I love the works by Elliot Carter, this is a great concerto. The conductor here is English composer Olliver Knussen, an reknown interpreter of music by 20th century fellow composers.
The balance in the room was surprisingly not that bad. Interesting note: pianist Charles Rosen's page turner is actually conductor Ryan Wigglesworth, who was reflecting conductor Oliver Knussen's paterns to Rosen (who was 81 at the time of this concert) so that he could keep his eyes on his part. Interesting note 2: Carter and Rosen died about a month apart at the end of 2012: Carter on November 9 at 103 and Rosen on December 9 at 85, two days before what would have been Carter's 104th birthday.
I believe what Stravinsky actually said was “the first true American masterpiece.’’ See Stuart Isacoff, A Natural History of the Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians, page 117.
This work dates from the beginning of the carreer of Carrter, after the first quartet, when he was exploring the world of dissociation. The separation in two orchestras, the fact that the harpsichord is totally independant of the piano, go in that direction.
I so know what you mean. Still it's hard to hold back. Im over the cat on the piano stuff. The pedants who listen to three seconds of a piece and then glorify their musical scholarship using words like harmony and melody still annoy. What dont they get about using the fibonacci series to construct the polyrythmic approach to two orchestras right?
When the front of the stage is crowded with a full size harpsichord and a baby grand piano and the first instruments to speak are percussive the label crash bang applies.
I agree about the inaudibility of the harpsichord. It's probably exactly as Carter wanted it, but it doesn't work for my ears. I would love to hear a recording where the harpsichord is much louder, despite the original intention of the composer.
The inaudibility of the harpsichord has a lot to do with the historically inaccurate crap harpsichords favoured by modern composers, which are very heavy and built like modern pianos. This is generally not a problem with, for example, French, Italian or Flemish harpsichords from the 17th and 18th centuries. They can be hella loud, and very exciting to hear with their proper repertoire.
What are you trying to say, A Culture Mind? That all harpsichord repertoire is boring, or that this "improper" repertoire of Carter's (and others like his) are boring? I'm confused.
If you enjoy music that has melody, harmony, meter, or counterpoint I suggest you try another video. It is nice to Ursula Oppens and Charles Rosen hard at work in the service of modernity.
@@stephenjablonsky1941 1. Why should I be surprised? I don't judge people by age, but if I did, older might correlate with a more conservative view of melody, harmony, etc. 2. You're wrong about my birth. (Where's you get your info?)
@@ejb7969 There has been plenty of enjoyable music writen since 1897, and millions of people listen to it. Millions of people don't listen to 12-note rubbish and never will.
@@Empyreanabove Millions of people don't speak Chinese either. Or listen to Bach. What does that prove? If they don't speak Chinese, they go somewhere else. They don't bitch about things they don't know how to listen to, or call it rubbish.
Запутанное , хаотичное , но интересное современное произведение с разнообразными ритма. Партии перкуссии поражают.Если не концентрироваться на мелодиях и ритме , то может показаться что это какофония. Но внутри всё кажется очень логичным. Для меня это парадокс ультрамодернистов и новой сложности.
Elliot Carter, I've heard, was a very intelligent cultured man. And there is undoubtedly serious thought in the piece. But still, the end result is out of proportion with the methods employed, a common and legitimate complaint of modern music. And thinking that does not make you ignorant, stupid, or whatever.
It's incredible to me that, despite all the high-octane intelligence involved in this performance, the harpsichord is still mostly inaudible. That the problem has never, in my experience, been solved in live performance makes me wonder if Carter was deliberately playing with this factor as a sly joke in keeping with the basic scherzo character of the piece.
Ummm no. Oppens was a dedicated musician of Carter's music during just about her whole career. Whatever you're seeing, it's definitely not what you attribute to it.
@@KH-no7ph It was a joke about her facial expression, which looks like confusion. Obviously she's a professional musician so I know she's not actually confused. Surprised I needed to explain this.
