After the four concerts I have attended in the past few days, I can no longer entertain any doubts --- that is, doubts from others --- about the cogency, coherence, and, yes, lovableness of Elliott Carter's music, especially when it is performed with the enthusiasm I have seen from the Tanglewood fellows. Mr. Carter. who has attended all of the performances so far, appears delighted. He was beaming Sunday morning at Megan Levin, the harpist in Luimen, who gave a confident account of her solo passages. I'm going to miss the kids when the BSO takes over Thursday night. it seems unfair that they should be shouldered aside by some jaded professionals after all they've been doing.
The past two days have gone by quickly, but they've felt full once they're over. I lot has been going on. There were two concerts Sunday. Yesterday morning, I attended Knussen'a rehearsal of Carter's Concerto for Orchestra. The rehearsal was closed, but Jerry Kuderna, a pianist from the West Coast whom I met in Minneapolis in 2006, received an invitation from Knussen and brought me along. Knussen started at the finale and worked backwards, fine tuning the musicians' phrasings, then ran through the piece twice from begining to end. Unfortuanely, I heard only the last two thirds of each, since my car had broken down, and I had to keep running to the parking lot to call my auto service and await the tow truck. (The car is fine now. in fact, it was fine the whole time. The problem was a small one--- a loose connection on the battery.) What I heard, however, was brilliant, and wonderfully loud, and I'm looking forward to the performance tomorrow night.
With so much going on, it's hard to pick out highlights, but a few do stick in the mind. Sunday evening, Stefan Asbury led a powerful, sweeping performance of the Variations for Orchestra. Jerry, who performed the Piano Concerto in Berkeley in 2005, fell in love with the conductor's control and was thinking of asking him to collaborate. Some of teh phrasing wasn't as sensistive as I would have liked, particularly in the brass and winds, but it hardly mattered in light of the music's momentum and the huge, glorious orchestral sound.
Asbury also led the premiere of Sound Fields, a brief work for string orchestra. The title comes from Helen Frankenthaler's color field paintings. The music is marked mp throughout. There is no vibrato, no crescendi, no climaxes. Dynamics occur solely through the thicking and thinning of the textures --- adding an subtracting instruments. It's a lovely piece. Frank Oteri referred to it as Feldmanesque, but as I'm not familiar with Feldman, it reminded me of The Unanswered Question, but without the questions, and without the answers. I predict it will be the first of Mr. Carter's pieces ever to be used in a commercial movie. Asbury repeated the performance, gfranting our wish to hear the piece twice.
Thanks for the vivid report, Joe! (And sorry that automobile woes intervened.) I've heard Asbury conduct a number of times and he's terrific--that Variations would have been great to hear.
And I don't think I've heard Sound Fields at all. Yet another item to get to know...
All sounds like a fantastic weekend. Sorry I couldn't join you!
--Bruce
Splendid, Joe!
I read this with great interest. Could you or another Carter aficionado recommend a work to start with?
There are so many!
What genre(s) are you most likely to enjoy? (I.e., orchestral, chamber music, song cycles, etc.) That might help narrow it down a bit.
--Bruce
I like all genres, basically. I love a string quartet as much as a symphony or a song cycle. Perhaps you could name some of the peaks in these genres? Or is the quality so even that it's difficult to choose? I guess that in such a long composing career as Carter's there will be stylistic changes - are there more approachable works and more recondite ones? That could give you another means of 'narrowing down'...
(PM received)
I'm going to have to do this report in sections, because I'm working at the Lenox Library, and I get only 30 minutes at the computer per sitting. You'll notice the reports seem rushed.
Sunday was hot, but after a thunderstorms in the evening, it has been cooling off. The temperature is expected to go up only to 80 today. The library music room, where I am filing this copy, is not air-conditioned, but I'm sitting in front of an open window, and I'm not at all uncomfortable.
For the Berkshires in summer, Mr. Carter favors brightly colored pullover shirts with wide suspenders. At last night's performance, he was wearing blue shorts. He looked all set to move to Florida.
Following Carter's music is like following the Grateful Dead. No matter where you go for a festival, you always see the same faces --- David Schiff, frank Oteri, John Link, Charles Rosen, Ursula Oppens, and of course, me. It's like a private club, but one with so much clout that James Levine organized a five day festival for them. The performances have all been well attended. The back wall of Ozawa Hall opens like a carriage house door, and many listeners have been sitting on the grass behind. The audiences seem weighted toward musicians, however, and talk during the breaks is usually erudite, which is fine with me. After Sunday evenings concert, I mentioned that I seem to be the only nonmusician in attendance, but I was quickly corrected by a man who teaches psychology at Harvard. His wife, too, deined any special knowledge.
