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Elliott Carter: Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei (1993-96) / Clarinet Concerto (1996) (20/21 series) - Oliver Knussen

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Many reviewers have the highest praise for this premiere recording of Symphonia, so I listened...and am blown away. I don't understand all that's going on in this uncompromisingly modernist and dissonant work, but I'm surprised to like it and I return to a great piece of music. Like the bubble it's named for, the work opens with nothing if not scintillating effervescence. The ever-changing flux of through-composition has few points of imitation and easy recognition. The middle movement is low, slow, and long, unsettled and bleak in tone, the double basses a striking underpinning. The finale is swirling, windblown, and incandescent, gradually rising up through the orchestra until the inevitable fate is reached. This is remarkably beautiful and accessible music for a consumate arch-modernist, and leads me not to avoid his music in the future. The Clarinet Concerto (also 1996) is of the pointillist school of Webern. Each note is almost to be appreciated as a sound object, against the periodically shifting small ensembles of instruments. The brash music is characterized by extremely athletic leaps between the shrill and woody ends of the clarinet's range. The movements are contrasted by great changes in tempo, timbre, and dynamics, from excited twitterings to contemplative sonorities to ensemble sections with a metallic sheen of dissonance. The German disk of English musicians playing a great American composer is nicely packaged in a cardboard wallet. I hope it lasts as long as I think I am going to like this music!

Symphonia is Carter's masterpiece, and as he's already 91, it's likely to be the capstone to his long career. His music is, as ever, complex, but not just for complexity's sake. "Partita," the 1st movement, is the wild, playful opening. "Adagio tenebroso" is the slow, mournful procession in the middle (yet crackling with energy, and very beautiful). "Allegro scorrevole" is the brilliant synthesis, with long lyrical string lines rising and falling over rapid flurries in the winds. If you can appreciate modern music at all, listen to Symphonia several times and you'll begin to realize that it is the greatest symphony since Mahler.

"Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei" is Elliot Carter's greatest symphonic work since his 1969 "Concerto for Orchestra." What an accomplishment! Hearing Carter makes me want to spread the word that great composition is not in the past -- Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, have worthy successors today. "I am the prize of flowing hope" is the translation of the Latin title, and this might sound like arrogance, but it refers to a bubble, to the evanescence of life. Future accounts will surely marvel at Carter's productivity late in life (the polar opposite of Mozart). He composed the symphony in parts, but once complete in 1998, he moved on to quickly compose the Clarinet Concerto. If the disconnect between advanced music (both "contemporary classical" and avant-garde improvisation) and a mass audience is never overcome, the artistic and listening vanguards have each other! Here's a great line from Bayan Northcott's liner notes:

"Against all the minimalisms, retro-styles and compromises with commercialism that have marked the music of the last couple of decades, Symphonia embodies a comprehensive and uncompromising reaffirmation of the modernist vision."

This Deutsche Grammophon disc, an installment of the "20/21" series of contemporary music recordings, contains two works by the great American modernist Elliott Carter which he embarked upon well into his 80s. Oliver Knussen leads the London Sinfonietta and clarinettist Michael Collins in the concerto, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the "Symphonia".

Carter's music is controversial, as a glimpse at reviews here would reveal, but I found the works here far from harsh and abrasive. Most of the soundworld isn't too different from that of well-regarded figures like Lutoslawski or the early Lindberg. While it's understandable that fans of earlier eras of art music would find Carter not their cup of tea, there's nothing here that should evoke a violent reaction. It's certain tuneful; for fans of contemporary music, there's a lot of truly catchy material here that will stay with you long after the disc comes to an end.

So what's Carter's approach? He is fascinated by the idea of polytempos where two lines start off at the same pace, but eventually one appears the slower and the other the faster. The liner notes compare it to seeing two pendulums start off swinging, but one winds down before the other. This is a concept of great possibilities which gives the music many angles from which to view the action. If one wants to hear a less uncomprimisingly modernist use of the technique, I could recommend Per Norgard's "Concerto in due tempi" (on a Chandos disc with his masterpiece Symphony No. 3), but if this piques your interest, Elliott Carter's music is very much worth hearing.

The massive "Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei" (1993-1996) is Carter's largest orchestral work, loosely based on Richard Crashaw's poem "Bulla" where artistic inspiration is compared to a bubble. "I am the prize of flowing hope." As he began work on the piece when was 85 years old, he wasn't sure he would live to complete it, and so he wrote its three sections for independent commissions before finally tying them all together. The opening "Partita" is, as its title indicates, playful where various portions of the orchestra contend in sport. Here various themes appear again and again, but they're never quite repeated. The second movement, "Adagio tenebroso", is like night to the first movement's day. A dark series of brooding landscapes, some have seen in this movement a meditation on all of the 20th century's horrors. The final "Allegro scorrevole" returns us to sunnier territory, with a general wispiness and scintillating percussion, something like a more unhinged version of Ligeti's "Melodien". Carter's orchestral writing is exciting, as he really explores all possibilities of the ensemble, just listen to the big chord that opens up "Symphonia", played on both extremely low registers and the very highest.