@@jonathanhenderson9422 Lol I got that it was a joke; it just wasn't a good joke (clearly you were trying to throw shade on the music--yes jokes can throw shade--but the way to do it wasn't through an incorrect interpretation, even in a joke, of the facial expression of Ursula Oppens, a devoted Carterite). As for you having to explain--well, you know what they say about jokes you have to explain. Or do you?
@@KH-no7ph You're entitled to your opinion, but I wasn't trying to "throw shade" on the music either. I enjoy Carter and this piece, but by almost any standard this music is very odd. Now what's funny is you trying to play "joke police" when you very clearly didn't get it to begin with. Unfortunately, far too many jokes have to be "explained" these days because there's so many snowflakes like yourself who don't understand them and can't take them when they do.
well its defin carter. maybe chaos so difficult to read doesnt sound like anyone else.does anyone really remember what they play the 1st piano sonata is understandable but it would be a nightmare to try to remem such exactitude.a very definite madness but i like it more than the older stuff even though i cant remember correctly any single bar of his stuff.
This music always sounds as if it needs more rehearsal the profile is never clear to me . Full of disparate moments. Does one remeber a note of it after its done. Carter is my hero lived until last year was it 104 . The Concerto for orchestra gets better performances .Oppens is always somewhere when he is performed.Rosen too .Has he written on Carter too ? His two books on classical and romantic period and the little monograph on Schonberg I carry everywh I go . Knussen's music is also an inspiration he conducts a lot of contempoary music . England's kinder , gentler Boulez!
The fact that a piece of music is by a famous composer and is on the program of a prestigious venue is no proof of quality. There's always plenty - maybe more than plenty - of intricate detail to listen to in Carter, so the willing ear is entertained, but the whole may be less than the sum of its parts.
@@ejb7969 Lol, every TH-cam vid of modern classical it's the same thing: people who decide the best thing to do with their time is to post a comment sh*tting on everyone else's enjoyment. And since modern classical doesn't have a lot of fans (compared to, say, rock or hip hop), these people are essentially the neighborhood bully picking on the "nerdy" kids who were happily minding their own business. Great mission to have in life (not).
Do people who complain about dissonant "modern" music also complain about difficult-to-understand scientific research and discoveries? Perhaps so. If so, how sad.
The intellectual arrogance of modernist composers....comparing themselves to scientists, as if this 'stuff' was a discovery and not what it is, nonsense.
There's a moment around 4.43 where the harpsichord playing reminds me of Poulenc's Concert Champetre. So that's two good seconds out of 25 minutes of tedium.
@karl klyder Same shit was said about Mozart during Classical Period, then Stravinsky and then right after same crap was said about Schönberg's music and look today, they're music is played and studied by the finest classical musicians out there. Boulez on Schönberg and Stravinky, Barenboim on Carter's output, and I don't even have the time to talk about Mozart and others. So you pretty much can join the club of shit talkers and watch how history destroys your thoughs on music OR, you can be a little more open minded, open your ears and start study so you don't fall behind, and this is because you seem to ''love classical music'' and at the same time with the most of shame you can even grasp the idea that this music right here nigga has it's roots deeply grounded in the most antique path of Tradition.
smyth140 elliottcarter.com/biography.html For reference purposes, There, you might read about some of the most respected composers and directors of modern era talking good shit about this great man. Some of them might have directed some of the music that you love the most, again this is just for reference purposes as it might not chance you humble but erroneus opinion about this kind of music. Cheers. Nough said.
Habib Sucar Hey, how about a little better grammar study on your part. It is "their" and not "they're". How can we give any veracity to your comments when you can't even use the language correctly?
1MrZackdaddy My mother tongue is spanish. Keep your english grammar for yourself, nobody cares about the USA anymore, at least not in Latin America. And you are an idiot if that wasthe only thing good or bad that you noticed about all the shit i wrote here.
hmm, how strange it is then that we haven't had any talented composers for the last hundred years after centuries of boring fucking thematic music. must be the fluoride in the water.
@@winston4345 Honestly, most of my friends are professional musicians (as am I), and I don't know even one who can stand to listen to anything he wrote. Audiences have no use for him. His reputation was manufactured by academia and critics.
