Elliott Carter - Triple Duo (1983) (with score)

"Triple Duo, for an ensemble of six musicians, is a work, as its name implies, that treats the group as three pairs of instruments: flute/clarinet, violin/cello, piano/percussion. Each of these pairs has its own repertory of ideas and moods. This free fantasy involves various contrasts, conflicts and reconciliations between the three duos." (Elliott Carter)
"A creation of the composer’s lengthy late phase,.... Triple Duo (composed in 1982) already clues us in via its witty title to the strain of quirky playfulness that emerges from its complicated high jinks. Indeed, the opening gambit, with its mock warming up as the players metaphorically clear their throats, gives us a spritz of ultra-modernist Haydn. Schiff characterizes the Carter of this vintage as tending “toward an ever-greater lucidity.” Triple Duo was commissioned for The Fires of London and premiered in April 1983.
What is above all a Carter signature, David Schiff points out, is the music’s need to speak in “plural voice.” Triple Duo’s six musicians are grouped into three pairings or duos: flute and clarinet, violin and cello, and percussion and piano (the last given a defining structural role in articulating the form). Each of these duos inhabits its own sphere as defined by timbre, characteristic intervals, harmonic features, and rhythmic patterns. Schiff neatly captures the distinctions: “the woodwinds gurgle, shriek, and coo like a pair of amorous love birds, the strings scrape and pluck comically, and the percussion and piano evoke the more angular variety of free jazz.”
But this doesn’t make for a predictably schematic division of labor: over the two-part work’s uninterrupted span of 20 minutes, the volatile ways in which Carter cross-cuts their highly contrasting domains generates an enormous sense of drama and energy. At times the duos also join forces to create a larger combined entity (particularly in the unearthly beauty of the central part of the work). Commencing, like Éclat, with a gesture from the piano, Triple Duo splices together sections we’re used to encountering in a linear progression in conventional classical works. Schiff remarks that the musical layout resembles pieces from an Allegro, Adagio, and Scherzo that have been “chopped up and pasted together, a fine example of cinematic influence.” Carter’s focus on the material nature of the sonorities in each duo’s “repertory,” he adds, results in an “engagingly tactile quality.”
The piece eventually reconfigures its unusual contrapuntal perspective into an Allegro fantastico finale in which Schiff recognizes “an abstraction and magnification of jazz: ultra-bop.” Carter’s writing for the ensemble reaches a conclusion of delirious joy that stands apart in his oeuvre. In a survey of a century of the Pierrot chamber ensemble, the musicologist Will Robin considers Carter’s treatment of his instrumentation “a classic example of Schoenberg avoidance,” evincing “an entirely different kind of mania from Pierrot.” (Thomas May)
Performance:
Strasbourg, Musica Festival, September 27th 2012
Ensemble Linea
Maiko Matsuoka, violin
Johannes Burghoff, cello
Anna d'Errico, piano
Olivier Maurel, percussion
Keiko Murakami, flute
Yuko Fukumae, clarinet
Jean-Philippe Wurtz, conductor

[@jameshelgeson4668]

I absolutely love this piece.

[@porcinet1968]

one of my favorite Carter works. I was lucky enough to see The Seymour Group (our Sydney based "Pierrot" ensemble for new music in the 1980s-90s) do this in the late 1980s and the players were constantly having to conduct one another when not actually playing. the visual metre being beaten only rarely being audible makes watching such a performance very interesting. the discrepancy of hearing and vision in many Carter works is a big part of their effect in performance.

[@stueystuey1962]

That makes sense to me. The SQ 3, which is written for two duos playing simultaneously is rather interesting to see visually. Not quite as demanding as this in that regard where players conduct the others. But the "beats" are such that seeing it performed does add a layer of interest.

[@pierredutilleux9550]

GREAT piece!!

[@MVA74]

Brilliant composer as usual. thank you for the upload

[@benjamin9901]

Thanks for uploading! Actually hadn't heard this piece from Carter before.

[@hungahamsterflywater]

Very interesting piece

[@JosephOziel]

Thanks for the Upload! Another masterpiece by carter

[@ContemporaryClassical]

Another couple coming soon....

[@l.c.turner-thedailycanon]

Thank you for uploading this wonderful piece! Could I put in a request for Carter's Oboe Concerto?

[@ahoimeboy6063]

😳🤙🥰

[@shiroumxm2052]

it has bells im in

[@muslit]

I saw this conducted by Boulez at a celebration of Carter's birthday in Alice Tully Hall. It was boring then as it is listening to this recording.

[@stueystuey1962]

I can confidently disagree. There is a great deal of charm, wit and humor and a piquancy reminiscent of the harpsichord quartet. A melodrama that never devolves into sentimentality.

[@classicalts806]

It is very heterosexual music. You wouldn't get it.

[@muslit]

@@classicalts806 I've been a musician for 63 years now, and I don't understand your comment. Please define for us 'heterosexual music'.

[@MorganHayes_Composer.Pianist]

@@classicalts806 a strange comment. So, you can tell that Boulez, Barraque and Wuorinen were gay from listening to their music?

[@Twentythousandlps]

​@MorganHayes_Composer.Pianist It's called "trolling".