Elena Harsányi (Soprano) and Toni Ming Geiger (Piano) führen Elliott Carter’s Lied „At the piano (Am Klavier)“ aus dem Zyklus „Of Challenge and of Love“ auf, der 1995 entstanden ist. John Hollander’s Gedicht zeichnet eine friedvolle Abendszene, während der die Gedanken und Ärgernisse des Tages vorbeiziehen und verschwinden.

Live aufgenommen an der Hochschule für Musik und Theater München im Januar 2018.

Text:
„The evening light dies down, all the old songs begin to crowd the soft air, choiring confusedly.
Then – above that sea of immense complexities the clear tenor of memory – I did not know I had – enters: like a rod of text held out by a god of meaning, it governs the high wayward waves of what is always going on in the world. All that becomes accompaniment. And this is what we start out with now: this is no time to pluck or harp on antiquities of feelings.
These soft hammers give gentle blows to all their strings, blows that strike with a touch of challenge and of love. Thus what we are being sung against what we come to be a part of – rises like a kind of light. „