Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei (1993) | Compositions

Instrumentation

3(II,III=picc).2.corA.2(II=Ebcl).bcl.2.dbn-4.3.3.1-timp.perc(4):I=xyl/glsp/SC/2tom-t/susp.cym/timp/2wdbl/4bongos/cowbell; II=2metal blocks (very high & med high)/4tpl.bl/3susp.cym(high,med,low)/tom-t/2cowbells; III=vib/BD/4bongos/2tom-t(med & low)/2wood blocks/SD/2susp.cym(med & low); IV=vib/glsp/marimba/tam-t/SD/susp.cym/BD/2bongos/wood dr (log dr)/gavel/2tom-t-harp-pft-strings

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Hendon Music (Boosey & Hawkes)

Manuscripts

Paul Sacher Stiftung

Premiere: Apr 25, 1998/ BBC Symphony Orchestra / Oliver Knussen/ Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

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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 a Latin poem by the seventeenth-century English poet Richard Crashaw, 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

Recordings (3)

Carter: Symphonia / Ives: Robert Browning Overture
Neos (2015)
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra | Emilio Pomarico, conductor
Elliott Carter: Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei
Deutsche Grammophon 0289 479 1520 1 (2013)
Michael Collins, clarinet | London Sinfonietta, Oliver Knussen, conductor | BBC Symphony Orchestra
Carter: Clarinet Concerto; Symphonia
Deutsche Grammophon 459 660-2 (2000)
Michael Collins, clarinet | London Sinfonietta, Oliver Knussen, conductor | BBC Symphony Orchestra