The "Clarinet Concerto" (1996) introduces, of course, a soloist, but it also displays a new concept in Carter's use of the orchestra: breaking it up into small, semi-autonomous units. Here the players are organized on the stage into six individual groups, such as piano, harp, and pitched percussion in one, unpitched percussion in another, and so forth. The first six movements of the concerto highlight each of these groups in turn, making for an intimate feel and a shifting series of partners in conversation for the soloist. The clarinet writing is often light, airy, and fleet-footed, a strong contrast to an orchestra that can't quite move so freely.

The liner notes are excellent. They contain the full text of Crashaw's poem "Bulla" in its original Latin and in translation, a description of the pieces by critic Bayan Northcott, and some remarks by Oliver Knussen that sketch Carter's biography and general aesthetic. All in all, this is a very entertaining disc for fans of modernism.

Elliott Carter, (probably) the greatest American composer, has fortunately only become more prolific in his old age. Both the Clarinet Concerto and _Symphonia_ were written when the composer when was in his eighties. His music is a personal style of adapted atonality and extreme rhythmic complexity.

The clarinet concerto was written for and premiered by Pierre Boulez and his Ensemble InterContemporain, and was arranged to work with the EIC's unusual lineup of musicians. Each of the first six movements arrays a different grouping of instruments (percussion, winds, strings, etc.) against the clarinet, and each movement fluidly slides in to the next. Main characteristics evident throughout are crisp, biting instrumental textures and multiple, shifting tempos, and the eerie shadowing of the clarinetist. The soloist rarely stops (or slows down) its frenetic constellations of unusual micromelodies which often sound bright despite their dissonant nature.

¬_Symphonia: Sum fluxae pretium spei_ is the greatest work I have heard for large orchestra, and may be regarded in the future as the post-war avant-garde's greatest symphony. Its three movements are very diverse -- the opening Partita furiously setting playfulness and drama against each other with pendulous polyrhythms and thematic chords sprinkled around the orchestra; the grave, austere Adagio containing the births of numerous melodic and rhythmic devices, which are abruptly deconstructed and reformed into new unique progressions; the final Allegro, less assertive than first movement, but rife with dissonant, complex clusters of melodies, constantly developing, until the end when the orchestras crashes to the lower registers before fading with luminous trills and solo piccolo. It is a grandiose, epic work that can do nothing but amaze.

These are outstanding works of the modernist ethos and absolutely must be heard. I also recommend Carter's string quartets, particularly the second and third.

The Symphonia is pure music at its most pure...in short: words fail. Carter, along with other contemporary composers of what is unfortunately termed atonal music (with this pejorative is the built in but incorrect assumption that consonance and dissonance are not bound by period and by cultural factors) is often criticized for writing alienating mathematical music (don't even get me started about the notion that math and music are one in the same. It simply isn't true). And this music IS complex, but it is also most rewarding. It wants a patient listener. It wants a listener without expectations about what music "should be like". Such a listener will, with familiarity, find a unique and a real beauty. He will discover, in fact, the Sublime.

The music of Elliott Carter (b. 1908) is not for the faint of heart or conservative of taste. I am usually open to different styles of music, but I must confess that the few times in the past when I did venture to listen to something of Carter's, I was repelled. But when I heard he had written a clarinet concerto and a symphony in recent years (both works were completed in 1996), and that they had been recorded by DG, I could not resist giving this disk an audition. When after searching three record stores I finally found a single copy, I plopped down my credit card and took the $15 hit.

I've spent more on less. Indeed, I found the seven-movement (total time on this recording is 18:31) Clarinet Concerto to be quite an exciting romp--although I will admit that as an old (and less than mediocre) clarinetist, I am always entranced by the sonorities produced by that instrument. In this work, the clarinetist is called upon to leap up and down (musically, not physically, that is) in frantic phrases that weave in and out of the fabric of the orchestral accompaniment. No, this is nothing like the Mozart--but it is fun to listen to, especially if you are an old (or maybe better, a young) clarinetist.

Then it is on to the Symphonia, whose subtitle translates into English as, "I am the prize of flowing hope." This is a substantial three-movement work (more than 45 minutes long) that is not easily digested. If you loathe Schoenberg and everything he stood for, then you will want to pass this recording right on by. But if you can at least tolerate listening to the orchestral music of Schoenberg from time to time and you have some curiosity about what a contemporary American composer might compose in such a style, then this piece is for you.

My own subjective reaction to this work is that I do not think too much of the opening Partita, which seems like too much empty bombast. But things get better: the second movement, Adagio tenebroso, is interesting in the way that it seems to express both brooding and searching, and the final movement, Allegro scorrevole, evokes a feeling of restlessness that seems appropriate for these multi-tasking, e-vocative times, ending with a plaintive fragment played by a lone piccolo.

