Wind Rose for wind ensemble (2008) | Compositions

Instrumentation: picc.3.2afl.bfl.3.2corA.Ebcl.3.3bcl.dbcl.3.dbn
Dedication: Oliver Knussen
Buy Score: Hendon Music (Boosey & Hawkes)
Manuscripts: Paul Sacher Stiftung

Premiere: Dec 16, 2008/ BBC Symphony Orchestra / Oliver Knussen/ Barbican, London

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Wind Rose clip

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

Recordings (1)

Music of Elliott Carter, Volume Eight - 16 Compositions (2002-2009)
Bridge Records 9314 A/B (2010)
Martin Owen, horn | BBC Symphony Orchestra, Oliver Knussen, conductor | BBC Singers | New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble, Frank Epstein, conductor | Leigh Melrose, baritone (+16)