Classical Music & Video

		List Price: $9.98		Publisher: Naxos American Classics Salesrank: 9276 Released: 29 January, 2008
		Our Price: $8.99
		Used Price: $6.25
		Media: Audio CD
		Availibility: Usually ships in 24 hours

Tracklisting:
1. I. Fantasia: Maestoso -
2. Allegro Scorrevole -
3. II. Allegro Scorrevole -
4. Adagio -
5. III. Variations -
6. I. Introduction -
7. 2.Giocoso -
8. 3.Interlude I -
9. 4.Lento Espressivo -
10. 5.Interlude II -
11. 6.Presto Scorrevole -
12. 7.Interlude III -
13. 8.Allegro Energico -
14. 9. Interlude IV -
15. 10. Adagio Sereno -
16. 11.Interlude V -
17. 12.Capriccioso -

Customer Reviews:
Elliott Carter on Naxos
This year includes the 100th birthday of the great American composer Elliott Carter (b. 1908). To celebrate the occasion, Naxos is releasing two CDs consisting of Carter’s five string quartets, the first and the fifth of which are included on this disk. The Pacifica Quartet, a group of young musicians from California, perform these difficult works with passion and clarity. The Pacifica Quartet specializes in contemporary music, especially the works of Elliott Carter.

Carter began the serious study of music as an adolescent and his efforts were encouraged by Charles Ives. In the 1940s, some of his music (including his first symphony available on Naxos in a recording by Kenneth Schermerhorn) is reminiscent of the Americana music of Aaron Copland, but Carter soon developed his own unmistakably modernist musical voice. (The Schermerhorn CD also includes the difficult Carter piano concerto.) The five string quartets, written over a period of 45 years give an outstanding overview of this modernist American composer.

Although Carter’s quartets bristle with difficulties for the performer and listener, I was struck by the accessibility and the visceral, emotional character of these quartets when I first listened through them. There is a tendency to over-intellectualize modern music and Carter’s music in particular. But this is music which, when given the chance, speaks to the heart first, before it speaks to the mind, and which mirrors the complexity of both specifically modern experience and of the human condition.

Carter’s first string quartet, composed in 1950-51, was among his first modernist efforts. It is a lengthy, difficult work in five movement which are played without a break between them. The work is densely scored, with bristling harmonies and marked shifts in tempos and rhythm. The texture of the work also is full of shifts, from passages for solo instruments, to sections for impassioned ensemble playing, to moments when the quartet breaks into two groups (the cello and the viola playing against the two violins in the fourth movement), and to long pizzicato passages. Yet the work makes a cohesive, unified whole. I was fascinated by the transitions between movements in this work, and in the fifth quartet, as musical passages of widely different characters flow seamlessly together. Thus the work opens with a lengthy, emotional solo for cello which, after elaboration by the other insturments, shifts imperceptibly into the following scherzo. The adagio consists, as I mentioned, of a section for cello and viola juxtaposed against a figure for the two violins, and these two competing voices are ultimately unified into a taut section which becomes the basis for the long variation movement which concludes the work. The variations work up to a climax (and the thematic material remains identifiable throughout) and then the bubble bursts as Carter closes the work with a solo for the violin, quiet and high in the instrument’s register.

The fifth quartet, composed in 1995, has a lighter texture. It consists of 12 short movements played without pause and lasts only about 21 minutes. In this work, short sections of a distinct musical character are juxtaposed against an opening introduction and against sections marked “interlude”. There are two slow movements, the fourth and the tenth, three scherzo-like movements, the second, sixth, and eighth, and a concluding pizzacato movement, with some odd sounds from the instruments, marked capriccioso. The fascination of the work lies in the interrelationship of these sections with the interludes, as Carter joins the movements together by weaving moments from the surrounding short pieces into the interludes — which have a deceptively sketchy style. Thus, interlude II, takes up the slow, expressive character of the preceding Lento, but turns at the last moment to transition to the following presto. Interlude V, in contrast, only makes a gesture towards the previous adagio before it sets the stage for the final Capriccioso. I listened several times to this work straight through and, on my last hearing, watched the second timer on my CD so that I could see directly how the movements flowed together.

Carter’s music will not appeal to those listeners with exclusively conservative musical tastes. But listeners with a background in classical music who wish to be adventurous will respond to the music of Elliott Carter. Naxos is doing a great service in making Carter’s music available to a wide audience at a budget price.