Yesterday, Monday, Oppens and Rosen played Carter's two big piano pieces at a 5 p.m. recital. Oppens also played Ma-tribute, a two-minute bagatelle written for James Levine's mother. Levine was scheduled to play it, but with his health problems he had to pass it off. It reminded me somewhat of 90+, with singel isolated notices poking through a sonic matrix.
Much as I liked the Night Fantaises and the Sonata, but I was beat from worrying about the car and standing in the sun all day, and I wasn't listening and judging as much as letting the music wash over me. Afterward, I went back to my motel for a nap and returned, refreshed, for the 8 p.m. performance. The conductor Stefan Asbury shone once again. In the first half, he led the Triple Duo and Syringa, two mature but emotionally contrasting works Carter wrote only four years apart. The one is playful, almost bouncy, the other cathartic. Some of the familiar Carter hands I saw during intermission seemed humbled afterwards. All they could do was marvel at the performance. The effect stayed with us throughout the intermission.
I was seated in a side box, level with and to the right of the stage, which turned out to be the perfect position for listening to Syringa. In my perspective, the mezzo-soprano, Kristen Hoff, was in the foreground, with the bass, Evan Hughes, across the stage angled slightly in front of her. Since the bass comments, in Greek, on the English poem (by John Ashbery) sung by the mezzo-soprano, the visual line complemented the musical intention. I could see both singer's faces without shifting my glance, and I rarely took my eyes off them for the entire piece.
In the second half, Lucy Shelton appeared in Temp e tempi, Carter's brief song cycle on Italian poems. It contains some of the most sensuous vocal and instrumental music he's ever written, and the contrast with Syringa was illuminating. The songs that make up Tempo e tempi are miniature gems, some no more than a line or two long. They nake their point succinctly and delightfully and then stop. At twenty minutes, Syringa is much more spacious. It starts small and begins to roll slowly, gathering momentum to the great climax at the passage for bass that begins, "Apollo, Apollo." Last night's reading was so overpowering, though, that the second half of the program almost seemed like an appendix.
The evening ended with Asbury back on stage leading the fellows in the Penthode for twenty players, which feels like an expansion of the Triple Duo, or maybe a calmer, more intimate version of the Concerto for Orchestra. The oldest person on stage was Virgil Blackwell, who took the part for bass clarinet. Surrounded by all the young players, he reminded me of a substitute teacher.
The level of playing has been consistently high. In a panel discussion yesterday, Oliver Knussen said the young musicians, who are devoting a full three weeks to Carter's music, are having a blast. The acoustics in Ozawa Hall are very live, so much so that percussion has been drowning out other instruments on occasion, but that's a minor problem when the sound is so three-dimensional, so present. During the intermission Sunday morning, after a performance of the Asko Concerto, David Schiff observed that there's something poignant about seeing Carter's music perfromed. The stage not only gives the sound more space to occupy, in a way a a pair of stereo speakers does not, but the distances also emphasize the isolation of the solo instruments within the larger group. Two instruments playing a duet from opposite sides of the platform might want to connect, but they can never succeed completely.
Quote from: bhodges on July 22, 2008, 07:22:37 AM
And I don't think I've heard Sound Fields at all. Yet another item to get to know...
Well, it
was a premiere, Bruce. ;)
Jezetha, I always recommend starting with the music Mr. Carter wrote in the 50s and late 40s: the piano, cello and harpsichord sonatas, the Etudes and a Fanstasy for wind quartet, and the Variations for Orcehstra. They're fully mature pieces, but they have enoough traditional sounding elements keep you grounded. They'll accustom you to Mr. Cater's idiom and prepare you for the more radical works that follow.
Thank you, Joe (if I may call you that). I am enjoying your letter very much, they bring the whole thing alive. GMG is fortunate.
Johan
Quote from: Joe Barron on July 22, 2008, 08:24:20 AM
Following Carter's music is like following the Grateful Dead.
You mean, he's a British agent?
(<-- obscure Mel Gibson reference)
Joe, you are (in the finest sense) an animal!
Bravo, Joe! You are just a fountain of good reading today. I like this comment:
The stage not only gives the sound more space to occupy, in a way a a pair of stereo speakers does not, but the distances also emphasize the isolation of the solo instruments within the larger group. Two instruments playing a duet from opposite sides of the platform might want to connect, but they can never succeed completely.
