MUSIC REVIEW : EAR Unit Delivers a Cohesive Evening of Elliott Carter

Hearing hefty doses of music by the celebrated but too often neglected American composer Elliott Carter is a rare enough treat, at a time when contemporary music gets token attention at best. Hearing a full plate of Carter works, spanning more than 40 years of the composer’s output, and performed by the Carter-friendly California EAR Unit, was a multiple pleasure.

A healthy-sized audience, by new-music standards, packed into the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Bing Theater for the Unit’s Monday night concert. Carter, who was in attendance, is being feted for his 85th birthday at various concerts around Los Angeles this month.

What he heard this evening ranged from his Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord, from 1952, and his Sonata for Cello and Piano, from 1948, to four works from the last decade. The earlier pieces were potent examples of Carter’s lifelong love of layering, pitting together contrasting tempos and instrumental character.

Leaping ahead for the second half, “Enchanted Preludes” (1988) found Dorothy Stone’s flitting flute weaving in irregular patterns around the brooding of cellist Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick. Violinist Robin Lorentz managed a similarly mercurial dance and dialogue in the context of the solo piece “Riconoscenza per Goffredo Petrassi,” with plaintive single lines tumbling into gruff outbursts and wistful double stops.

“Con Leggerezza Pensosa” (1990) is a three-way conversation for clarinet--here, James Rohrig--and, again, Duke-Kirkpatrick and Stone, running through stages of discord, empathy and puckishness.

As a grand finale, 1988’s “Triple Duo” allowed for small units--pianist Gloria Cheng and percussionist Amy Knoles, cello and violin, and flute and clarinet--to behave independently and collectively within a larger system, like a bustling community of gestures.

Challenging to the ear but also full of vivid, abstracted imagery, this night of Carter proved to be a cohesive and cleansing experience.