@@victorgrauer5834Thanks for the clarification. (Your comment comes after a bunch of s**tposts.) I think they're just intense. Their performances show that they're engaged with the music. It's tough to play! Also, they're young and playing for the composer. And they probably have to be pretty intense to get to where they are. It's hard to smile when you're climbing the professional mountain that those kids are.
@@ejb7969I recall attending one of the earliest performances of this piece, possibly the premiere, in LA back in the early 60's. It impressed me very much, though Ive always felt the lack of balance between the piano and harpsichord was a problem.
@@victorgrauer5834 It always was, and everyone acknowledges it. I heard it in NY live in the late '70s - I think it was the first time Paul Jacobs played the harpsichord part, and Oppens on the piano, or vice versa. (I recall it was Jacobs's first time on whichever one he played.) The usual remedy was amplification. I think I saw a speaker in this video. But so many variables. The harpsichord 's natural clatter also masks the harmony. But I like (I assume) most others, learned the piece through recordings, where they can better equalize the two. It's the only feasible way. I don't think there's a physical way a person could get a good balance. The closer you get to the harpsichord, the closer you are to everything else. Also, in some spots the percussion masks the other instruments.
Great musicians-wasted on the Emperors New clothes. Carter's music is often blatantly unmusical yet the contemporary brigade flock to it like sheep and no-one dare admits it does not sound musical. Even advanced musicians don't get it. It is tragic far better composers don't get played instead of this stuff.
Carter connected noise/chance music with classical form. His technique was to obliterate harmonically driven melodic lines in favor of polytonal counterpoint. His rhythmic concept was more about concurrency than synchronization, so it sounds haphazard, while being meticulously planned. Glance at the score, which appears at times throughout the performance. The concept of time accelerating and decelerating is analogous to Einstein's concept of warped space and relativistic compression of spacetime. Many of Carter's concepts have re-appeared in modern jazz.
",,,sounds haphazard, while being meticulously planned." This is music not mathematics. If it sounds haphazard then it doesn' t matter how meticulously planned it is. It has failed. This is the bizarre conceit of modernist composers, that the notes as written matter more than what the ear hears or comprehends.
The conductor needs to lay off the pastries .... This youth orchestra poured their heart into this work, especially the asian violinist. Carter lived till about 105, His variations for orchestra is one of his best works.
I love the works by Elliot Carter, this is a great concerto. The conductor here is English composer Olliver Knussen, an reknown interpreter of music by 20th century fellow composers.
Carter's music is most enjoyable when watched.
The balance in the room was surprisingly not that bad. Interesting note: pianist Charles Rosen's page turner is actually conductor Ryan Wigglesworth, who was reflecting conductor Oliver Knussen's paterns to Rosen (who was 81 at the time of this concert) so that he could keep his eyes on his part.
Interesting note 2: Carter and Rosen died about a month apart at the end of 2012: Carter on November 9 at 103 and Rosen on December 9 at 85, two days before what would have been Carter's 104th birthday.
Super interesting, contemporary works for Harpsichord really peak my interest.
This is over sixty years old. Back in 1961, they weren't referring to pieces from 1901 as contemporary.
Brilliant Classics put on TH-cam a collection of contemporary harpsichord music
"A masterpiece, and by an American composer." - Stravinsky
I believe what Stravinsky actually said was “the first true American masterpiece.’’ See Stuart Isacoff, A Natural History of the Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians, page 117.
@@gardnersmith3580 i was there and the inflection in his russian phrasing is better suited to the first translation.
Thanks.
This work dates from the beginning of the carreer of Carrter, after the first quartet, when he was exploring the world of dissociation. The separation in two orchestras, the fact that the harpsichord is totally independant of the piano, go in that direction.
I love the expressive gesture of the timbal player at the very beginning.
Carter wrote this work in his fifties, not in the beginning of his career.
i actually hate everybody that comments on classical modern music videos. now i hate myself.