And doh :-[...didn't realize Sound Fields was a premiere. ;D
Johan, since you mention string quartets an inexpensive CD (released just last January) is the Pacifica Quartet in Nos. 1 (1941) and 5 (1995). Joe has a very comprehensive review on Amazon, here (http://www.amazon.com/review/R1MNAT3HSYOLVG/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm). (I have the Composers Quartet in No. 1 and the Ardittis in No. 5, both good, but the Naxos is a bargain.)
I would second Joe's recommendation to start with his earlier works, just so you get a feel for the "platform" from which he launched his career.
--Bruce
Thanks, Bruce! I was just checking eMusic, and listened to a few snippets of the First Quartet only moments ago...
Well Joe, I must say, if I weren't already a big Carter aficionado already (since around 1972), I would be in the store already, buying all the Carter CDs I could find.
I've only had two chances to hear his music live, and those were both just as splendid as what you're describing.
Hurrah for good music, eh?
I just hope they're warning off all the pregnant mothers, Michael, lest their unborn babies be irritated by all the unseemly dissonance, which they are "hard-wired" to get the fantods over ;)
Quote from: Joe Barron on July 22, 2008, 08:24:20 AM
For the Berkshires in summer, Mr. Carter favors brightly colored pullover shirts with wide suspenders. At last night's performance, he was wearing blue shorts. He looked all set to move to Florida.
The idea of Carter in blue shorts would have been worth the price of admission. (I've never seen him in other than suit and tie.)
I enjoy your good fortune, my man. Were it not for deadlines at work and lack of funds, I would have come up myself. Can't tell you how much I'd love to hear the Concerto for Orchestar live. :'(
Quote from: karlhenning on July 22, 2008, 09:23:55 AM
I just hope they're warning off all the pregnant mothers, Michael, lest their unborn babies be irritated by all the unseemly dissonance, which they are "hard-wired" to get the fantods over ;)
The earlier you start them listening, the better. I've always thought exposure to Carter should begin in the womb.
WednesdaySteady rain today, which scotched my plan to go for a bike ride in the Berskhires. Brining the bike was a mistake. I got out only once, on Sunday afternoon, and got two flat tires.
Oliver Knussen said: I wrote Carter a fan letter years ago that I wish I could forget. This during a panel discussion Monday with Fred Sherry and the critic from the Boston Globe. He hid his bearded face in one of his beefy hands when he said it. I thanked him for the comment, since the first time I ever met Carter, in 1976, I made a slight joke about the Duo for violin and piano. (The line itself will be lost to history.) Carter replied, "What do you mean by that?" I've felt self-conscious and gushy every time I've spoken to him, and I haven't yet had the nerve to approach him this week.
David Schiff said: Some of Carter's work is lucid and easy to grasp on first hearing, and some is difficult and requires repeated listening before it becomes clear. The Triple Duo accessible and engaging to him immediately, but the Fourth Quartet was a puzzle, and to some extent still is. (John Link, sitting next to him, said his impressions were just the opposite.) What is strange, he said, is that on a technical level, there is no difference between the easy and the hard pieces. The notes and the rhythms are all very much the same. The cause of the difference in accessibility is elusive.
Two strong programs yesterday. In the 5 p.m. chamber recital, Megan Levin, the harpist who delighted Carter Sunday in Luimen, and oboist Nicholas Stoval, gave an outstanding account of the Trilogy, one of my favorite of Mr. Carter's late chamber pieces. (As I've said in the past, it's astonishing how Mr. Carter manages to say something substantive with such a diaphanous combination, and at nineteen minutes, the piece is more filling than some of his other occasional works.) Levin approaches the harp in a way I can describe only as aggressive. She puts muscle into what is usually a delicate sound. The program ended with the crazy Catenaires, which Sandra Gu made to seem effortless. Jerry Kuderna, who was hearing the piece for the first time, said he never would have identified the work as Carter's if he hadn't known the composer beforehand. It reminded him of Ligeti, but it does strike me as Carterian, if not typical, recent Carter, then older Carter --- specifically, the one of the etudes for wind quartet in which the instruments play nothing but a rising half step, in eighth notes, followed by a rest. The whirling effect is created by the interweaving of a simple, repeated pattern. Catenaires follows much the same trajectory, only with runs up and down the scale.
Other pieces on the program were Figments I and II for solo cello, Esprit rude I and II, Au Quai for basson and viola, and the Intermittances, all memorably performed.
