Let’s Be Gay for chorus (SSA) and two pianos (1937) | Compositions

Buy Score: Hendon Music (Boosey & Hawkes)
Manuscripts: Paul Sacher Stiftung
Text Author: John Gay (English)

Premiere: 1938/ Wells College Glee Club, Nicholas Nabokov (cond)/ Wells College, Aurora, NY

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Let's Be Gay clip

“Let’s Be Gay” was written in 1937 for a performance of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera to be directed by my friend, Nicolas Nabokov, at Wells College where he was then teaching. I forgot about the score until John Oliver asked me about it in 1995. I retrieved the manuscript and the piece was performed in 1997 for the first time in sixty years by the John Oliver Chorale in Boston.

– Elliott Carter, July 1997

Recordings (2)

Elliott Carter: Choral Works
Hänssler Classic CD 93.231 (2009)
Eva-Maria Schappé, soprano | Mark Munkittrick, speaker | SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart | Marcus Creed, director | Andreas Grau, piano | Götz Schumacher, piano
John Oliver Chorale: Elliott Carter
Koch International Classics 3-7415-2H1 (1998)
John Oliver Chorale, John Oliver, music director | Annette Anfinrud, soprano | Martin Amlin, piano | Frank Corliss, piano | Martin Amlin, piano | Frank Corliss, piano (+7)