I so know what you mean. Still it's hard to hold back. Im over the cat on the piano stuff. The pedants who listen to three seconds of a piece and then glorify their musical scholarship using words like harmony and melody still annoy. What dont they get about using the fibonacci series to construct the polyrythmic approach to two orchestras right?
When the front of the stage is crowded with a full size harpsichord and a baby grand piano and the first instruments to speak are percussive the label crash bang applies.
Thanks a lot : beautiful !
What a beautiful woman!
I agree about the inaudibility of the harpsichord. It's probably exactly as Carter wanted it, but it doesn't work for my ears. I would love to hear a recording where the harpsichord is much louder, despite the original intention of the composer.
Notice that the harpsichord has several dedicated microphones, so I would blame the sound engineers in this case for not mixing in more of it.
The inaudibility of the harpsichord has a lot to do with the historically inaccurate crap harpsichords favoured by modern composers, which are very heavy and built like modern pianos. This is generally not a problem with, for example, French, Italian or Flemish harpsichords from the 17th and 18th centuries. They can be hella loud, and very exciting to hear with their proper repertoire.
What are you trying to say, A Culture Mind? That all harpsichord repertoire is boring, or that this "improper" repertoire of Carter's (and others like his) are boring? I'm confused.
Everything is boring if you don't understand it or engage with it. I can only assume that you either don't or haven't.
I'd rather not hear it at all.
If you enjoy music that has melody, harmony, meter, or counterpoint I suggest you try another video. It is nice to Ursula Oppens and Charles Rosen hard at work in the service of modernity.
This piece has all of those things. It's all in how you hear it.
If your ears stop in the year 1897, then yeah, go somewhere else.
@@ejb7969 You will be surprised to know that I first heard this piece in 1961, before you were born.
@@stephenjablonsky1941 1. Why should I be surprised? I don't judge people by age, but if I did, older might correlate with a more conservative view of melody, harmony, etc.
2. You're wrong about my birth. (Where's you get your info?)
@@ejb7969 There has been plenty of enjoyable music writen since 1897, and millions of people listen to it. Millions of people don't listen to 12-note rubbish and never will.
@@Empyreanabove Millions of people don't speak Chinese either. Or listen to Bach. What does that prove?
If they don't speak Chinese, they go somewhere else. They don't bitch about things they don't know how to listen to, or call it rubbish.
Запутанное , хаотичное , но интересное современное произведение с разнообразными ритма. Партии перкуссии поражают.Если не концентрироваться на мелодиях и ритме , то может показаться что это какофония. Но внутри всё кажется очень логичным. Для меня это парадокс ультрамодернистов и новой сложности.
Let the music fall on your ears. It’s Carter not someone else.
Elliot Carter, I've heard, was a very intelligent cultured man. And there is undoubtedly serious thought in the piece.
But still, the end result is out of proportion with the methods employed, a common and legitimate complaint of modern music. And thinking that does not make you ignorant, stupid, or whatever.
It makes you limited and boring to read, though.
It's incredible to me that, despite all the high-octane intelligence involved in this performance, the harpsichord is still mostly inaudible. That the problem has never, in my experience, been solved in live performance makes me wonder if Carter was deliberately playing with this factor as a sly joke in keeping with the basic scherzo character of the piece.
gee, i wonder how much carter is played these days. LOL.
Lots. He gets played constantly, still.
@@jameshelgeson4668 Lots? I doubt it.
Harpsichordist at 1:22: "WTF am I reading? Is this music or an alien language?"
Ummm no. Oppens was a dedicated musician of Carter's music during just about her whole career. Whatever you're seeing, it's definitely not what you attribute to it.
@@KH-no7ph It was a joke about her facial expression, which looks like confusion. Obviously she's a professional musician so I know she's not actually confused. Surprised I needed to explain this.
@@jonathanhenderson9422 Lol I got that it was a joke; it just wasn't a good joke (clearly you were trying to throw shade on the music--yes jokes can throw shade--but the way to do it wasn't through an incorrect interpretation, even in a joke, of the facial expression of Ursula Oppens, a devoted Carterite). As for you having to explain--well, you know what they say about jokes you have to explain. Or do you?
