet

Tracks 1-12 performed by the Arditti Quartet. Track 13 performed by Ursula Oppens, piano. Tracks 14-17 performed by Rohan de Saram, cello; Ursula Oppens, piano. Track 18 performed by Rohan de Saram, cello. Track 19 performed by Irvine Arditti, violin; Ursula Oppens, piano. Track 20 performed by the Arditti Quartet.

Files encoded as Apple Lossless (ALAC), track information in ID3. Two front covers included.
Zip files through tinyurl.com. Tiny parts at 6pr7gv, 6flmd3, 6z2uae and 6zw36f.


Enjoy.