Elliott Carter, 1908-2012

[bhodges]

Bruce, I'm afraid Karl and I are it --- i.e., rather than e.g. --- unless we hear from Al Moritz.

Truth to tell, there are pieces I like better than both the Symphonia and the Clarinet Concerto --- particularly the Cello and Boston Concertos. The Symphonia may be one of those pieces, like the Piano Concerto or the Concerto for Orchestra, that take me a while to appreciate. Those latter two are among my favorites of any composer of any period, now.

Interesting...I'm taking to Symphonia immediately.  Part of it could be the performance itself: Knussen and the BBCSO are just so alert, precise, and playing with a huge dynamic range.  Have to listen to it further, but it might be a candidate (for some) for showing off your sound system. 

I can well appreciate the high regard for both the Piano Concerto and the Concerto for Orchestra--both pretty marvelous.

And hey, James, it has taken me probably 20 years to warm up to Carter.  I've just been converted within the last four or five years or so, and I don't have a clue why.  It might be a good argument for giving difficult music a chance to toss and turn in your brain for awhile.

--Bruce

[bwv 1080]

Bruce, I'm afraid Karl and I are it --- i.e., rather than e.g. --- unless we hear from Al Moritz.

Truth to tell, there are pieces I like better than both the Symphonia and the Clarinet Concerto --- particularly the Cello and Boston Concertos. The Symphonia may be one of those pieces, like the Piano Concerto or the Concerto for Orchestra, that take me a while to appreciate. Those latter two are among my favorites of any composer of any period, now.

I would tend to concur,  at this point my 5 favorite late period pieces would be (in no order)

Lumien
Changes
90+
Boston Concerto
Violin Concerto

[johnQpublic]

The Violin Concerto is fairly direct for me and that's a good thing. 

[Guido]

Glad to hthat you like the Cello concerto Joe - it is a fantastic score, and I think I agree hat it is better than the clarinet concerto. I saw the clarinet concerto in London two years ago with Collins and Knussen and it was just spectacular - easily the best clarinet playing I have ever seen. I also adore the Symphonia, haven't listened the Boston concerto very much yet.

Am very jealous of you guys going to the Horn concerto premiere.

[Mark G. Simon]

Yet another title from this prolific year:

Clarinet Quintet (2007) 15'
for clarinet and string quartet

This is exciting.

It is exciting. I look forward to hearing this, and to seeing the score. It's good that Carter has provided the clarinet with a significant body of repertory.

[Joe Barron]

I would tend to concur,  at this point my 5 favorite late period pieces would be (in no order)

Lumien
Changes
90+
Boston Concerto
Violin Concerto

I'd add the Cello Concerto, the Piano Quintet, the Trilogy for Oboe and Harp, Tempo e Tempi, In the Distances of Sleep, Soundings, Intermittances, Quartet No. 5, the Three Illusions, and Remembering Mr. Ives.With all the riches of late Carter, it's hard to choose. And of course, not all of this stuff has been recorded, and new pieces are appearing almost daily, it seems.  I still haven't heard  Catenaires or  Ma-tribute.

It is exciting. I look forward to hearing this, and to seeing the score. It's good that Carter has provided the clarinet with a significant body of repertory.

Joining the likes of Mozart, Brahms, Nielsen and Stravinsky. I've made the point in my review of the Triple Duo on the Atma label. Unfortunately, no word yet on a premiere performance. Still, there is that Horn Concerto next week.

[Guido]

Joe, you don't happen to have the live bootleg recording of the premiere of the cello concerto with Yo-Yo Ma, do you? Fred Sherry's version is superb of course, but it would be nice to hear another interpretation. Also do you really think the second figment is better than the first?

[Joe Barron]

Also do you really think the second figment is better than the first?

No, I wouldn't say it's better. I'm just sentimental about Ives.

I do have a bootleg of Ma's performance but no way to copy it. It was sent to me an e-pal in England.

[Joe Barron]

Nice piece from The Boston Globe on James Sommerville, our soloist this weekend. From what little there is about the concerto, it sounds like --- well, like Carter.
 
Horn of plenty
James Sommerville likes a challenge - whether soloing for BSO or trying his hand as conductor
By Geoff Edgers, Globe Staff  |  November 14, 2007

James Sommerville, principal French horn in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, would be the first to acknowledge he was no classical music prodigy. Growing up in Canada, he was drawn to the prog-rockers Gentle Giant and Peter Gabriel-era Genesis. He didn't start playing the piano until age 8, and nothing approaching destiny drove him to his eventual instrument of choice.

"My first day of high school, they herded us into the music room and said, 'Pick your instrument,' " he recalls over a recent sushi lunch near Symphony Hall. "All the trumpets and saxophones went right away."

