Category: Orchestras; Radio 3
Date: 11.10.2005
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Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Symphony Orchestra January Composer weekend -
Friday 13 to Sunday 15 January 2006
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Elliott Carter, who turns 97 in December, remains one of the most influential and celebrated composers of the past eight decades.
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He is also the subject of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Symphony Orchestra's
annual January Composer Weekend at the Barbican.
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The weekend aims to give an overview of
a career which started more than 70 years ago and continues unabated today - and is the
largest survey of his music to take place in the UK in recent decades.
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Carter himself gives two talks about his life and works during a three-day feast of events, ranging
from full-scale orchestral concerts to chamber music and films.
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Every concert is broadcast live on
Radio 3 and there are screenings of major films about him and performances of
learning projects based on his composition.
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Any attempt to define his work must begin with his character, where clearly focused intellect,
profound humanity, humour and personal charm contribute to an irresistible mix, celebrated in countless international performances, recordings and honours including two Pulitzer Prizes.
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Great artists, many of whom are closely associated with Carter, perform the full gamut of his work, from the early choral miniature Harvest Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ, written in 1937, to Of Rewaking, his acclaimed 2002
song-cycle for soprano and orchestra written as a gift to Daniel Barenboim.
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Get Carter! also
includes music by his great friends and heroes, among them Ives, Copland, Schoenberg and BartΓ³k.
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David Robertson, the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Symphony Orchestra's new Principal Guest Conductor, leads two of the big orchestral concerts.
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Robertson is a great friend of the composer and is strongly linked with his oeuvre through
his strong affiliation with Boulez and the Ensemble Intercontemporain.
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Oliver Knussen, a champion of Carter's music both in the concert hall and on disc, conducts
the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ SO in Three Occasions, a collection of works which he encouraged Carter to write in
the Eighties.
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Carter's virtuosic Piano Concerto is played by British pianist Nicolas Hodges, who
has also had music written specially for him by Carter.
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Knussen also conducts a concert with the London Sinfonietta featuring Carter's playful and energetic Clarinet Concerto, with soloist Michael Collins, and his modernist masterpiece, the Double Concerto for harpsichord, piano and two chamber orchestras.
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The Double Concerto is just one of Carter's intricately orchestrated and thrillingly difficult-to-play
pieces which gets a rare outing during the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ SO's weekend.
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Other highlights are the 1965
Piano Concerto with its rich blend of solo piano and 72 individual orchestral parts; his exhilarating
Variations for Orchestra; and the impressive Symphony of Three Orchestras, which provides the fitting final climax to the weekend.
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Get Carter! also features his more intimate music, with a solo piano recital from Rolf Hind, which
has two of the towering works of contemporary piano repertory, Night Fantasies and the iconic work
of American piano music, the Piano Sonata.
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The Arditti Quartet - the dedicatees of Carter's most
recent string quartet, the Fifth, which they play here - also perform Carter's landmark First String Quartet, written after a sabbatical year in the Arizona Desert which changed the course of Carter's career and the history of American music.
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Among the other major highlights of the weekend is a Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Singers concert, featuring choral works
by Carter from the Thirties and Forties, as well as madrigals by the Elizabethan composers whose ideas Carter shares and admires.
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The Guildhall School Symphony Orchestra shows off the most lyrical neo-classical side of Carter's output with a concert of his early works, including the ballet score The Minotaur and his pastoral First Symphony.
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The weekend will feature three major films at the Barbican, including two by Frank Scheffer - Time is Music, a revealing documentary which surveys the work of Carter and his fellow American, John Cage, and his more experimental
A Labyrinth of Time, which focuses on Carter's fascination with the perception of time - as well
as the insightful and accessible South Bank Show profile of Carter from 1986.
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The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ SO January Composer Weekend offers an unprecedented chance to survey the work of this giant of 20th and 21st century music and to explore a lifetime of work which began while Rachmaninov and Prokofiev were still young composers, and whose energy and adventure remain undiminished today.
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Notes to Editors
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Box Office: 0845 120 7549
Tickets: Β£8 - Β£20
Weekend and day passes available.
See barbican.org.uk/eticketing or bbc.co.uk/symphonyorchestra for more details.
