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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #30 on: 18:56:27, 03-08-2008 » |
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HH-
interesting to hear that you prefer the double concerto- - -that`s a piece i`ve never got the hang of.
I think it's something to do with the fact that it sounds (to me) less polished than the piano conc. Something about how the music is a little 'too big' for the ensemble (certainly not true of the pf conc - poss the other way round...?) - in that, I suppose it's a bit like the original version of Schoenberg's Kammersymphonie. I also find the tempo changes viscerally exciting, especially when the processes become audible... I just find it very well judged and I really do love the clattering of the typewriter harpsichord against the chunkiness of the piano. |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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« Reply #31 on: 19:00:23, 03-08-2008 » |
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I don't find it mannered, but perhaps he has fooled me. I am so easily fooled, and I know that Ian Pace is not. No, I'm not saying that. Those aspects of Carter's music you mention are to me just the building blocks, tools, means to larger ends, in the best works. Those are the building blocks, yes, and not ends in themselves. What a boring world it would be if they were. Too frequently, however, they come through not at all clearly as building blocks. Careless performance or composition or rehearsal or listening can squeeze them into unintended molds. I think that what goes beyond building blocks, i.e., the 'wider impact', is extremely hard to generalize about. In that respect I'd go no further than to say that Carter has a remarkable gift for making these building blocks 'mean' many different things. |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #32 on: 19:07:41, 03-08-2008 » |
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I also find the tempo changes viscerally exciting, especially when the processes become audible... I just find it very well judged and I really do love the clattering of the typewriter harpsichord against the chunkiness of the piano. Does anyone know if Carter knew the C.P.E. Bach Concerto for Harpsichord and Fortepiano (to all period instrument haters - Ha! What are you going to play that piece on?), when he wrote the Double Concerto? |
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« Last Edit: 19:09:52, 03-08-2008 by Ian Pace »
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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« Reply #33 on: 19:10:03, 03-08-2008 » |
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I also find the tempo changes viscerally exciting, especially when the processes become audible... I just find it very well judged and I really do love the clattering of the typewriter harpsichord against the chunkiness of the piano. Does anyone know if Carter knew the C.P.E. Bach Concerto for Harpsichord and Fortepiano (to all you period instrument haters - Ha! What are you going to play that piece on?), when he wrote the Double Concerto? I'd be very surprised if he didn't. He was Harvard-educated, after all. |
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brassbandmaestro
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« Reply #34 on: 21:56:23, 03-08-2008 » |
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In some ways, maybe I am wrong in this, it very much reminded me of the Richard Strauss con certo, dunno why. But what the heck!
Because it's another of the very few 20th century oboe concertos? I don't know how many major oboe concerti there are from the 20th century (Maderna wrote no less than three such concerti, but...). That said, I seem to recall (though I cannot now place the source or date) that Carter himself said that, in writing that piece, he wanted to compose something specifically unlike the Strauss concerto; I suspect that the very fact of him making such a comment is suggestive that he was acutely conscious of that work and, to me, he has by no means succeeded in such an aim, for the melodic richness and lyrical impulses evident in Carter's oboe concerto seem to me to be not a million miles from the kind of thing that motivated Strauss in his concerto, for all that the music obviously sounds utterly different. Indeed, those particular characteristics strike me as more sharply defined in the oboe concerto than in any of his other concerti that I have so far heard, apart from the violin one (although I admit to not yet having heard his flute or horn concerti). By the way, do let's give Elliott his full quota of "t"s... Perhaps, outwardly, Elliott(!) Carter wanted to be different from the classic Strauss composition. Subconciously, you cant get away from that notion. I still feel, though, albeit EC's genre being so different, is that he is still thinking of the Strauss. |
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« Reply #35 on: 00:38:58, 04-08-2008 » |
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I still feel, though, albeit EC's genre being so different, is that he is still thinking of the Strauss.
I'd be very surprised if he wasn't. He was Harvard-educated, after all. |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #36 on: 00:53:01, 04-08-2008 » |
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I'd be very surprised if he didn't. He was Harvard-educated, after all.
I was educated in Cambridge also and I have never heard of this piece by CPE Bach.  |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #37 on: 00:58:36, 04-08-2008 » |
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I also find the tempo changes viscerally exciting, especially when the processes become audible... I just find it very well judged and I really do love the clattering of the typewriter harpsichord against the chunkiness of the piano. Does anyone know if Carter knew the C.P.E. Bach Concerto for Harpsichord and Fortepiano (to all period instrument haters - Ha! What are you going to play that piece on?), when he wrote the Double Concerto? Schiff doesn't seem to be aware of it (which of course doesn't necessarily mean anything but I thought it might be worth saying). He says that: The idea of a piece for piano and harpsichord originated with Ralph Kirkpatrick. Carter may have been attracted to a double keyboard concerto because of his admiration for Stravinsky's Concerto for two Solo Pianos and Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #38 on: 00:59:50, 04-08-2008 » |
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I'd be very surprised if he didn't. He was Harvard-educated, after all.
I was educated in Cambridge also and I have never heard of this piece by CPE Bach. I will make you a copy - it's a wonderful piece. |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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brassbandmaestro
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« Reply #39 on: 06:29:11, 04-08-2008 » |
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I'd be very surprised if he didn't. He was Harvard-educated, after all.
I was educated in Cambridge also and I have never heard of this piece by CPE Bach. I will make you a copy - it's a wonderful piece. May I request a cop Ian? Please! |
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ahinton
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« Reply #40 on: 07:17:50, 04-08-2008 » |
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The Carter Piano Concerto is a work I long found hard to get close to - dense and difficult. I never heard it played by Lateiner, although I've heard nothing but positive comment about his account of it from those who have. It really became clear to me only comparatively recently when I heard it played by Nicolas Hodges (who also premičred Dialogues a few years ago - I attended that performance and Carter was interviewed and discussed the piano concerto in the context of that much more recent work).
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time_is_now
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« Reply #41 on: 09:35:20, 04-08-2008 » |
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The Piano Concerto is the one major Carter piece I never got to know as a teenager (actually, the Double Concerto CD on Nonesuch had also been deleted by the time I got interested in Carter but I was able to obtain a second-hand copy of that a few years later; the Piano Concerto was available but for some reason I never bought it). I finally heard it played by Nic Hodges and Oliver Knussen at the Barbican last year, but I found it difficult to get into on that occasion and haven't tried again since.
I should probably get the Oppens recording, but somehow I like the fact that I remain ignorant of one big piece by a composer whose work I otherwise know well.
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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richard barrett
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« Reply #42 on: 10:59:32, 07-08-2008 » |
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I wonder whether Carter would actually have been aware of that CPE Bach piece, which as far as I know wasn't performed in modern times before the late 1960s, and must have been far more obscure then than it is now (I am almost ashamed to admit I have three recordings of it). Much of the character of Carter's piece stems from the necessity to address problems of balance and dynamic range between the soloists (hence for example the split accompanying ensemble), problems which didn't exist in 1788 when the Bach was written.
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