Quintet for piano and winds for oboe, clarinet (and Eb clarinet), bassoon, horn, and piano

Year
1991
Duration
24'
Category
Chamber

Dedication: For Heinz Holliger and KölnMusik
Buy Score: Hendon Music (Boosey & Hawkes)
Manuscripts: Paul Sacher Stiftung

Premiere: Sep 13, 1992/ Heinz Holliger, ob / Elmar Schmid, cl / Klaus Thunemann, bn / Radovan Vlatkovic, hn / András Schiff, pft/ Philharmonie, Köln

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When I accepted the commission by Heinz Holliger and Köln Musik to write this quintet for these remarkable performers, the thought of the masterpiece by Mozart for this combination led me to consider very seriously its range of expressive possibilities. To heighten the dialectic interplay between the instruments, I decided to treat the group as having three contrasting elements: piano, horn, and trio of woodwinds. Each is assigned to its own musical vocabulary and its own type of expressivity and character, derived from its instrumental capabilities. Thus the interplay of commentary, answer, humorous detail, ironic, supportive of self-effacing were considered as part of the musical thought and expression. Although the quintet is in one continuous movement, there are frequent changes of mood, sometimes within one instrument’s part, at other times by groups.

The work was composed in Southbury, Connecticut, during the summer of 1991.

– Elliott Carter

Recordings (4)

Elliott Carter: Quintets and Voices
Mode 108 (2003)
Ursula Oppens, piano | Lucy Shelton, soprano | Arditti Quartet: Irvine Arditti, violin; Graeme Jennings, violin; Dov Scheindlin, viola; Rohan De Saram, cello (+22)
Elliott Carter: Musique de chambre
Arion ARN 68495 (2000)
Patrick Gallois, flute | Maurice Bourgue, oboe | Michel Lethiec, clarinet | Amaury Wallez, bassoon | André Cazalet, horn | Claire Désert, piano | Gérard Poulet, violin (+1)
Southwest Chamber Music: Goehr and Carter
Cambria CD 8804 (2000)
Phyllis Bryn-Julson, soprano | Southwest Chamber Music
Inner Song
Philips 445 095-2 (1997)
Heinz Holliger, oboe | Elmar Schmid, clarinet | Klaus Thunemann, bassoon | Radovan Vlatkovic, horn | András Schiff, piano | Ursula Holliger, harp