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ELLIOTT CARTER : Symphonia "Sum fluxae pretium spei"

Saturday 25 April, 1998 – Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, England

BBC Symphony Orchestra, cond. Oliver Knussen, CBE

Hendon Music / Boosey & Hawkes, 1998

A symphony beyond symphonies, this was an astoundingly and hearteningly massive achievement for a composer in his mid-eighties. The invention is consistently alert, the execution masterful and the development typically nimble. Thinking of the latin poem 'Bulla' ('The Bubble') by the English poet Richard Crashaw (c. 1613-1649), Carter adopts the viewpoint of a bubble floating above human affairs, observing, in the three movements, the games people play, the tragedies they endure, and the life that goes on fizzing through them.

These movements may be performed separately and were separately commissioned: 'Partita' by the Chicago Symphony, 'Adagio tenebroso' by the BBC, and 'Allegro scorrevole' by the Cleveland Orchestra. But it is when they are played together that the full breadth of this extraordinary work stands revealed. — Paul Griffiths