Chamber vs. Symphonic

[Opus106]

So book me!

[CD]

Ah, VUI . . . .

How do you think McCain/Palin got so many votes? 

[Wanderer]

I don't think it's very pertinent to include solo repertoire in chamber music. As for the question itself, I'm not voting unless there's a Beethoven option.

[schweitzeralan]

Take a side! 

Strictly symphonic.

[Joe Barron]

Carter's Mosaic (scored for soloist and seven accompanying players) I have seen conducted, both live and on DVD.

One or another of his quartets was famous (back when I was doing my doctorate) for 'requiring' that the players wear headphones to listen to a click track.  I suppose those may be 'training wheels' and that as quartets learn the music better, they can just play . . . .

That was the No. 3, which breaks the quartet into two duos. It doesn't really "require" the click track. The Juilliard didn't use it for the premiere (though it did spend two rehearsals on the first four measures). It was the Composers Quartet, I believe, that found the click track a useful crutch. Not sure about the Pacifica or the Arditti.

I remember back around 1990 seeing the Juilliard perform Carter's first four quartets (at that time the complete cycle --- the fifth followed a few years later) at the Free Library of Philadelphia. About a third of the way into the Fourth, Robert Mann lost his place. Given the comlexity of the piece, he could not just jump back in at the beginning of the next measure, the way he would in a Haydn quartet. Instead, he stopped the other three and asked them to start over.

[marvinbrown]

  Anyone who loves opera/Wagnerian music dramas  0:) as much as I do MUST vote symphonic!!  After all Verdi's, Wagner's, Puccini's and Richard Strauss' operas aren't your standard fiddle-dee-do fiddle-dee-dum pieces!  NO??

  marvin 

[Classical Review]

I guess it's less a question of which I prefer, and more the reality of which type I play most on CD. Looked at THAT way, symphonic music easily comes out on top.

FK