@@KH-no7ph You're entitled to your opinion, but I wasn't trying to "throw shade" on the music either. I enjoy Carter and this piece, but by almost any standard this music is very odd. Now what's funny is you trying to play "joke police" when you very clearly didn't get it to begin with. Unfortunately, far too many jokes have to be "explained" these days because there's so many snowflakes like yourself who don't understand them and can't take them when they do.
The flute player missed her last entrance right before the claves at the end.
Wait I forget. Carter influenced G-d to write the Torah, or Visa versa. It's one of the two.
Charles Rosen has his own personal conductor.
well its defin carter. maybe chaos so difficult to read doesnt sound like anyone else.does anyone really remember what they play the 1st piano sonata is understandable but it would be a nightmare to try to remem such exactitude.a very definite madness but i like it more than the older stuff even though i cant remember correctly any single bar of his stuff.
Memory is overrated.
アップありがとうございます。
哀愁のカーニバル、ありましたらお願いいたします。
This music always sounds as if it needs more rehearsal the profile is never clear to me . Full of disparate moments. Does one remeber a note of it after its done. Carter is my hero lived until last year was it 104 . The Concerto for orchestra gets better performances .Oppens is always somewhere when he is performed.Rosen too .Has he written on Carter too ? His two books on classical and romantic period and the little monograph on Schonberg I carry everywh I go . Knussen's music is also an inspiration he conducts a lot of contempoary music . England's kinder , gentler Boulez!
Rosen has a chapter in his book Critical Entertainments in which he discusses performing this very piece.
it's the trumpets
rip ,
The fact that a piece of music is by a famous composer and is on the program of a prestigious venue is no proof of quality. There's always plenty - maybe more than plenty - of intricate detail to listen to in Carter, so the willing ear is entertained, but the whole may be less than the sum of its parts.
Or, you could be wrong.
@@ejb7969 Lol, every TH-cam vid of modern classical it's the same thing: people who decide the best thing to do with their time is to post a comment sh*tting on everyone else's enjoyment. And since modern classical doesn't have a lot of fans (compared to, say, rock or hip hop), these people are essentially the neighborhood bully picking on the "nerdy" kids who were happily minding their own business. Great mission to have in life (not).
Do people who complain about dissonant "modern" music also complain about difficult-to-understand scientific research and discoveries? Perhaps so. If so, how sad.
I bet you really hope so... need that validation that your refined and intelligent
The intellectual arrogance of modernist composers....comparing themselves to scientists, as if this 'stuff' was a discovery and not what it is, nonsense.
It's not the composers who are arrogant. It's people who say: I don't like it or don't understand it, THEREFORE it is bad.
All we need for modern music to triumph is eliminate the listener.
There's a moment around 4.43 where the harpsichord playing reminds me of Poulenc's Concert Champetre. So that's two good seconds out of 25 minutes of tedium.
Pride in your ignorance doesn't suit you very well.
@@ejb7969 How would you know? If I'm ignorant then so are, I'd say 99.999% of people on the planet who find this incomprehensible gibberish.
@@Empyreanabove 1. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt,
2. They don't put it in writing.
@karl klyder
Same shit was said about Mozart during Classical Period, then Stravinsky and then right after same crap was said about Schönberg's music and look today, they're music is played and studied by the finest classical musicians out there. Boulez on Schönberg and Stravinky, Barenboim on Carter's output, and I don't even have the time to talk about Mozart and others.
So you pretty much can join the club of shit talkers and watch how history destroys your thoughs on music OR, you can be a little more open minded, open your ears and start study so you don't fall behind, and this is because you seem to ''love classical music'' and at the same time with the most of shame you can even grasp the idea that this music right here nigga has it's roots deeply grounded in the most antique path of Tradition.