We were sorry Carter did not attend the afternoon performance, but he was on hand in the evening, as was the poet John Ashbery, for the premiere of Mad-regales, Carter's first piece for a capella voices in 60 years. It's scored for six singers, and it felt like a set of 21st century madrigals (hence the word play in the title, I suspect). It lasts about nine minutes and consists of three Ashbery settings: eight of the 37 Haiku, Meditations of a Parrot, and At North Farm. In the first piece, one or two of the haiku are assigned to each singer, with the others vocalizing sustained chords. In Meditations of a Parrot, the lines again are shared among the soloists and duets, and the parrot's catch phrase, Robin Hood! Robin Hood!, is repeated throughout. Some members of the audience gave an appreciative chuckle at the end. At North Farm is the first vocal piece of Carter's I can recall that breaks up the text. Normally, he aims for a conversational effect, setting poems straight through from beginning to end with no repetition. Here, lines and fragments of lines recur, as in a baroque aria, or more accurately, a madrigal. The singers did it twice, at the request, conductor Jeffrey Milarsky said, of a special person. He didn't say who, but I assume it was Ashbery. It's a delightful piece. I wish Carter would write a few more, and that they will be recorded soon.
The program also included two major song cycles: In the Distances of Sleep, on poems by Wallace Stevens, and A Mirror on Which to Dwell, on poems of Elizabeth Bishop. Mezzo in the first was Kate Lindsey. The soprano in the second was Jo Ellen Miller. Both sang beautifully. Lindsay was the more dramatic and in character, I thought, but Miller was the more lyrical. I was most impressed with "Re-statement of Romance" in Distances. It's a sort of love song with a string accompaniment that is as romantic as Carter ever gets, like distilled Wagner.
(Have you noticed how all new, unfamiliar music must be described in terms of the familiar? Schiff said he heard echoes of Mahler in Sound Fields, though Link agreed with me that it reminded him of The Unanswered Questions. He said he considered asking if Carter had considered adding a trumpet and woodwinds, but he lacked the courage.)
Yesterday's program also included Mosaic for harp and chamber orchestra, with Ann Hobson Pilot as soloist, and the Sonata for Flute, Oboe Cello and Harpsichord, which was the only piece on the program older than I am. Of course, A Mirror on Which to Dwell is also a little older, but it didn't seem out of place, since it was the first of the great song cycles Carter has written over the past thirty years, the direct ancestor of In the Distances of Sleep. Still, the sonata is a wonderful piece, and it's always good to hear, even if it is being used as a appetizer.
And thanks for this update, Joe! As an aside, it's great that a few pieces are being repeated on these concerts, a good decision when dealing with music that may be unfamiliar to many in the audience.
Here (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/arts/music/23cart.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all) is Allan Kozinn's review in today's New York Times of the concerts on Sunday and Monday. Nice photos, too.
--Bruce
My thanks, too. (And to Bruce for the link.)
P.S. As a Stevensian I have to ask - which poems have been set in In the Distances of Sleep?!
Quote from: Joe Barron on July 23, 2008, 07:56:56 AM
(Have you noticed how all new, unfamiliar music must be described in terms of the familiar? Schiff said he heard echoes of Mahler in Sound Fields, though Link agreed with me that it reminded him of The Unanswered Questions. He said he considered asking if Carter had considered adding a trumpet and woodwinds, but he lacked the courage.)
Consider this exchange in an interview with
Charles Wuorinen:
QuoteIs there anything an audience should know before listening to Syntaxis, especially if it is their first encounter with your language?
First of all, what is the audience? People talk about the public, but the public consists of so many different kinds of people who are separated by age, by economic status, by geographical location, not to mention musical knowledge. A knowledgeable listener does not have to be concerned with "technical details," because such a person can follow the musical discourse, whether it is an old one or a new one. What is necessary for someone sitting in the audience is familiarity, and that is, by definition, ruled out for a new piece. I always say to people, "Just relax, and don't worry about anything," because there is nothing I can say in a couple of minutes, or a couple of hours for that matter, that is going to substitute for familiarity, with my work, or with new music in general.
No substitute for familiarity . . . hence, perhaps, the tendency to describe what we are hearing for the first time, in terms of similarity to that with which we are already familiar.
Quote from: Jezetha on July 23, 2008, 08:18:52 AM
P.S. As a Stevensian I have to ask - which poems have been set in In the Distances of Sleep?!
