Elliot Carter: Piano Concerto/Variations for Orchestra
The music of Elliott Carter is one of the best connections that New Music has to Ives and his generation, including Cowell and Nancarrow. Carter, as catholic in his spools of influences as was Ives, wrote many acclaimed chamber works before his Piano Concerto, played here by Ursula Oppens. But the concerto takes the full weight of the chamber works and sends them loudly and intricately to a higher level, with a more developed hugeness. TheVariations for Orchestraare likewise powerful illuminations of previous Carter works, but they too roll so many influences--many of them mainstream--into the mix that the breadth of music alone is staggering. Carter loves the long, large dips and dives, as well as the emergent loudness and lushness that an orchestra can heave much more strongly than a chamber group. But these pieces also show the flip side--that Carter is an astute composer in regard to granular details.--Andrew Bartlett