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Elliott Carter: Quintets and Voices by
Paul Driver * * * (excellent) This superb disc includes the first recordings of Carter's Fragment II, for string quartet, and Quintet for Piano & Strings, as well as the first CD appearance of his classic Syringa. A setting of a specially written poem by John Ashbery (assigned to the soprano), as well as of ancient Greek fragments (assigned to the baritone), this work is a cantata of rare originality and unremitting force. The Quintet, notable for imitative counterpoint of lyric intensity, is nicely complemented by the Quintet for Piano & Winds: Oppens is formidably eloquent in both, as in a recent little solo, Retrouvailles. |