Possibly related to recent viewing of Bovine Aviation, but I read this at first as
In the Distances of Sheep.
Quote from: karlhenning on July 23, 2008, 08:23:08 AM
No substitute for familiarity . . . hence, perhaps, the tendency to describe what we are hearing for the first time, in terms of similarity to that with which we are already familiar.
What we know is a foundation and a yardstick - with more listening experience the foundation gets broader and the yardstick undergoes further refinement. Yesterday I heard Carter's Piano Sonata for the first time ever - I could only relate it to jazz and Scriabin.
Quote from: karlhenning on July 23, 2008, 08:25:30 AM
Possibly related to recent viewing of Bovine Aviation, but I read this at first as In the Distances of Sheep.
And even that could be Stevensian...
Quote from: Jezetha on July 23, 2008, 08:43:49 AM
What we know is a foundation and a yardstick - with more listening experience the foundation gets broader and the yardstick undergoes further refinement. Yesterday I heard Carter's Piano Sonata for the first time ever - I could only relate it to jazz and Scriabin.
I meant to say yesterday that I like the jazz and Scriabin reference. It's vivid and apt, so hey, why not?
--Bruce
What kind of jazz? 8)
Joe,
Your reporting should have been picked off the wire by the NY Times as your coverage trumped theirs.
Quote from: karlhenning on July 23, 2008, 08:53:11 AM
What kind of jazz? 8)
The 'whiter' Gershwin variant, if you really want to know... 8) (That isn't 'jazz' in the strict sense, of course, but I heard that same, very American combination, of jazz and art music in Carter.)
I found the work immediately approachable.
Quote from: Jezetha on July 23, 2008, 09:06:23 AM
The 'whiter' Gershwin variant, if you really want to know... 8)
I am glad to know, to be sure, apart from the point that
jazz is a broad spectrum :)
Quote from: JohanI found the work immediately approachable.
Excellent!
The poems set in In the Distances of Sleep are Puella Parvula, Metamorphosis, Re-statement of Romance, The Wind Shifts, To The Roaring Wind, and God Is Good. It Is a Beautiful Night.
The percussionist Aziz Bernard Luce removed his shoes during the Triple Duo to soften his footsteps as he hustled from instrument to instrument.
The audience at Tuesday evening's concert contained a larger than usual number of children about 11 or 12 years old. During the intermission, a knot of them clogged the lefthand aisle next to Carter's seat, holding their programs, hoping for a close-up glimpse and an autograph.
Carter's son, David, is attending the concerts. It turns out he is as big a Marx Brothers fan as I am.
Today is Thursday
Last night, Oliver Knussen conducted the Concerto for Orchestra during an electrical storm. Thunder set the mood during the intermission, but it slacked off by the time the music started, leaving the rumbling to the percussion battery. The lightning continued, however, and for the first half of the piece, we could see the blue flashes through the high, vertical windows that rise behind the stage.
I sat dead center near the back of the hall, because I wanted to the entire orchestra and get a full, even sound. There were some balance problems. I couldn't hear the chimes in the finale, and some of the pizzicati in the higher strings were lost. Some entrances weren't as sharp as they could have been, and at one point especially, a slack entrance in the winds seemed to throw off the momentum. But such flaws don't count for much when you're listening to a spirited performance of one of the greatest orchestral works of the twentieth century. I was buzzed for hours afterward, and I'm still in a good mood this morning. I feel as though ... well, we're all adults here.
The program opened with Ryan Wigglesworth conducting the Three Occasions. It's never been one of my favorite of Carter's works, but I am very alive to all the music this week, and I quite enjoyed it. The trombone solo in the second movement was a standout. Fred Sherry also gave his usual, penetrating account of the Cello Concerto, but the Concerto for Orchestra wiped out the memory of it, at least for the rest of the evening.
In the afternoon, a pickup group played the great Second Quartet in a little wooden hall known as the chamber shed. It was a shimmering performance. The older this piece gets, the more beauty musicians seem to find in it. I congratulated the violist afterward, and he said his group was lucky because of all of Carter's quartets, they got to play the easy one.
Phil Lesh, the bass player for the Grateful Dead and an avid Carterian, attended last night's performance. (One comes to these festivals in part for the pleasure of dropping names afterward.) We chatted a bit during intermission, and he laughed when I told him my observation that following Carter is like following the Dead. He coined the term Carterhead, and I didn't mention I had been using the word for the past three days. He said the Concerto for Orchestra directly expresses the political and social turmoil of the 1960s, even though, in an interview Lesh conducted with him a few years ago, Carter denied it. Lesh said that for him, the Concerto is 1968.