On Thursday night, Sommerville will be at center stage as he steps out from his usual spot - a few rows back, between the timpani and the woodwinds - to serve as the featured soloist for the world premiere of Elliott Carter's Horn Concerto. Carter created the work for Sommerville, commissioned by the BSO. Expect such iconic Carter flourishes as tempo changes and speedy runs that can push a player - and an audience - to the edge.

"For a lot of people, that would be a very daunting possibility," says BSO principal trumpet player Thomas Rolfs, a friend of Sommerville's. "But Jamie is a player who likes to take chances, and that's something that can be contagious in an orchestra."

That same desire to take chances has led Sommerville, 45, to continue his musical evolution in a new way. Last week, he made an unlikely commute - Boston to Hamilton, Ontario - for his second career as a conductor. This season, he became the artistic director of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, an organization with a $1.2 million budget and 32 core players.

In Hamilton, not far from his native Toronto, Sommerville had heard there was a job opening. But some of the orchestra's musicians say they were baffled by his interest in the position.

"He's the principal horn of the Boston Symphony Orchestra," says Stephen Pierre, the Hamilton orchestra's principal clarinet player. "He's probably the best horn player on the planet. I thought, 'What would somebody with a position like that, why would you want to do something different?' He said, 'I need a challenge.' "

Alex Baran, executive director of the Hamilton Philharmonic, says the orchestra knew it was getting someone relatively inexperienced on the podium; Sommerville had guest conducted for them only a couple of times. But Baran says Sommerville was a good fit for the job.

"We're getting in on the ground floor of what we hope will be each other's rising careers," Baran says.

Peak performance

In person, the curly haired Sommerville is soft-spoken, with a dry wit. He doesn't gossip about his fellow players, and he seems to dislike criticizing composers, especially living ones. In a recent conversation over lunch, the subject of the late composer Arnold Schoenberg, a James Levine favorite, came up.

"I feel like Schoenberg wrote some masterpieces and some awful pieces," Sommerville says. When asked to name them, he demurs.

Sommerville, who has played with the BSO since 1998, is at his peak as a performer. As a conductor, he acknowledges that he has work to do. When he was hired in Hamilton, there was some concern that his laid-back personality might not translate to the podium, which often calls for a bold, energetic figure. Those fears have been calmed.

"He's not a presumptuous, larger-than-life person, he's almost the anti-type of conductor," says Baran. "There was a concern - 'Where's the dynamism you want to see on the podium?' To our surprise, we saw it during performance."

Sommerville took conducting classes in college and led ensembles at McGill University in the 1990s.

"I think I did it very poorly," Sommerville says today. "I didn't give a lot of thought to my technique or preparation."

He kept working, though, studying under Finnish maestro Jorma Panula and conducting at Tanglewood. As a horn player, he says, "I look at scores and try to understand the context, but it's still like shining a high-powered flashlight in a dark room." As a conductor, he takes a broader view: "To look at great music and take the time to understand the scores, you get a much deeper appreciation."

How would he describe his current conducting style?

"I try to be clear, both musically and in terms of not letting people get lost," Sommerville says. "I think I have a ways to go with my technique. One benefit, having spent a lot of time in rehearsals, I know what's useful and what isn't. Orchestras hate wasting time."

Two hats
Sommerville has committed to Hamilton for five years - a commute that involves flying to Buffalo, then renting a car to drive the remaining 1 1/2 hours of the trip - but he says he has no intention of leaving the BSO. He loves to perform on the French horn, which is more challenging to play than many other brass.

"It's a precarious instrument," he explains. "It's a little less sure, less reliable than most instruments. The positive is that it's very flexible in the right hands. It's sort of a bridge between the brass and the woodwinds. You need to find a much broader range of dynamics than you would with a trumpet or a flute. And the sound itself is very beautiful. When it's quiet, it's very round and soft. In loud dynamics, it's very brassy and exciting."

Sommerville lives near Symphony Hall with his girlfriend, pianist Aimee Tsuchiya, and says he remains challenged by his BSO gig. The Carter commission is a perfect example.

Two years ago, Levine spoke with Carter, one of his favorite composers, and reminded him that the BSO had a strong horn player. Perhaps he would want to compose a work for him? Carter agreed. He began sending pages to Sommerville, and eventually invited him to his studio in New York to test out the piece. Carter was pleased to hear Sommerville play some of the faster passages.

"I was surprised, and delighted," says Carter, recalling the meeting in a phone interview.

Sommerville describes the concerto as "episodic": six sections stretched over about 15 minutes.

"It has a real cool kind of progression of characters, from an aggressive character to a joking character," he says. "There's some lyrical writing for the instrument, which is not what I think he's known for. What is characteristic of his style is this brilliant orchestration. He uses a ton of contrasts and sudden changes and very intricate rhythms."

Would Sommerville ever want to conduct the Carter concerto?

"Not," he says, with a smile, "while I'm playing."

Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com. For more on the arts, visit boston.com/ae/theater_arts/exhibitionist.

