Elliott Carter: Three Illusions travel to Europe
(August 2007)
The Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine gives the first European performances of Elliott Carter’s Three Illusions (2002-04) as part of a tour to Switzerland, Germany and the UK.
After a performance at the Tanglewood Festival, the orchestra travels with Carter’s work to the Lucerne Festival (26 August), the Tonhalle in Düsseldorf (1 September), the Philharmonie in Berlin (3 September) and the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London (7 September).
James Levine has forged a close musical relationship with the nonagenarian American composer over recent years, giving the world premieres of each of the Three Illusions with the Boston Symphony as part of an ongoing commitment to programming Carter’s works with the orchestra. He has also conducted the premiere of Carter’s song cycle In the Distances of Sleep with the Met Chamber Ensemble and the first US stage production of the opera What Next? at the Tanglewood Festival.
With a compact duration of nine minutes Three Illusions is an ideal concert-opener and a perfect introduction to Carter’s orchestral music, as described by the Boston Globe: "All three brief pieces are responses to literary fantasies - Micomicón to Don Quixote; The Fountain of Youth to Roman myth; and More's Utopia to Sir Thomas More's vision of an ideal society. The music is fantastical too… always surprising, inevitable, and vividly orchestrated. Micomicón is romantic and heroic; Utopia is dark and severe; Fountain is playful and takes a place in the great tradition of iridescent water music..."
Levine premieres Carter’s Horn Concerto
On 15 November James Levine conducts the first performance of Elliott Carter’s Horn Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and its principal horn James Sommerville. Further performances at Symphony Hall in Boston take place on 16 and 17 November, and a performance at Carnegie Hall is planned for 2008. The European premiere is scheduled at a ZaterdagMatinée concert at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam on 19 January 2008 with the Radio Kamer Filharmonie conducted by Peter Eötvös.
Carter’s new 15-minute work for piano and orchestra, Interventions, receives its premiere in the 2008/09 season with Daniel Barenboim and the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine. The work is co-commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall and the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin.
Carter Centenary
Elliott Carter celebrates his 100th birthday on 11 December 2008, a remarkable creative milestone as his compositional flow continues unabated. Over the past months he has composed Three Mad-rigales for six solo voices, Sound Fields for strings, and new works for solo piano and for double bass.
For further information on the Carter Centenary visit
www.carter100.com
> Further information on Work: Three Illusions for Orchestra
Photo: © Jeff Herman
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