malik@delphi.DEC (Karl Malik ZK01-1/F22 1-1440) (05/08/84)
Subj; Carter's 'Night Fantasies' I just purchased a recording of Elliott Carter's 'Night Fantasies' for piano solo. The recording I purchased was on the Etcetera label and is performed by Charles Rosen. The record store clerk told me that there is also a recording by Paul Jacobs (but I don't know on what label). I think it's great. It's quite long (20:58) and often incredibly complex. For those of you who are familiar with Carter's music, this solo piano work (written in 1980) continues Carter's ever growing concern with density, complexity and virtuosity. If you like any of his recent stuff, I'm pretty sure you'll love it. For those of you unfamiliar with Carter's (or new) music, this solo piano work (written in 1980) sounds like, uhm,...er, damn, I don't know how to describe it. Suffice it to say, it is very dissonant, restless and powerful. From the album notes - "Night Fantasies is a piano piece of continuously changing moods, suggesting the fleeting thoughts and feelings that pass through the mind during a period of wakefulness at night. The quiet nocturnal evocation with which it begins and returns occasionally, is suddenly broken by a flighty series of short phrases that emerge and disappear. This episode is followed by many others of contrasting characters and lengths that sometimes break in abruptly, and at other times, develope smoothly out of what has gone before. The work culminates in a loud, obsessive, periodic repetition of an emphatic chord that, as it dies away,brings the work to its conclusion." "In this score, I wanted to capture the fanciful, changeable quality of out inner life at a time when it is not dominated by strong, directive intentions, or desires - to capture the poetic moodiness that, in an earlier Romantic context, I enjoy in works of Robert Schumann like Kreisleriana, Carnaval and Davidbundlertanze." - Carter If you pick up a copy, please post what you think. The music is also available ($18); I've got a copy on order (though there isn't a chance in hell that I'll be able to play it). - Karl