Ellliott Carter (b. 1908) 1 90+ (1994) (4:55) 2 Retrouvailles (2000) (1:38) 3 Night Fantasies (1980) (19:48) Producer & Engineer: Judith Sherman Engineering & Editing Assistant: Jeanne Velonis Two Diversions (1999) (7:28) Graphic Design: Melanie Germond 4 I. (4:03) 5 Cover Photo: Christian Steiner II. (3:21) Photo of Elliott Carter and Ursula Oppens (p. 3 & traycard): Malcolm Addey 6 Matribute* (2007) (2:05) Recorded February 4–8, 2008, at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, NYC OPPENS Piano Sonata (1945–46) (23:31) Steinway Piano 7 I. Maestoso; Legato scorrevole (10:22) PLAYS Publishers: 8 II. Andante (13:03) 90+, Retrouvailles, Two Diversions for Piano, Two Thoughts about Piano (Caténaires and CARTER Intermittences): Hendon Music, Inc Two Thoughts About the Piano (2005–06) (10:55) Night Fantasies: Associated Music Publishers 9 Intermittences (7:04) Matribute: Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. bk ELLIOTT Piano Sonata: Theodore Pressser Company Caténaires* (3:48) Total: (70:53) CARTER Cedille Records is a trademark of The Chicago Classical Recording Foundation, a not-for-profit foundation devoted to promoting the finest musicians and ensembles in the Chicago area. AT 100 The Chicago Classical Recording Foundation’s activities are supported in part by contributions Ursula Oppens piano and grants from individuals, foundations, corporations, and government agencies including the Alphawood Foundation, Irving Harris Foundation, Kirkland & Ellis Foundation, NIB Foundation, *World Premiere Recording THE Negaunee Foundation, Sage Foundation, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs (CityArts III Grant), and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. COMPLETE Contributions to The Chicago Classical Recording Foundation may be made at PIANO www.cedillerecords.org or 773-989-2515. MUSIC CDR 90000 108 P&C 2008 Cedille Records Trademark of The Chicago Classical Recording Foundation. All Rights Reserved. 24 CARTER AT THE KEYBOARD “black and white” medium for musical from the sounds and playing techniques was his evolution between them — or Notes by Bayan Northcott studies after the manner of Schoenberg, of the very instruments for which he was that the hand that wrote the grand pan- or of Stockhausen who described the writing — an endeavour that was to cul- diatonic apostrophes that launch the Thinking back to his Upper West Side succession of solo piano pieces scattered minate in the vastly elaborate structures Sonata was the same that dashed off New York boyhood just after the First through his output as his “line-draw- of his middle years. Night Fantasies the skittish chromatics of Matribute sixty World War, Elliott Carter has recalled ings.” Of course, Carter has composed epitomises such sonic-structural think- two years later. Certain attitudes and that, “Despite the fact that neither of my an impressive succession of concer- ing in particularly concentrated form, but predilections have nonetheless remained parents was particularly musical, they tante works — the Double Concerto for it also puts in place the final technical pretty constant in Carter’s approach to did have a player-piano and decided, piano and harpsichord (1961), the Piano elements making for the extraordinary the piano over the decades. when I was in the third or fourth grade, Concerto (1966), Dialogues for piano and integration and consistency of Carter’s that I should take piano lessons. As a large ensemble (2003), Interventions for musical language since around 1980 Like the great 19th and early 20th cen- result of this I began to have to learn piano and orchestra (2007) — and he — an integration that has enabled him to tury composer-performers, Carter has Chopin and practise scales and the rest has frequently used the instrument in his compose with an enhanced spontaneity always regarded the keyboard as a chal- of it which I just hated for a very long orchestral and chamber works. Yet, until and fancifulness, not least in the half lenge to virtuosity: how much one pair time.” Nevertheless, he persisted dog- his 86th year, his published catalogue for dozen shorter piano pieces that make up of human hands, moving with maximum gedly enough to be able to perform solo piano comprised just two scores: the rest of this disc. agility, strength, and variety of touch, Scriabin and Schoenberg in concert dur- the Sonata for Piano (1946) and Night can draw from the percussive and reso- ing his student years, and the few pre- Fantasies (1980). Maybe the composer Carter most resem- nant sonorities of the seven-and–a-bit cious seconds of documentary footage bles in this progress is Brahms, who octaves of the modern concert grand of the mature Carter trying over pas- It would, however, be no exaggeration preoccupied himself with sonata forms (plus foot control of its three pedals). All sages in progress at his workroom piano to describe these as the turning points, early on, piano variations in mid-career of his solo piano writing is technically in more recent decades have suggested the hinges between the three periods in (Night Fantasies could be construed as demanding; even the