Robin Friedman

The short preview tracks are enough to say purchase now!
At age 50, I have had a life long and developing appreciation of less than strongly tonally centered music, starting with love of Schoenberg’s works when I was merely a late teenager. Listening over time has strengthend my appreciation, and listening to great masters like Sessions, Ligeti, Cowell, and so many, many more,including from the more avante garde to even the more romantic solves to the 20th century puzzle such as the Brits and their creative resurrection of the prefunctional western harmony of the Renaissance, all comes together to bear much satisfaction in seeing the history of the 20th Century be made and start to ripen. Elliot Carter’s language is, above all of the compositional and harmonic or enharmonic 20th century solves, one which is based upon obvious mastery of them all and put to work to serve a creative mind that makes organic, story telling or emotion wringing music; one which edifies and gives glory to God’s creation of sound, serving to move one to visions of man’s existence in God’s universe of ultimate truth. This is what great art does. I’m pressing the MP3 purchase button now for the album (The quality of the recordings sound excellent also.)

Naxos cashes in on the Carter craze
It isn’t necessary to mention in every review that Elliott Carter will turn 100 in December 2008 and that at 99 he is still vital and composing, but it’s just too impressive and heartening a fact to ignore. As a centenary offering, Naxos is releasing Carter’s five string quartets in two volumes, performed by the Pacifica Quartet. This first disk contains the composer’s first and, to date, his last works in the genre.

The First, from 1951, is generally considered Carter’s breakthrough into his signature brand of modernism — a sweeping, forty-minute tour de force, in three big sections, teeming with all the technical and expressive ideas that had been lurking in his subconscious. The Pacifica, a young group, plays with energy and a high polish that emphasizes beauty over drama, and a blending rather than a confrontation of instruments. The rich sound is particularly impressive in the opening Maestoso. The players seem to lose focus in the transition between the Adagio and the Variations, but they recover in the finale, which, in their hands, is luminous, rather than driving. The work is multifaceted and deep enough to support the approach. The Pacifica reveals a side to Carter that, in the face of all the clich

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The Best of Andr Thursday, Feb 28 2008 

Classical admin0 9:34 am

The Best of Andr No Responses »   Gershwin Plays Gershwin: The Piano Rolls Thursday, Feb 28 2008  Classical admin0 9:34 am Gershwin Plays Gershwin: The Piano Rolls by George Gershwin, Frank Milne, George Gershwin List Price: $18.98 Publisher: Nonesuch Salesrank: 6181 Released: 09 November, 1993 Our Price: $12.97 Used Price: $3.99  Media: Audio CD Availibility: Usually ships in 24 hours Tracklisting: 1. Sweet And Lowdown - 2. Novelette In Fourths - 3. That Certain Feeling - 4. So Am I - 5. Rhapsody In Blue - 6. Swanee - 7. When You Want ‘Em, You Can’t Get ‘Em… - 8. Kickin’ The Clouds Away - 9. Idol Dreams - 10. On My Mind The Whole Night Long - 11. Scandal Walk - 12. An American In Paris - Customer Reviews: A Caveat Astonishing as it may be to hear “performances” by famous pianists and composers on the reproducing pianos, it must be kept in mind that the “expression” (i.e. dynamics) were all added later, that is, after the pianist recorded the roll, to a special “coding” channel on the margins of the piano roll. We have no way of knowing whether this was done by the original player or by a piano roll editor. So these recordings may represent the original pianist’s intentions in the area of tempo and timing, but not necessarily as regards dynamics. Recomendo Uma boa leva de escritores que se aventura a rabiscar algumas linhas sobre jazz sempre acaba repetindo: o jazz surgiu do encontro da m No Responses »   Next Page » About the Site: Seek & Buy Your Favorite Classical Albums from Amazon.com Links Blog for a Big Bike Lovers Big Motorcycle Photos, Informations and Specifications Pages About Categories: Classical (517) Search: Monthly: April 2008 (5) March 2008 (389) February 2008 (122) August 2007 (1) RSS Feeds: Posts | Comments Meta Register Login Valid XHTML Valid CSS XFN WordPress | © 2008 Classical Music & Video - All Rights Reserved |