A star violist may be on the horizon. David Aaron Carpenter is a young American who makes his disc debut with recordings of a viola arrangement of Elgar's Cello Concerto and of Alfred Schnittke's Viola Concerto. Christoph Eschenbach, a champion of Carpenter, conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra.Elgar's autumnal concerto floats on air in its viola arrangement, and Carpenter has a robust sound and mercurial personality. Schnittke's concerto, which obsesses over cadences and short motifs while making radical stylist shifts, was written for the Russian virtuoso Yuri Bashmet, perhaps the most celebrated violist of our day. Carpenter goes to town with the score. --L.A. Times, Mark Swed, November 1, 2009Christoph Eschenbach champions the work of young musicians wherever he goes, and when he takes over the National Symphony Orchestra this fall Washingtonians are likely to get to know all of Eschenbach's favorites during his tenure here. American violist David Aaron Carpenter came to Eschenbach's attention when he won the 2005 Philadelphia Orchestra Young Artists Competition, earning the chance to perform Walton's viola concerto with the orchestra. Carpenter then went on to win first prize at the Walter W. Naumburg Viola Competition the following year, as well as being sponsored by Rolex in a special mentoring program in 2007, which led to studies with Pinchas Zukerman. It's hard to imagine more things going right for a young musician's career, and now he can add to his resume a CD debut, on the Ondine label, again with Eschenbach but this time with the Philharmonia Orchestra.Carpenter leads with his own adaptation of Elgar's cello concerto, based on the one by Lionel Tertis that was approved by the composer himself, and while one wishes that he had recorded the Walton concerto instead, this is a beautiful performance of a curiosity that may find a place as an alternate version of the work. The draw of the CD is Alfred Schnittke's enigmatic viola concerto, composed for Yuri Bashmet in 1985 (the one with full orchestra, not the later one for small orchestra), just before the composer suffered a life-altering stroke. Carpenter has also studied with Bashmet, whose name is (almost) spelled out in one of the concerto's musical themes, but the student's attempt does not yet supplant the teacher's recordings. Schnittke was at the height of his powers when he composed the work, and it is not only an exploration of the instrument's expressive powers -- all of which Carpenter displays, from velvety purr to junkyard bark -- but also unites in one piece some of the most unusual instrumental, harmonic, and melodic colors ever created (especially in the hallucinatory second movement, where the combination of tam-tams, flexatone, xylophone, vibes, harpsichord, piano, and no violins is at its most surreal, with some passages sounding like a demented carousel.) -Charles T. Downey --Ionarts, June 25, 2010David Aaron Carpenter is an excellent young violist. His technique is brilliant, but not showy--his tone is rich and pure. Born in New York in 1986, Carpenter has won several awards, including first prize in the 2006 Naumburg Viola Competition, and is enjoying a successful international career. There is much to recommend this debut CD.Dedicated to enhancing the public's appreciation of his instrument and to enriching its repertoire, he chose two innovative works for this recording: Schnittke's Viola Concerto and Elgar's Cello Concerto in the viola transcription by the great English violist Lionel Tertis (approved by the composer, with some emendations by Carpenter). The two works make an interesting combination, not only because Elgar (1857-1934) died the year Schnittke (1934-1998) was born, but because in some ways these two works are each other's opposites.Schnittke's concerto was inspired by its dedicatee, Yuri Bashmet (one of Carpenter's illustrious teachers). Unmistakably influenced by Shostakovich, it is full of uninhibited, obsessive emotionality, agonized outcries, and sardonic, distorted rhythms. Elgar's, despite some moments of humor and subdued passion, is all English dignity, introspection, and melancholy expressiveness. The Elgar is intriguing, though the inevitable octave jumps are jarring and one misses those sonorous low E's.Carpenter's style, especially his throbbing vibrato, is much better suited to the Schnittke: his performance eloquently captures its volatile character and mercurial moods. In the Elgar, the rhythmic liberties and dynamics are often exaggerated, and the extroverted emotional abandon runs counter to the work's noble restraint. The buildups and climaxes are most convincing. --All Things Strings, Edith Eisler, November 2009Elgar...viola concerto? Has a previously forgotten work been discovered? Alas, no. The viola concerto referenced on the cover of this Ondine album featuring violist David Aaron Carpenter is in fact a transcription of the famous E minor Cello Concerto. Purists, take a breath and let's proceed. Elgar did in fact give a nod of approval to the arrangement made by violist Lionel Tertis. Carpenter has further refined the original Tertis transcription, keeping the solo part remarkably true to the original cello part. This is not hard to imagine, as the viola possesses the same strings as the cello, just an octave higher. For anyone listening to Carpenter's performance without previous knowledge of the Cello Concerto, it's possible that the "viola version" would make a tremendous impact. Carpenter's playing is amazingly lush and technically superb; his interpretation of the work easily rivals the great cellists who have performed this work. But for those who are familiar with these great cello interpretations, there is something obviously missing here: the depth and darkness achieved by the cello. Adding that extra octave to the viola part brightens the landscape no matter how sultry and provocative Carpenter's tone