Soundings (Carter)

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Soundings is an orchestral composition by the American composer Elliott Carter. The work was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for their final season with the conductor Daniel Barenboim as music director. It was first performed on October 6, 2005 at the Symphony Center, Chicago, by Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. [1]

Orchestra large instrumental ensemble

An orchestra is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which mixes instruments from different families, including bowed string instruments such as violin, viola, cello, and double bass, as well as brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments, each grouped in sections. Other instruments such as the piano and celesta may sometimes appear in a fifth keyboard section or may stand alone, as may the concert harp and, for performances of some modern compositions, electronic instruments.

Elliott Carter American composer

Elliott Cook Carter Jr. was an American composer. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, then returned to the United States. After an early neoclassical phase, he developed a personal harmonic and rhythmic language. His compositions are known and performed throughout the world, and include orchestral, chamber music, solo instrumental, and vocal works. Carter was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) was founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891. The ensemble makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival. The music director is Riccardo Muti, who began his tenure in 2010. The CSO is one of five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five".

Contents

Composition

Soundings has a duration of roughly ten minutes and is composed in one continuous movement. Carter wrote in the score program note, "Soundings celebrates the conductor/pianist Daniel Barenboim, whose Chicago Symphony Orchestra commissioned this score which was written in New York City in 2005. It presents a 'soundings' of the conductor/pianist and of many instrumental groups or soloists within the orchestra and presents them with good humor." [1]

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession. A movement is a section, "a major structural unit perceived as the result of the coincidence of relatively large numbers of structural phenomena".

A unit of a larger work that may stand by itself as a complete composition. Such divisions are usually self-contained. Most often the sequence of movements is arranged fast-slow-fast or in some other order that provides contrast.

Instrumentation

The work is scored for an orchestra comprising piccolo, two flutes (doubling piccolo), two oboes, cor anglais, two clarinets (first doubling E-flat clarinet, second doubling bass clarinet), contrabass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, two percussionists, piano, and strings. [1]

Piccolo small flute musical instrument

The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The modern piccolo has most of the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written. This gave rise to the name ottavino, which the instrument is called in the scores of Italian composers. It is also called flauto piccolo or flautino.

Western concert flute transverse woodwind instrument made of metal or wood

The Western concert flute is a transverse (side-blown) woodwind instrument made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist, flutist, flute player, or (rarely) fluter.

Oboe musical instrument of the woodwind family

Oboes are a family of double reed woodwind instruments. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. Oboes are usually made of wood, but there are also oboes made of synthetic materials. A soprano oboe measures roughly 65 cm long, with metal keys, a conical bore and a flared bell. Sound is produced by blowing into the reed at a sufficient air pressure, causing it to vibrate with the air column. The distinctive tone is versatile and has been described as "bright". When oboe is used alone, it is generally taken to mean the treble instrument rather than other instruments of the family, such as the bass oboe, the cor anglais, or oboe d'amore

Reception

Reviewing the world premiere, John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune lauded the composition, writing:

<i>Chicago Tribune</i> major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States

The Chicago Tribune is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", it remains the most-read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region. It is the eighth-largest newspaper in the United States by circulation.

Soundings packs a lot of invention into its dozen minutes. Carter celebrates the two Barenboims, giving him music to play at the piano and a lot more music to conduct, but never at the same time. The odd thing is why Barenboim the pianist is given so very little to do. The piano starts things off with a cadenza-like flourish containing Barenboim's musical monogram, reappearing at the end in a sly game of starts and stops between the keyboard and orchestra.

In between, Carter gives us a parade of rapidly shifting orchestral ideas: horn and woodwinds chopping up a darting phrase; the subterranean rumbles of contrabass clarinet; a twittering trio of piccolos; a pensive tuba solo that's actually longer than the entire piano part. Through it all, there's Carter the high-modernist artisan, delighting in the virtuosic sinew of a great orchestra he knows well. [2]

Andrew Clements of The Guardian gave the work a more mixed response, however, observing, "Composed three years ago as a leaving present for Daniel Barenboim when he stepped down as music director of the Chicago Symphony, Soundings was expressly designed for Barenboim to conduct from the piano like a Mozart concerto. For that reason, it is an odd piece, with little dialogue between the piano and the large orchestra." He added, "The main body of the piece is a miniature concerto for the orchestra alone, with some typically nimble late Carter ideas - for a choir of clarinets and a trio of piccolos, especially - but the whole thing never really hangs together." [3]

<i>The Guardian</i> British national daily newspaper

The Guardian is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian, and took its current name in 1959. Along with its sister papers The Observer and The Guardian Weekly, the Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The Scott Trust was created in 1936 "to secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of the Guardian free from commercial or political interference". The Scott Trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to project the same protections for The Guardian as were originally built into the very structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than to benefit an owner or shareholders.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Austrian composer of the Classical period

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the classical era.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Carter, Elliott (2005). "Soundings". Boosey & Hawkes . Retrieved January 30, 2016.
  2. ↑ Rhein, John von (October 8, 2005). "Carter premiere, solo performances highlight CSO fest". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved January 30, 2016.
  3. ↑ Clements, Andrew (19 August 2008). "Classical Music Review: BBCSSO/Volkov". The Guardian . Retrieved January 30, 2016.
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