You don't know shit about music.
smyth140
Yeah, you probably know a lot... Go listen to some Beethoven's 5th and be happy.
smyth140 elliottcarter.com/biography.html
For reference purposes,
There, you might read about some of the most respected composers and directors of modern era talking good shit about this great man. Some of them might have directed some of the music that you love the most, again this is just for reference purposes as it might not chance you humble but erroneus opinion about this kind of music. Cheers. Nough said.
Habib Sucar Hey, how about a little better grammar study on your part. It is "their" and not "they're". How can we give any veracity to your comments when you can't even use the language correctly?
1MrZackdaddy My mother tongue is spanish. Keep your english grammar for yourself, nobody cares about the USA anymore, at least not in Latin America.
And you are an idiot if that wasthe only thing good or bad that you noticed about all the shit i wrote here.
trumpets out of tune at 21:12
You can't remember it because writing memorable themes requires talent.
hmm, how strange it is then that we haven't had any talented composers for the last hundred years after centuries of boring fucking thematic music. must be the fluoride in the water.
...which is beyond the ability of people like Carter and his ilk.
Remembering memorable themes is child's play. They're already memorable. It's the harder ones where all the fun is, you sad little thing.
I wonder if anyone will even know or care who you are in 100 years. I can guarantee you Elliott Carter's name and music will still be celebrated.
@@winston4345 Honestly, most of my friends are professional musicians (as am I), and I don't know even one who can stand to listen to anything he wrote. Audiences have no use for him. His reputation was manufactured by academia and critics.
No joy.
@@ejb7969 I was referring to the expressions on the faces of the performers, ranging from puzzled to agonized. I myself rather like this piece.
@@victorgrauer5834Thanks for the clarification. (Your comment comes after a bunch of s**tposts.)
I think they're just intense. Their performances show that they're engaged with the music. It's tough to play!
Also, they're young and playing for the composer. And they probably have to be pretty intense to get to where they are. It's hard to smile when you're climbing the professional mountain that those kids are.
@@ejb7969I recall attending one of the earliest performances of this piece, possibly the premiere, in LA back in the early 60's. It impressed me very much, though Ive always felt the lack of balance between the piano and harpsichord was a problem.
@@victorgrauer5834 It always was, and everyone acknowledges it. I heard it in NY live in the late '70s - I think it was the first time Paul Jacobs played the harpsichord part, and Oppens on the piano, or vice versa. (I recall it was Jacobs's first time on whichever one he played.)
The usual remedy was amplification. I think I saw a speaker in this video. But so many variables. The harpsichord 's natural clatter also masks the harmony.
But I like (I assume) most others, learned the piece through recordings, where they can better equalize the two. It's the only feasible way.
I don't think there's a physical way a person could get a good balance. The closer you get to the harpsichord, the closer you are to everything else.
Also, in some spots the percussion masks the other instruments.
Great musicians-wasted on the Emperors New clothes. Carter's music is often blatantly unmusical yet the contemporary brigade flock to it like sheep and no-one dare admits it does not sound musical. Even advanced musicians don't get it. It is tragic far better composers don't get played instead of this stuff.
Carter connected noise/chance music with classical form. His technique was to obliterate harmonically driven melodic lines in favor of polytonal counterpoint. His rhythmic concept was more about concurrency than synchronization, so it sounds haphazard, while being meticulously planned. Glance at the score, which appears at times throughout the performance. The concept of time accelerating and decelerating is analogous to Einstein's concept of warped space and relativistic compression of spacetime. Many of Carter's concepts have re-appeared in modern jazz.
JC you clazy let the baby Jesus shut your mouth and open your mind
agree -- I never got him either
",,,sounds haphazard, while being meticulously planned." This is music not mathematics. If it sounds haphazard then it doesn' t matter how meticulously planned it is. It has failed. This is the bizarre conceit of modernist composers, that the notes as written matter more than what the ear hears or comprehends.
French sounds very haphazard to most English speakers of a certain IQ. So French must be a failed language.
Your cliches are so full of crap.
The conductor needs to lay off the pastries .... This youth orchestra poured their heart into this work, especially the asian violinist. Carter lived till about 105, His variations for orchestra is one of his best works.
He's dead