Quote from: karlhenning on July 23, 2008, 08:25:30 AM
Possibly related to recent viewing of Bovine Aviation, but I read this at first as In the Distances of Sheep.
Ovine, Karl. ;)
So many cool details in your report, Joe: the electrical storm, the kids wanting Carter's autograph...and the news (to me) that Phil Lesh likes Carter.
Really fine coverage of these concerts...and making me wish I could have gone. :'(
--Bruce
You are fortunate to be there, Joe, and we are fortunate to read your vivid account every day! Thanks for the details of In the Distances of Sleep, I'll have a look at the poems again.
Btw - Phil Lesh is also a great Brian fan... The Grateful Dead contributed money to several Marco Polo recordings of Brian's symphonies in the 1980s and 90s (the Gothic among them).
Quote from: bhodges on July 24, 2008, 08:11:27 AM
So many cool details in your report, Joe: the electrical storm, the kids wanting Carter's autograph...and the news (to me) that Phil Lesh likes Carter.
I remember all the people (including moi) hovering around Carter's seat at the Miller Theater c. 5 years back when the Pacifica did all the quartets. Carter was in a very peppery mood during that intermission, grumbling things like "Now you've got the autograph, you can go home" and "I shouldn't be writing my name so much, I should be writing music." I suppose he was a little cross at being pestered by so many people that night. The next afternoon, I spoke to him briefly at the 92nd St. Y before a Charles Rosen Beethoven recital, and he was as genial as could be.
Joe, if you have any chance of seeing Knussen, please ask him to bring the CfO and Double Concerto to NYC. Those two pieces and the Symphony for 3 Orchestras are the major Carter works I've never heard live, and I'd love to hear them at Carnegie.
I saw Carter at a Tanglewood concert a few years ago, and I couldn't think of anything to say to him, so I pestered him for an autograph. He acted annoyed and signed on my program book right over a bunch of text so it would be illegible.
I figured "well, how many times do you get to annoy a guy like that?"
In my previous post, I stated that Fred Sherry gave a typically penetrating account of the Cello Concerto. What I meant to say is that Fred Sherry gave a typically penetrating account of the Cello Concerto while wearing the ugliest shirt I have ever seen.
Friday, the last
The great Carter festival of 2008 ended on a sour note — literally. The Symphonia, the last piece performed, ends with a solo piccolo playing a high G sharp, pianissimo. At the very last moment, the piccolist (is that the word?), trying to soften her tone, lost the strength in her lips and dropped an octave. It was noticeable, though not fatal, coming after almost an hour of wonderful music, and Mr. Carter received his standing ovation and his cheers nonetheless.
I was afraid that after the ferocity of the Concerto the final concert, held last night, would be an anticlimax. It seemed to be going that way until Ollie Knussen took the stage in the second half to conduct the Symphonia. The Partita, while not as intense as the Concerto, still drew me in with its energy. After five days I was glutted with music and almost exhausted emotionally. It was going to take a triple spt of caffeine to revivie me, and the BSO did not provide it. It did provide something just as effective, and healthier as well: fresh air.
In addition to the Symphonia, the program consisted of the Three Illusion, the Horn Concerto and the Boston Concerto, all of which are expansive and relaxed compared with the Concerto for Orchestra. But relaxation was needed at the end of such a full week.
What struck me more than anything at the last concert was just how beautifully Mr. Carter's late music is scored. (All of the music on last night's program date3s from the past two decades. The earliest, the Partita, was completed in June 1993.) Regardless of what one could say about structure or content or harmony — and of course, there is always much to say — it is Mr. Carter's creative combinations of instruments that persist in the memory. In the Horn Concerto, for example, there's a beautiful passage in which the soloist plays against a passage of muted brass. And throughout all the pieces, percussion was used for color rather than emphasis.
With all the music and panel discussions, I didn't have much time for sightseeing, though I stop by Edith Wharton's estate, known as The Mount, Thursday afternoon and stood in the room in which she wrote Ethan Frome and The House of Mirth. I was the road right after the final performance and drove through the night to Ossining, New York, where I stayed at my sister's overnight. Radio reception was clear while I was on the Taconic Parkway. I had the dial set to WQXR, which, like most classical stations, becomes more adventurous after midnight. I got to hear Ralph Shapey's Partita for solo violin, and I was listening to Ned Rorem's Second Piano Concerto as I pulled up to my sister's gated community.