Two Diversions he retains a considerable technique. which we increasing perceive Carter’s a kind of variation sequence), and collec- intended for young players are tricky development. In its harmonic ambience tions of concentrated miniatures late on. for all but the most proficient amateurs. Any idea of pursuing an executant’s and thematic working, the Piano Sonata But, aside from a comparable concern This love of virtuosity has recurrently career, however, was stymied early by still retains echoes of the neo-classi- for compositional facture and coherent expressed itself in contrasts of the most “poor performing nerves”; and one could cal and American populist idioms from detail, there is little in Carter’s music to powerfully amassed chordal sonorities hardly suggest that the piano has proved which the young Carter strove to extract remind us overtly of Brahms. Indeed, a with glittering flights of toccata figura- as indispensable to Carter’s musical his own voice in the late 1930s and early listener coming to his Piano Sonata and tion. Behind such textural juxtapositions, thought as it was to such composers ‘40s; but it is already well advanced upon Night Fantasies for the first time might one senses a more abstract background as Beethoven, Chopin, or Debussy; nor, his endeavour to generate the entire find it difficult to believe they were the process, as though Carter conceives the again, has he consistently used it as a formal and expressive fabric of his works work of the same composer, so radical piano’s range as space to be mapped out 4 5 in contrasting areas, heights and depths miered by Guiseppe Scotese on June 11, less than four Boulez birthdays with fellow pianists, Ursula Oppens, Charles — with the actual piece comprising, as it 1994, at the Pontino Festival dedicated celebratory pieces. In 2000, he was one Rosen, and Gilbert Kalish, to join him in were, a journey across that map. Such an to Petrassi’s birthday. In his program of twelve composers — including Berio, commissioning the present work, with apprehension of different regions being note, Carter writes: “90+ for piano is built Birtwistle, Kurtag, Lindberg, and Rihm funds raised by The American Music traversed is perhaps especially imma- around ninety short, accented notes played — commissioned by the Southbank Center of New York. Partly inspired by nent in Night Fantasies, but one sus- in a slow regular beat. Against these, the Board in London to compose a short the contrasting personalities of the four pects comparable conceptions, whether context changes character continually.” piece for Boulez’s 75th birthday. These pianists, all well-known to him, Carter elaborate or summary, lie equally behind However, this slow tactus is out of sync were duly launched in Boulez’s pres- turned to the 19th century genre of char- the broad spans of the Piano Sonata or with the mostly 4/4 bar structure of the ence at a concert on June 26, 2000, by acter-piece exemplified in such collec- a late, ostensibly linear miniature such score, so that the regular beats seem to the young British pianist Rolf Hind, and tions as Schumann’s Kreisleriana. Yet, as Caténaries. It is the way that Carter play hide and seek with their surrounding issued on an instant CD to ticket holders far from comprising a picturesque set contrives, sooner or later, to visit every figures and chords. Towards the centre after the concert, courtesy of BBC Radio of miniatures, the continuous resulting area of the notional map of the piece in of the piece, the texture thins to mere 3. The title means things retrieved, and 20-minute score emerged as among the progress, so that the whole keyboard is sprinkling of staccato notes, as though the piece duly reworks the motto on the most demanding to perform and to com- ultimately “covered,” that lends his end- most of the connecting texture had been letters of Boulez’s name that Carter had prehend in his entire output; a work, ings their special sense of completion. rubbed out. Events then accumulate to a already used in his duo for flute and clari- indeed, which Charles Rosen has hailed brief climax, breaking off for the emphatic net Esprit Rude/ Esprit Doux (1985) com- as the most significant new contribution 90th beat. However, in a charming coda, posed for Boulez’s 60th birthday and the to the repertoire of transcendental pian- 90+ (1994) the beats continue at a quickening pace, trio Esprit Rude/ Esprit Doux, II (1995) for ism since Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit. as though Carter were wishing Petrassi to his 70th. Variants of this stride through When Carter’s vast and innovatory live on into his 120s… Retrouvailles surrounded by a volatile In his preface, Carter writes: String Quartet No 1 (1950–51) received conspectus of Carterian piano gestures its Italian premiere in Rome in 1953, Retrouvailles (2000) and textures, so that the piece sounds far Night Fantasies is a piano piece of among the first to offer congratulations more substantial than the mere minute- continually changing moods, sug- was the distinguished Italian composer Of all Carter’s younger contemporaries, and-a-half it takes to play.