[bhodges]

Great article--thanks for posting it, Joe.  Agree with Sommerville's assessment of the instrument as "precarious."  And loved this about the piece itself:

"It has a real cool kind of progression of characters, from an aggressive character to a joking character," he says. "There's some lyrical writing for the instrument, which is not what I think he's known for. What is characteristic of his style is this brilliant orchestration. He uses a ton of contrasts and sudden changes and very intricate rhythms."

Can't wait for your comments on it!

--Bruce

[Joe Barron]

Yeah, but all recent Carter pieces are episodic, brilliantly orchestrated, and alternately aggressive, lyrical (more frequently than Sommerville seems to think) and jokey, with a ton of contrasts and intricate rhythms --- much as all late Haydn symphonies are in four movements with slow introductions, trios and brisk finales. Reading Sommerville's description, I can almost hear the piece in my head. 

[karlhenning]

There's a Horn Concerto in my mind, / And I hope it never stops . . . .

[Joe Barron]

Horn concerto? Qu'est-ce que c'est?

[bhodges]

Just listened again to the Boston Concerto and Dialogues, on that Bridge CD, Vol. 7--what a fantastic recording this is.  The playing by all concerned is just beyond praise, and the recording is exceptionally clear.  (As a sound engineering geek, I notice that they were both recorded at the BBC Maida Vale Studio 1, by Tryggvi Tryggvason, a name new to me.)

--Bruce

[Joe Barron]

Globe review of the Carter premiere. Looking forward to it more thyan ever now.

Basking in a composer's Indian summer
By Jeremy Eichler

Globe Staff / November 16, 2007

Elliott Carter's own centenary is around the corner, but the composer seems to be the last person taking time to reflect. At 98, he has been churning out new works faster than orchestras are able to program them.

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For its part, the Boston Symphony Orchestra under James Levine has been basking in Carter's long, warm Indian summer. Last night in Symphony Hall, Levine led the BSO in the world premiere of Carter's Horn Concerto, a work commissioned by the orchestra for principal horn player James Sommerville. And already, the next Carter premiere is cued up, as he has apparently completed work on a piano concerto that the orchestra will present next season. Between now and then, the BSO and the Tanglewood Music Center will present a five-day Carter festival at Tanglewood this summer.

But more impressive than the composer's productivity has been the vitality of the music he has been writing. The new Horn Concerto is no exception. It is a 15-minute work with seven sections that run together without pause. The orchestra part is often spare by Carter's standards, with bright dabs of color flashing up from the strings, woodwinds, or early on, the percussion. Carter gives the soloist a workout in some rapid figurations, but the dominant character of this piece is surprisingly lyrical. In one striking passage, the horn part meanders above very delicately tinctured brass chorales, but throughout, Carter uses the horn's long solo lines as opportunities for vivid experiments in timbre, as if challenging the soloist to see how many masks he can don in quick succession. Sommerville rose gamely to the challenge, navigating the passagework with apparent ease and demonstrating a wide kaleidoscope of tone, by turns powerfully focused, darkly veiled, raspy and aggressive, and brightly gleaming. The composer was on hand to take two bows, smiling widely, and then surely repairing off to write more music.

Before the Carter, the concert opened with a big-boned reading of Haydn's Symphony No. 104. The playing was mostly clear and well-characterized, but there was something less than fresh about this approach. Levine is evidently skeptical of many of the insights that have trickled into most mainstream orchestras from the early music movement, but in this case, he and the orchestra needed to make the stylistic counterargument more persuasively.

The night ended with another superb performance of a Mahler symphony. Last week, it was the epic Ninth. This week, it is the more modest First, yet a work that still showed off this marvelous orchestra at its best. Levine's reading was full of rich detail and dynamic subtlety. The delicate yet warm ribbon of pianissimo sound that the first violins produced in the opening movement was something to be heard. So was Lawrence Wolfe's haunting bass solo to begin the third movement. The finale was well-paced and full of blazing brass, including eight horns that stood up at the designated moment. Soon thereafter, the audience followed suit.

[not edward]

And already, the next Carter premiere is cued up, as he has apparently completed work on a piano concerto that the orchestra will present next season.

Now this sounds interesting!

[bhodges]

Now this sounds interesting!

No kidding!  And at almost 99 years old...unbelievable. 

--Bruce

[springrite]

I almost bought the Carter book while I was in Toronto, but bulked when I considered that the book was written so many years ago and, with so many later Carter works, I really should wait for a later book.



Maybe I should have bought it...

[bhodges]

I almost bought the Carter book while I was in Toronto, but bulked when I considered that the book was written so many years ago and, with so many later Carter works, I really should wait for a later book.



Maybe I should have bought it...

No, no--don't hesitate.  You're right: it doesn't include some of the latest stuff, but it's an invaluable companion to much of his older work.  Very well written, with lots of illustrations (i.e., score excerpts). 

--Bruce

[Joe Barron]

Program notes for the Horn Concerto may be accessed here.