Carter- String Quartets Nos. 1 and 5

Product Description Released to celebrate the American master Elliott Carter' centenary, this is the first of two discs of the complete String Quartets. Carter himself has written: 'I probably decided to write what was to be the First Quartet when I read about a composition Review 2008: The Year in Review Honorable mention in the Ten Best Classical Music Recordings of 2008 by Alex Ross -- The New Yorker, Alex Ross, December 15, 2008 Both of these quartets are interpreted with great sensitivity and executed with tremendous skill. That success is due, in part, to the Pacificas' intimate association with Carter and his quartets; the Pacificas performed the entire quartet cycle during a 2003 international tour and have worked closely with the soon-to-be 100-year-old composer to fathom the depth of his work. It's a master class that has borne rich awards. -- allthingsstrings.com, Greg Cahill, May 2008 Even if you're not (yet) a modern music enthusiast, the brio of these performances and the superb sound might just turn your head. A great release, which leaves me with nothing else to say. -- Positive-Feedback.com Musical America 2009 Ensemble of the Year -- Musical America, December 2008 Prototypically American, Atypically Challenging A friend of mine once asked Pierre Boulez why he had taken up the music of Elliott Carter and done so much to make it an international presence. Mr. Boulez, a French composer and conductor, had an interesting answer: "Because he sounded so American." Mr. Carter, approaching his 100th birthday and subject of the Focus! 2008 weeklong series of concerts at the Juilliard School, could not be mistaken for a soulful Russian, a singing Italian or a Central European bearing the accumulated spiritual weight of the centuries. In his music there is no patina, only fresh paint. The edges are not worn smooth but sharp to the touch. James Levine conducted the Juilliard Orchestra in the "Symphonia: sum fluxae pretieum spei" and the Cello Concerto, a very large mouthful of Mr. Carter's art and one that assuredly left these splendid young musicians and a packed Saturday night house at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater both satisfied and exhausted. The cellist Dane Johansen was brave and virtuosic and needed to be both. The idea of Mr. Carter as American-made makes sense. There are the reserves of psychic energy: the impulsiveness and aggressi