Elliott Carter (1908-2012)

Wind Rose (2008)

for wind ensemble

  • General information
    • Composition date: 28 jul 2008 - 08 aug 2008
    • Duration: 6 mn
    • Publisher: Boosey & Hawkes
    • Dedication: à Oliver Knussen
Detailed formation
  • piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 alto flutes, bass flute, 3 oboes, 2 English horns, Eb clarinet, 3 clarinets, 3 bass clarinets, contrabass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon

Premiere information

  • Date: 16 December 2008
    Location:

    Royaume-Uni, Londres, Barbican


    Performers:

    l'orchestre symphonique de la BBC, direction : Oliver Knussen.

Program note

When Ellen Highstein, Director of the Tanglewood Music Center, asked me to write a piece to be premiered during their festival of my music at Tanglewood in the summer of 2008, I thought it would be interesting to write a piece for strings that depended only density of textures with no linear material, no change of color or dynamics, with this in mind, I wrote Sound Fields. When my friend, the composer/conductor Oliver Knussen heard this first performance at Tanglewood, where he was conducting many of my pieces that summer, he suggested that I write a companion piece for winds.

This led to Wind Rose, which adds changes of color. The piece is dedicated to Oliver Knussen. I started writing it on July 28, 2008 and finished it on August 8, 2008.

Elliott Carter.