Good things continue
to come from the Nashville connection
with Naxos. The latest presents Carter
the doyen of avant-garde discontinuity
alongside Carter the young blood of
the American outdoors tradition.
Holiday Overture
is cheeky and cheery, happy
and airy. Much to your surprise if you
have been off-put by his Symphony for
Three Orchestras (1977) and most of
his music from the 1960s you will find
this on all fours with Copland (Outdoor
Overture), Robert Ward and Randall
Thompson (Second Symphony). The strings
rage with Tippett-like ecstasy (7.12)
and while the melodic material leaves
little in the memory it is all agreeably
confident ebullience.
His wartime Symphony
No. 1 is in three movements. The
idiom is much the same as the overture.
After a movement that celebrates the
graces with an easy drawl the second
seems to be a frontiersman's prayer
with the trumpet taking the part of
the modest orator (4.55). After the
serene glowing close of the ‘prayer’
we are pitched into a vivacious finale
at first dominated by the silvery blade
of the violins which then playfully
toss rhythmic convulsions around the
orchestra. This is closer to the joie
de vivre of Thompson and perhaps Prokofiev
7 than to the then contemporary epics
such as Schuman 3 and Copland 3. For
all that this piece is for chamber orchestra
the Symphony sounds 'big'.
The Piano Concerto
is dedicated to Stravinsky. It was
written two decades after the Overture
and is squarely in Carter's accustomed
astringent style - a radical contrast
with his 1940s self. Fragmentation,
shudders, momentary flashes of light
and interruptions, splenetic wrestling
and assault, discontinuous layers and
strata without obvious articulation
are the order of the day. I cannot imagine
many people who like the first two works
finding much to warm them in the Concerto.
Wait is Dean and Piano
Professor at Vanderbilt University,
Tennessee. He has been the pianist in
a performance of Carter's Double Concerto
for piano and harpsichord in 1989 at
Alice Tully Hall.
As a chronologically
proportionate selection this fails.
So much of Carter is in 1970s avant-garde
style. However as a portrait of Carter
as he was at the start and as he became
this is excellent. Performances seem
fine especially in the Concerto. More
polish was apparent in the recording
of the Symphony made in the 1980s by
Paul Dunkel and the American Composers
Orchestra. Certainly it has more colour
and vitality than the old mono LP recording
by the Louisville Orchestra and Robert
Whitney (LOU 611). Still this remains
enjoyable in the extreme and will especially
please those on the lookout for lyric-convulsive
Americana of the 1940s. Next the complete
Pocahontas ballet (the source
of the Symphony's material) and The
Minotaur, please.
Rob Barnett
Mark Wait (piano) 