|
Elliott Carter: Quintets and Voices by
Geoff Brown First recordings are... a feature of Mode’s Elliott Carter disc Quintets and Voices (mode 128), although this is not unusual: Carter has been so prolific in old age that new works lie everywhere. The release makes use of current technology’s favourite toy, the DVD, combining the musical programme with a film record of a separate performance, and a lengthy interview with Carter and musicians. This proves a mixed blessing. With music so complex and mercurial, watching the film of the Quintet for Piano and Strings (1997) means taking part of one’s ear off the ball. Ursula Oppens’s lips and eyes, always counting or glancing at the Arditti Quartet, give eloquent witness to the piano’s struggles to get a grasp on the strings, bustling about in their private world. But the music alone conveys this and more, the players chasing and teasing through a cat’s cradle of metres, intervals and speeds. The 1991 Quintet for Piano and Winds and the song cycle Tempo e Tempi share the same combination of intellectual toughness and dramatic fire. Syringa, from 1978, is a thornier and chillier proposition. For anyone who loves contemporary music, this is a necessary disc. |