Although this piece is still somewhat daunting, even forbidding, I find that when I finish listening to it, I have a desire to return to it in the future. For me, at least, this is an encouraging sign, and I recommend this disk highly to those with an interest in contemporary orchestral music--and to clarinetists of all stripes.

At an age where most composers have stopped (or died), Elliott Carter has reached yet another apex in a long and fruitful career. This disk contains a pair of substantive works, one brief and one quite lengthy.

The "Clarinet Concerto" in its seven miniature and connected movements, clearly shows the sunny aspect that underlies much of Carter's music. The writing is both humorous and treacherous for the soloist. The orchestration is brilliant: colorful but never overwhelming the clarinet. Not that this piece is easy to perform, but the balances are natural and unforced. So many people are afraid of Elliott Carter, but this piece is fun to hear.

A striking aspect of the "Symphonia" is its classicism. Except for the addition of mallets in the percussion, this could easily be a late 19th-century orchestra. Carter doesn't use extended techniques (plucking the piano, bowing the cymbals, etc) as part of his sound-palette. In its three movements, "Symphonia" follows the classical pattern of fast/slow/fast. The first movement is complex, contrasting and vividly dramatic--characteristics that might be found in Brahms. The second is lyrical, rising to one great climax before quietly yielding to the final movement. The last movement is fast and flowing with the wonderful contrast of lyrical strings over rapid bursts from the woodwinds. But with all of these similarities to more classical music, why does Carter sound so different? He is perhaps not so interested in establishing a long distinguishable line that is then developed. It is sometimes a little difficult to determine exactly what his underlying material IS. But with repeated and focused listening, more and more becomes clear, and his connection with the great classical tradition is solidly established.

This is not music for playing in the background. It requires time and concentration. But Oliver Knusson's skilled conducting lays the piece out so that wonderful music can be heard by those willing to listen.

I enjoyed Symphonia very much and I am getting hooked to listening to it again and again. The Clarinet Concerto was not too bad and perhaps my only complaint is the recording. There are certain moments when I wish I can hear more of the solo instrument but it is overpowered by the orchestra. If that was a harp concerto, I wouldn't say a word, but an instrument of such a vigorous dynamic control shouldn't be overpowered that easily.

All in all, I am very happy with my CD and will listen to it on and on!

Danny

Unlike scientists and mathematicians, who seem to produce their significant work precociously and seldom add to it after the age of 30, composers who live long enough often produce their finest music late in life. Machaut and Haydn both lived to seventy-seven and created their most spacious compositions in their last decades. Janacek and Hindemith were composing brilliantly nearly to the end of their seventy-three years; Janacek, in fact, was a 'minor' composer until his late fifties. Elliot Carter is now a hundred years old. He is not only America's greatest composer; he is a living history of American music from the age of Charles Ives to the present. To my ears, the enormous body of music he has written SINCE his sixty-fifth birthday is uniformly his finest, a monumental accomplishment. The two compositions on this CD were written when Carter (b. 1908) was over ninety years old - the Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei in 1993-1996, and the Clarinet Concerto in 1996.

"A richly multi-leveled musical language" is the typical description of Carter's compositions. Conductor Oliver Knussen writes: "Most of Carter's recent works are erected on a scaffolding of giant polyrhythms - two different pendulums which start together (not necessarily at the beginning of the piece) and drift further and further apart, triggering a prodigious variety of musical incidents and characters as they proceed, building up considerable gravitational pull as they move towards a climactic second collision..." I'm not sure Knussen's description will prepare the listener for what Carter's music actually sounds like, but I don't think I can improve on it. Carter's first-lifespan music explored the harmonic vocabulary of European classicism to unforeseen depths, and the music of his second span of decades has probed the 'meaning' of pure rhythm as no other composer has. But Carter's music is never obvious, never melodramatic, never something you can fully absorb on a single hearing. Critics of Carter's works often say that it is written to excite the performers more than the audience. There's some truth in that; the only way to fully 'hear' Carter is to position yourself inside the music, even if you don't play an instrument. It can be done, and I find the rewards equal to the effort.

The Clarinet Concerto has, for me, the effect of hearing a totally autonomous individual (the clarinet) strolling/strutting/jogging through a crowd-scape of orchestral struggle. I am the clarinet as I listen. Don't expect a lot of easy drama, however. The struggle in the orchestra is not over grief or joy, but rather over the molecular jostlings of rhythms and chords.

The Symphonia is, for me, a more humanly involved composition than any of Carter's earlier large works - music, in other words, that evokes as much emotional as intellectual response. The emotions are grand and vague, like those of all great music, and will probably vary according to the listener, but "reconciliation to the flow of time" might describe my engagement.

Beyond that, I have no way to prepare you for the experience of Carter's music, short of a technical analysis that would leave most readers blank. You out there! You may be well-versed in modernism and have a collection of CDs including Schnittke, Pettersson, and Tavener. Or you may be a lover of Schuetz and Schubert, or a bluegrass fan who enjoys my wry prose. I have no way to know you. But the only way you'll come to know the music of Elliot Carter is to pay your money and take your chance.