Elliott Carter: String Quartet no. 5 [1/2]

An excellent performance by the Arditti Quartet, sadly the disc is now out of print.

One of the fascinations of attending rehearsals of chamber music, when excellent players try out fragments of what they later will play in the ensemble, then play it, and then stop abruptly to discuss how to improve, is that this pattern is so similar to our inner experience of forming, ordering, focussing, and bringing to fruition — and then dismissing — our feelings and ideas. These patterns of human behavior form the basis of the 5th String Quartet. Its introduction presents the players, one by one, trying out fragments of later passages from one of the six short, contrasting ensemble movements, at the same time maintaining a dialogue with each other. Between each of the movements the players discuss in different ways what has been played and what will be played.

In this score the matter of human cooperation with its many aspects of feeling and thought was a very important consideration.

String Quartet No.5 was composed during the winter and spring of 1995 in New York and Southbury, Connecticut, and was commissioned for the Arditti Quartet by Antwerp, City of Culture, 1993; Wittener Tage für Neue Musik; Festival dAutomne à Paris; and Lincoln Center, New York.

Elliott Carter, 1995

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Music

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• elliott
• carter

[miker2001]

Reminds me of the latter Beethoven quartets, but without tonality, melody, harmony, and rhythm

[MarcusHK1]

There's another very good version in my opinion by the Pacifica Quartet.

[stanchinsky]

This is a Great upload! Thank you... and close to home too...