Classical Music

Richter Archives, Vol. 2: Chopin Recitals 1954-1977 (Live)

"The Bridge disc features the expert New York chamber group Speculum Musicae, and has an attractive rarity as opener, the Three Poems of Robert Frost, composed in 1942 when Carter was still an obedient, highly effective adherent of the 'open-air' Coplandesque style, but orchestrated with exuberant resourcefulness as recently as 1980...The account of Syringa (1978), the most complex and hermetic of the vocal works, with its superimposition of the soprano's Robert Ashbery poem on a collection of ancient Greek texts sung by the bass, may strike listeners (and especially attentive score-readers) as more careful than inspired. But as it proceeds it conveys the spirit of the work's intricate yet impassioned enquiry into the sources and spaces of creativity very well. Momentum is maintained, and the instrumental detail is clear and precise.

A Mirror on which to Dwell (1976) is less ambitious, though these settings of six poems by Elizabeth Bishop are marvellously refined in sonority the vocal line ranging from lingering lyricism to subtly-patterned declamation. Christine Schadeberg characterizes the texts alertly, especially the tricky syntax of ''O Breath''...

It is indeed gratifying to find record companies so prompt in acknowledging the importance of the Carter phenomenon, and with performances that, if not always ideal in every respect, are for the most part worthy of this extraordinary music."

-- Arnold Whittall, Gramophone [2/1990]