As a follow-up to my post of Elliott Carter's Piano Sonata and Pocahontas Suite, here is the composer's 1948 Cello Sonata and a second version of the piano work. This is from a circa 1952 American Recording Society LP.
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| Bernard Greenhouse |
Carter wrote the cello score for Bernard Greenhouse, then a young soloist. This was several years before the instrumentalist's long and illustrious association with the Beaux Arts Trio. Greenhouse and pianist Anthony Makas gave the premiere of the work in Town Hall in 1950.
On the other side of the LP, Beveridge Webster makes the Piano Sonata his own in a version that I prefer to the Charles Rosen account that appeared here a while back, not that the Rosen isn't a tremendous accomplishment in its own right. But Webster's approach in the stormier passages of the second movement does make the later reading seem deadpan.
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| Beveridge Webster |
Like Rosen, Webster recorded the sonata twice - the second time for Dover, for which he produced seemingly the entire piano literature in low-priced editions that once were commonly found in bookstores.
I am certain this is the first recording of the Cello Sonata; I believe that is true of the piano work as well. The sound is very good.
