Search - Elliott Carter, Gerard Schwarz, New York Chamber Symphony :: Elliott Carter: The Minotaur; Piano Sonatas; Two Songs

Early Carter-Catalog Fill

Personne | Rocky Mountain West | 11/15/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Elliott Carter had a long gestation as a composer. He was nearing 50 before he began to sound like, well, Elliott Carter. In the preceding decades (a full career for most composers) he developed a sure command of instrumentation and phrasing, but he was still searching for a voice. In those early years, the influences are obvious--Stravinsky, Copland (although Carter was always more layered than Copland), perhaps even Roy Harris. The teaching hand of Nadia Boulanger is also quite clear.



"The Minotaur", a ballet score, is the least appealing piece on this CD. The orchestration is assured, the instrumental interplay is confident. But for me, the piece simply doesn't jell. It's good to help complete my very large Carter collection, but I don't think I'm going to be listening very often. A much better orchestral piece from the same time period is the "Holiday Overture". That piece still carries the sense of early Carter, but the more mature composer is trying to break out.



The CD also contains two songs based on Poems of Robert Frost, sung by the incomparable Jan DeGaetani. I have another recording of this suite with three poems. I don't know if that was a later version or if the third song was excluded for some other reason. The two songs here are quite brief--so you simply have to listen many times. While the language is still the extended tonality of early Carter, the songs exemplify the good nature that pervades his music to this day. They are quite appealing. I wish he'd set a dozen more.



The "Piano Sonata" is a fine piece that begins to hint (but only to hint) at the rhythmic complexity that underlies Carter's later music. It's a good piece, idiomatic and certainly well-played, but it's only a teaser for what was to come in the next half-century of Carter's blessedly long career.



So in closing, I wouldn't recommend this as an introduction to Elliot Carter. "The Minotaur" is too derivative for me. It's certainly not "bad" music: it's better than many composers ever get. But in the oeuvre of Elliott Carter, it's a very minor piece. Start with the "Cello Sonata" or the "Variations", then the pieces on this CD can be heard from a more appropriate perspective."