Elliott Carter: Quartet #1 (1951)

Fantasia: Maestoso
Allegro scorrevole (12:35)
Variations (24:22)

VERMEER QUARTET
Shmuel Ashkenasi, 1st violin
Mathias Tacke, 2nd violin
Richard Young, viola
Marc Johnson, cello

Even now, many decades after it was composed, the 1st quartet of Elliott Carter is difficult for audiences to absorb. From the outset they feel assaulted by an unrelenting barrage of seemingly unrelated musical elements. Players too can be overwhelmed by the density and complexity of Carter’s musical language, particularly his use of metric modulations, a device rarely encountered in other string quartets.
Because this work requires such a heavy investment in its intellectual underpinnings, one is less likely to fully appreciate the vast and constantly evolving emotional landscape. Even as the Vermeer was wrestling with this quartet’s rational and technical challenges, they tried to never lose sight of its spiritual core. For instance, when Carter wrote totally different music for each of the four instruments, all to be played simultaneously, they considered the similarities between this and the final choruses of Mozart’s operas. There each of the characters sings his/her own very different music, always with different words and with its own unique expression, pacing, and emphasis. And yet, out of this diversity and apparent incongruity emerges a unity that satisfies both the mind and the heart.
When the Vermeer played this quartet for Elliott Carter in 1992 at the Badenweiler Festival in Germany, they were surprised by his comments. They had expected him to focus on its cerebral aspects, such as those complicated metric modulations. But rather, he was obsessed with “musical” things: color and nuance, the shape of the phrases, the priority of the voices, and this quartet’s always shifting emotional strata – considerations that were totally consistent with the Vermeer’s priorities. They came away from that meeting with even more respect for Carter, the musician, and for this truly profound masterpiece.

Видео Elliott Carter: Quartet #1 (1951) канала Vermeer Quartet