may be.What is entirely successful is what comes next: Carpenter's performance of the Schnittke Viola Concerto. Without any necessary comparison to an "original" version, listeners can truly focus on the music at hand. Schnittke's concerto, written for Carpenter's teacher Yuri Bashmet, is one of the crown jewels of the viola repertoire. It is filled with dark, despairing passages, perhaps presaging the series of strokes the composer was to suffer immediately after its completion. Carpenter's performance is staggering in its power and intensity. Conductor Christoph Eschenbach and the Philharmonia Orchestra provide an equally dark, mysterious background with careful attention to dynamics to allow the viola to be heard easily throughout. --Allmusic.com, Mike D. Brownell, October 2009For me, if you're going to play the Elgar Concerto on anything but the cello, you might as well use a kazoo. Carpenter does well with his viola, but it works best when the original writing is close to the viola's range. There are no depths, not enough timbral variety. The Allegro molto ought to fly with the smaller instrument, but the sense of struggle is gone, and it flies higher with du Pré and the big, unwieldy, between-the-legs fiddle. The Adagio has beauty, an English restraint, but not much soul. Best is the final Allegro, where Carpenter sounds at his most engaged, and where varied dynamics help make up for the lighter sound. The main theme of the last movement suits the viola better too. Lionel Tertis (on whose Elgar-sanctioned transcription Carpenter's own is based) might have found more sorrow in these notes. He also tuned his viola down for some of the music, and Carpenter does not go that far. But it might all have worked really well, given higher voltage. The Ondine performance is a little studio bound, with the efficient Eschenbach and the band rather backward in the mix. I'd like to hear Carpenter do this live, and I'd like to hear Max Rysanov play this arrangement.Russian soul (of the Bashmet/Rysanov order) certainly helps the great Schnittke Viola Concerto flatten the unsuspecting listener. Carpenter digs deep, and he does succeed in making the work seem approachable, almost mainstream. You might think of Henze, and definitely of Britten, maybe even Brahms. So the big central Allegro molto makes emotional sense on first hearing, and the screw tightens in the huge final Largo. But hear the opening of that movement, heartfelt, yet a bit too easy. Carpenter is balanced far too close, to my ear, though the percussion and quiet strings are well caught at the end. As the gondola of death drifted off into the mist during the closing moments, I realized this was a tamed Schnittke. The Viola Concerto might be his most assimilable work, but it does not stand alone as the composer's masterpiece, despite Tully Potter's claim in the notes here. Buy Bashmet (with Rozhdestvensky) for the hysteria, fear, and alienation that are the work's substance. Bashmet, though, is also balanced too close. Seen and heard live, this work makes a very different impression, as does the equally fear- and grief-stricken Elgar. Carpenter offers a good introduction to the music, yet as a lover of both these pieces, I can't recommend this disc to you with much enthusiasm. --Fanfare, Paul Ingram, Jan-Feb 2010If there's such a thing as an overnight-star violist, it's David Aaron Carpenter. (...) he makes an excellent case for the viola version of Elgar's concerto (...). Carpenter is in a league with the best (...). Much credit is no doubt to Christoph Eschenbach, who has recorded lots of Schnittke concertos with great conviction. --David Patrick Stearns, The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 23, 2009Over the years many fine artists have tried to make a career as solo violists. Most have failed. There simply isn't enough important repertoire for the instrument. There is also the problem that the instrument's middle register character lacks the soaring upper register of the violin or the weight of the cello. The latest musician to try where others have feared to tread is the young American David Aaron Carpenter. On the strength of this recording he is a virtuoso on his instrument and a compelling musician.The Elgar Cello Concerto in the Tertis arrangement for viola was given its first recording by Rivka Golani in 1989 (Conifer CDCF 171). Comparing the two recordings it immediately becomes obvious that Carpenter is one of those violists who opts for a lean, violinistic sound. Golani favoured the traditional dark, woody viola timbre. Carpenter's preference allows him to cut through the orchestra more easily. In addition, he and Eschenbach approach the Elgar as chamber music for the most part, and are consistently sensitive to the quieter dynamics. You won't find anything like cellist Jacqueline du Pré's passion in the last movement but Carpenter's restrained and poetic approach is valid too. The Schnittke Viola Concerto from 1985 is a magnificent and disturbing work, with some of the most haunting music ever written in its final pages. Soloist and conductor are ideal interpreters of the piece and the recording quality is very good. PER --La Scena Musicale, Paul E. Robinson, November 2009THIS could be considered somewhat of a passing of the torch, with 1934 the year of Elgar's death and Russian composer Alfred Schnittke's birth; this also marks the recording debut of David Aaron Carpenter, a sensationally gifted violist who gets lots of opportunity to test to the max here.The Elgar is actually the 1929 arrangement of his Cello Concerto for viola. Whether due to the change in register and overall character of the viola, or the tossed-off deftness of the playing here, Elgar's glowing nostalgia and burnished reflection go mostly amiss in this outing, despite the aplomb in the playing.The Schnittke Concerto is another matter though, its emotional weight registering strongly in a splendidly