It was just after one A.M. when I walked in her front door. I regret I didn't to stop on the back roads of New York to gaze at the stars for a half hour or so. I have never seen them so bright.
Some randomly selected thoughts gleaned from Mr. Carter's interview Thursday afternoon with Richard Dyer, former music critic of the Boston Globe:
On Winds, by St. John Perse, excerpts from which are printed on in the score of the Concerto for Orchestra, "I'm not sure I like it anymore, but I like my music better."
On the technical aspects of music: "Here we are talking a complex grammar, and we never say anything about it. English isn't as bad a Greek, but it's pretty bad."
On his relatonship with James Levine: "My music helps me make friends, which I don't do so easily."
On the new clarity and classicism of his late music: "As I get older, I'm more impatient than I was when I was younger."
On musical ideas: "Even now, I'm trying to keep my mind off of them."
On the Adagio Tenebroso: "I thought if many sad things and wrote about it, that's all."
"I'm not happy unless I'm scratching those notes on paper."
On this last point: A collection of photographs, letters and manuscript pages from Mr. Carter's long life and career was on display this week at the Tanglewood visitors center. The last item in the exhibition was the final page of Interventions, Mr. Carter's new piano concerto, which is scheduled for premiere in December. What struck me was how firm, precise and small Mr. Carter's handwriting still is. There isn't the slightest tremor.
Quote from: Jezetha on July 24, 2008, 08:19:04 AMBtw - Phil Lesh is also a great Brian fan... The Grateful Dead contributed money to several Marco Polo recordings of Brian's symphonies in the 1980s and 90s (the Gothic among them).
Knussen's recording of Carter's Concerto for Orchestra was funded by the Dead's Rex Foundation.
Oh, PS. Until I looked at tiny reproduction of first page of Mad-regales printed in the program, I didn't realize that the background vocalizing in the 8 Haiku is done on the syllables "Hai-ku." Cute.
Quote from: Joe Barron on July 22, 2008, 07:10:21 AM
Asbury also led the premiere of Sound Fields, a brief work for string orchestra. The title comes from Helen Frankenthaler's color field paintings. The music is marked mp throughout. There is no vibrato, no crescendi, no climaxes. Dynamics occur solely through the thicking and thinning of the textures --- adding an subtracting instruments. It's a lovely piece. Frank Oteri referred to it as Feldmanesque, but as I'm not familiar with Feldman, it reminded me of The Unanswered Question, but without the questions, and without the answers. I predict it will be the first of Mr. Carter's pieces ever to be used in a commercial movie. Asbury repeated the performance, gfranting our wish to hear the piece twice.
Your description of this work makes me want to hear it even more sorely than I already did. Was there any mention of a future recording of it? I assume that these concerts were not broadcast on the radio...
Thankyou for these fantastic reviews. It sounds like you had a great time. News of the piano concerto is exciting indeed - it will be fascinating to hear how he approaches his genre 40 years after the first concerto (remembering the Dialogues of course). I wish he'd write a second cello sonata too so that we could have one at the beginning and end of his maturity. Well I can dream!
Quote from: Guido on July 25, 2008, 07:33:58 PM
... it will be fascinating to hear how he approaches his genre 40 years after the first concerto (remembering the Dialogues of course).
There was also Soundings, so Interventions is really Mr. Carter's fourth piano concerto. Jerry Kuderna approached Mr. Carter during the frestival and reminded him that he had played Mr. Carter's Piano Concerto in 2005. Carter snapped back, "Which one?" There is something contrary about the old man. It can sound unpleasant if you don't understand the dialectic behind it. During one of the discussions, Schiff said Carter tends to approach subjects negatively, but only to reach what Schiff called a larger positivity. Carter once told him Verdi's Falstaff was a "terrible piece." When Schiff expressed surpise and wondered what he could possibly say that about one of Verdi's greatest works, Carter replied that at the end of the opera, the characters sing that life is nothing but a joke. How can life life be a joke, Carter wantd to know, when it offers such wonderful music as there is in Falstaff?
Allan Kozinn's review in the Times may be seen here. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/arts/music/26cont.html?pagewanted=1&tntemail1=y&_r=1&emc=tnt) He gets everything right, I think, and it's heartening to realize that a reviewer for a major daily requires recourse to as many empty adjectives --- superb, velvety, fluid (twice!) --- as I do.
