Concert Review: Getting Carter

The American Symphony Orchestra pays tribute to Elliott Carter.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The composer Elliott Carter in his New York apartment in 1983.
Photo by Nancy Crampton courtesy Boosey & Hawkes.

New York's own Elliott Carter was the dean of modern music in this country, an artist whose vast output spanned orchestral works, songs and even opera. His music always looked relentlessly forward, breaking new ground even in his last works. On Sunday afternoon at Carnegie Hall Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra celebrated the memory of this great composer, who died on November 5 of last year at the age of 103. The carefully curated program offered six of Carter's pieces, spanning eight decades of his output and giving a glimpse at the wide variety of styles and music created over a long compositional career.

Concert Review: A Little Taste of Heaven

Three concertos highlight the "Philadelphia sound."

Conductor Charles Dutoit.

by Paul Pelkonen

Mention the Philadelphia Orchestra to a music lover in the ast two years and their first thought may be "bankruptcy." The fiscally troubled orchestra did file Chapter 11 in 2011. But as Thursday night's Carnegie Hall appearance proved, high artistic standards are still the norm for the orchestra from Broad Street.

Charles Dutoit has served the Orchestra as Chief Conductor since the tumultuous 2008 exit of Christoph Eschenbach. (He will become an Emeritus next season, making way for the incoming music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.)  This concert allowed he Swiss conductor showed his experience and skill in three diverse concertos from three different composers.

The concert opened with the cerebral Concerto for Seven Wind Instruments by Frank Martin. This 1949 piece by an under-played, underrated Swiss composer  evokes Ravel in its complex orchestral fabric. Martin's work looks back to the Baroque and the idea of the concerto grosso, allowing each soloist to display their instrumental skills before breaking into small groups and engaging in a joyful, dancing finale.