characterized reading that shows this composer's unusual and highly effective fork-in-the-road style of mixing familiar elements with modernistic crunch. --Winnipeg Free Press, James Manishen, October 3, 2009The obvious comparison point for the Elgar is Rivka Golani's pioneering 1989 recording of the Tertis arrangement, made for Conifer but currently unavailable. However there is a difference, because David Aaron Carpenter has amended Lionel Tertis's 1928 work, so the two are not strictly speaking comparable.Carpenter has a lighter, rather more alto-inclined sonority; hers is weightier. His opening Adagio is slower and more rhetorical, the conducting appropriately more measured. Golani and Handley are faster, as Handley was wont to be. I must note that the transition to the moderato is that much stronger in the Golani/Handley reading; the basses and brass are more powerful, the Carpenter/Eschenbach more languid.The registral changes involved in this adaptation will always bring one up short, no matter who's playing, but they offer a jolt that adds to the demands of listening to the work in its Elgar-sanctioned viola guise. Then there are the emendations. Carpenter does not say specifically what he's done and nor do the notes but, for example, he's amended Tertis's arco to pizzicato at the start of the second movement Lento. It thereby perhaps loses a parallel virtuosic thrust but maybe it's more cellistically pure that way. I like the way Carpenter plays; he's a splendid player with a fine tone. That said those glorious orchestral touches such as the rapid quicksilver descending figures in this movement are better realised by Handley - and more whimsically too.Carpenter-Escehnbach are a little quicker in the slow movement - a little surprisingly perhaps - than Golani/Handley but also more obviously emotional. Golani is more privy to her emotions, and her recording actually is better suited in this respect, in its veiled quality. This Ondine is rather cut and dried and the dynamics don't really register as they should; it means overall, despite the heartfelt ethos, the playing comes across as slightly less effective than I think it might be. Carpenter has amended some of Tertis's luscious writing at the start of the finale; if I find him too tremulous toward the end then I find many a cellist too sentimental here as well. I remember Tortelier's television Masterclass cry of `I am Engleesh, I am Engleesh' at the work's zenith. Nobility is required (see Tortelier himself, Fournier, Pini et al), not blood on the floor.Still I admired the performance. The rapport is fine, ensemble is solid. The emendations are thought-provoking and novel and Tertis's work is hardly an everyday event. This is an ingenious piece of work, though Golani's is the more idiomatic I think.The companion work is Schnittke's authentic 1985 Viola Concerto, another masterpiece. Powerfully introspective it exerts a momentous vortex-like pull. The central Allegro molto sweeps and swoops in dramatic fashion, its ghostly dance patina richly etched and pointed. Carpenter's intonation remains unbreached even in the highest positions, and as the reverie incrementally ratchets tension, infiltrating nightmare and torment (from around 12:00 in the central movement) he responds with unsullied tone. He surmounts the paragraphal considerations as well, not least in the finale which can easily dissipate unless a strong and rigorous pair are in close accord. Fortunately they are here. This is all most movingly done. Its proportions remind me of Bashmet's celebrated première recording (Melodiya 10.00068) which is my preferred choice, still. Imai on BIS 447 plays beautifully and hers is a sleeper performance; she's a wonderful artist whatever she plays. Van Keulen surprised me with her articulacy as a violist (Koch 1523). Kaskashian drives through the Concerto in record time on ECM 1471 - a performance for lovers of extremes. --MusicWeb International, Jonathan Woolf, October 2009The viola is less forsaken than it used to be, but it still can't claim a great number of solo concertos. That's why, nearly a century ago, the great violist Lionel Tertis transcribed Elgar's Cello Concerto for the instrument's smaller cousin. Newcomer David Aaron Carpenter has boldly reclaimed it - and plays the heck out of it, backed by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach. He also gives us one of the most arresting original works for the instrument from the last couple of decades, Schnittke's Viola Concerto. Schnittke wrote the book on postmodernism in Russian music, juxtaposing tunes and textures wildly. Here, though, he's as often weird and wistful as wacky.  In both concertos, Carpenter's sound is less dark and woody than most violists': Call it willowy, with lots of subtle and unusual colors. The Elgar loses something of its dark, stiff-upper-lip nobility in Carpenter's hands, but gains in pastel lyricism. Eschenbach's orchestra provides gorgeous support. --The Dallas Morning News, Lawson Taitte, September 29, 2009Unable to persuade Elgar to write a concerto for his instrument, violist Lionel Tertis transcribed the composer's Cello Concerto. Elgar was pleased to conduct Tertis in a 1930 performance of it. New York-born viola hotshot David Aaron Carpenter, 23, has customized Tertis' transcription and allied with conductor Christoph Eschenbach for an excellent studio recording. Carpenter's bold viola does justice to this classic's autumnal hues, while offering lithe phrasing few cellists can match. Alfred Schnittke was born the year Elgar died, and his 1985 Viola Concerto is a classic of another kind -- a postmodern, Bach-meets-Shostakovich psychodrama. Competition is stiff here, not only from dedicatee Yuri Bashmet but from young Frenchman Antoine Tamestit, whose 2008 Ambroisie disc is an incredibly subtle marvel. But Carpenter's darker explosiveness works, too. --NJ.com, Bradley Bambarger, November 6, 2009