I was also pleased to learn the name of the Times's photographer, since I knocked over his camera before the last program. The dolt had left it leaning, on a unipod, against the hand rail at the bottom of a set of stairs. It was a booby trap, and I walked into it. Not even knowing it was there, since I was scanning the crowd for familiar faces, I brushed against it, and it fell to the floor, lens first, with a crash. Fortunately, the lens didn't break, though I wouldn't have felt guilty if it had. It was a deeply embarrassing moment.
I realize this might have been a great week for music and ideas, but it was lousy for phsycial objects. First the bike, then the car, then that damned camera.
As Wallace Stevens said in Notes toward a Supreme Fiction: It Must Be Abstract
Now I know why.
Edit: Which was my 'amusing' take on "I realize this might have been a great week for music and ideas, but it was lousy for phsycial objects. First the bike, then the car, then that damned camera."
Many of the concerts were filmed, I'm told, and they may be seen here. (http://www.bso.org/bso/mods/toc_01_gen_noSubCat.jsp?id=bcat12990004)
I haven't watched them, since I've been home only a day, and I'm still recuperating.
Thanks for this link!
Quote from: Jezetha on July 26, 2008, 04:28:58 AM
Thanks for this link!
Yes, and for all the posts on the festival.
Oooh. I knew that the performance of
What Next? from 2006 had been filmed, but I didn't realise they had a DVD of it for sale. Sold!
I don't understand this board. I did a spell check on very post, and they're still full of errors.
OMG, Joe, thanks for posting that link! I probably would have never known they had made these performances available. Right now listening to Call. Just checked the menu and will have to check out the Variations for Orchestra next--how totally great that they filmed these.
--Bruce
Quote from: bhodges on July 27, 2008, 06:39:41 PM
OMG, Joe, thanks for posting that link! I probably would have never known they had made these performances available. Right now listening to Call. Just checked the menu and will have to check out the Variations for Orchestra next--how totally great that they filmed these.--Bruce
Yeah, now I wonder why I bothered going. :(
Quote from: Joe Barron on July 27, 2008, 06:46:13 PM
Yeah, now I wonder why I bothered going. :(
;D
Nyah...although the sound is excellent, I'm sure it was
much better in person. And the video isn't all that great. (The audio is fine.) I'm listening to the
Variations now and it looks like an incredible performance.
--Bruce
Quote from: Joe Barron on July 27, 2008, 06:46:13 PM
Yeah, now I wonder why I bothered going. :(
Two words:
Phil Lesh
Quote from: karlhenning on July 28, 2008, 04:16:02 AM
Two words: Phil Lesh
Yes, you're right. That is two words.
Thankyou Joe! Now, there must be some way of extracting the audio from online videos...
Quote from: Guido on August 01, 2008, 11:29:35 AM
Thankyou Joe! Now, there must be some way of extracting the audio from online videos...
Is there any way to download both audio and video to burn a DVD?
Yes... I would love to do that too.
Since returning from Massachusetts I have wanted to do two things: read more poetry and brush up on my French. The poetry because Carter has written many great songs using the work of great poets: Ashbery, Bishop, Stevens, Lowell and Dickinson. He is now working on a new song cycle on Pound's Pisan Cantos. I have read some poetry, but certainly not as much as Mr. Carter has. My problem is I don't understand much of it. It requires slow reading and many rereadings, and I don't have the patience to linger over a single page for an hour trying to absorb meaning. And when I do, I'm usually unsuccessful, anyway. In any event, though, over the past couple of weeks I've been reading the comp[lete poems of Kennth Fearing, and I've memorized Fearing's poem Pay-off.
It is well known that Carter speaks French fluently, but my desire to study the language has nothing to do with that. It comes from a little French Candadian girl who annoyed the hell out of me at the Lenox library. (YOu hear a lot of French in western Massachusetts.) She was sitting between me and her mother at the computer station while I was trying to post on this board, and she got into some kind of quarrel with her little sister, who was standing behind her and was also being antsy. She swiveled her chair petulantly, and the back of the chair kept hitting me in the elbow. I wanted to turn to her and say, "Arrete! Sois calme. Je ne peut pas taper quand tu ce fais." Or something like that. In the event, all I could say was "Please!" Her mother got the message and said something to her that quieted her down. But the kid still gave me the dirtiest look.
Quote from: Joe Barron on August 03, 2008, 08:59:33 AM
. . . But the kid still gave me the dirtiest look.
No obstacle to comprehension
there,
Joe . . . .
Joe, thank you very much for your vivid concert reports. I enjoyed them all immensely.