Search - Elliott Carter, Frederic Chopin, Robert Schumann :: Aleck Karis performs Schumann, Carter, Chopin

Great CD

02/29/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a truly splendid CD, not only for Carter's remarkable Night Fantasies which more than stands its own beside the 19th century masterpieces, but also for great playing from Karis in all three works. There are few CDs or concerts nowadays with so daring and so harmonius a program as this one, which is the chief factor which renders the disc so worthy: a wonderful reading of Chopin Fantasy, a poetical masterpiece from a great modern composer, and then the best interpretation of Carnaval I ever heard. The whole adds up to something even more than the parts. So don't ever regard this as a recording of some dry modern work packed together with perfunctory interpretations of hackneyed 19th century works. It is really one of the very best among all my CDs."

Amazing juxtaposition of old and new masterpieces

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 03/12/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Isn't it amazing that Aleck Karis would combine music by Chopin and Schumann with something new by Elliott Carter? His instinct was correct, of course: all three pieces are masterpieces and belong in the central repertoire of classical pianists. As far as I'm aware, there have been two other recordings of the Carter - one by Ursula Oppens, another by Charles Rosen, and each is fine. But for me this performance is the most cleanly etched. I love being able to hear Carter's thinking as the music unfolds. This disc is definitely a winner and I come back to it again and again. Oh, and I like the Chopin and Schumann performances, too!"

Karis's account of Night Fantasies is best available.

Karl Henzy | 05/18/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I already had Charles Rosen's version of Carter's Night Fantasies, but something told me that it could be done better. Karis's account has greater subtlety, and conveys more of a sense of the whole. This is certainly the greatest extended work for solo piano since Barraque's Piano Sonata of 1952, and as far as I know there's nothing to equal it in the 19 years since. It calls for spectacular, virtuoso piano playing, but communicates at the same time a common experience: that of the insomniac, to whom random thoughts and memories come involuntarily, sometimes pleasurably, though in the next moment he or she struggles to control the brain in order to go to sleep. Karis's version bring out the full drama of Carter's great vision."