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Elliott Carter

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr.

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(born Dec. 11, 1908, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. composer. Born to a wealthy family, he studied English and music at Harvard University and later studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. He taught at many institutions, after 1972 primarily at the Juilliard School. He absorbed a range of influences, including Igor Stravinsky and Charles Ives. His style evolved into a densely contrapuntal and rhythmically complex texture in which the various instrumental parts frequently suggest conversation and combat. His principal works include Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello, and Harpsichord (1952), Variations for Orchestra (1955), Double Concerto for piano and harpsichord (1961), Concerto for Orchestra (1969), A Symphony of Three Orchestras (1977), Oboe Concerto (1987), Cello Concerto (2001), and five string quartets (1951, 1959, 1971, 1986, 1995), two of which received the Pulitzer Prize. He is often called the greatest American composer of the late 20th century.

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Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia:

Elliott (Cook) Carter

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(b New York, 11 Dec 1908). American composer. He studied at Harvard (1926-32), at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris (1932-5) and privately with Boulanger. Back in the USA he worked as musical director of Ballet Caravan (until 1940) and as a teacher. From boyhood he had been acquainted with the music of Schoenberg, Varèse, Ives and others, but for the moment his works leaned much more towards Stravinsky and Hindemith: they included the ballets Pocahontas (1939) and The Minotaur (1947), the Symphony no.1 (1942) and Holiday Overture (1944). However, in his Piano Sonata (1946) he began to work from the interval content of particular chords, and inevitably to loosen the hold of tonality. The development was taken further in the Cello Sonata (1948), already characteristic of his later style in that the instruments have distinct roles.

A period of withdrawal led to the First Quartet (1951), a work of complex rhythmic interplay, long-ranging atonal melody and unusual form, the ‘movements’ being out of step with the given breaks in the musical continuity: effectively it is a single unfolding of 40 minutes' duration. It was followed by exclusively instrumental works of similar complexity, activity and energy, including the Variations for orchestra (1955), the Second Quartet (1959), the Double Concerto for harpsichord and piano, each with its own chamber orchestra (1961), the Piano Concerto (1965), the Concerto for Orchestra (1969), the Third Quartet (1971) and the Brass Quintet (1974). At that point Carter returned to vocal composition for a triptych of works for soloist and ensemble: A Mirror on which to Dwell (1975), Syringa (1978) and In Sleep, in Thunder (1981), with words by Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery and Robert Lowell respectively. But he has also continued the output of large instrumental movements with A Symphony of Three Orchestras (1976), the piano solo Night Fantasies (1980), the Triple Duo (1983) and Penthode for small orchestra (1985). His String Quartet no.4 (1986) is in a simpler style.

works:
Ballets
  • Pocahontas (1939)
  • The Minotaur (1947)
Orchestral music
  • Sym. no.1 (1942)
  • Holiday Ov. (1944)
  • Variations (1955)
  • Double Conc. , hpd, pf, 2 chamber orch (1961)
  • Pf Conc. (1965)
  • Conc. for Orch (1969)
  • A Sym. of Three Orch s (1976)
  • Penthode, 5 inst(s) qts (1985)
Voice and ensemble
  • A Mirror on which to Dwell (1975)
  • Syringa (1978)
  • In Sleep, in Thunder (1981)
Chamber music
  • Elegy, vc, pf (1943)
  • Woodwind Qnt (1948)
  • Sonata, vc, pf (1948)
  • Eight Etudes and a Fantasy (1950)
  • 4 str qts (1951, 1959, 1971, 1986)
  • Sonata, fl, ob, vc, hpd (1952)
  • Duo, vn, pf (1974)
  • Brass Qnt (1974)
  • Triple Duo, ens (1983)
Piano music
  • Sonata (1946)
  • Night Fantasies (1980)

Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr.

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The American composer Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. (born 1908), developed an individual musical style, courageously ignoring many of the passing musical fashions to become one of the most respected composers of his time.

Elliott Carter was born in 1908 in New York, the son of a wealthy businessman. He was an English major at Harvard and, encouraged toward a musical career by his friend and mentor Charles Ives, he took his master's degree in music there, then spent 3 years in Paris studying with Nadia Boulanger. His first compositions, written upon his return to the United States, were a neoclassic ballet, Pocahontas (1939; rev. 1941), and Holiday Overture (1944).

Carter's Piano Sonata (1945-1946) is generally considered the first example of his mature style. It is highly dissonant and rhythmically complex, characteristics of all of his subsequent compositions. In his Sonata for Cello and Piano (1948) there is no attempt to "blend" the two instruments; each seems to go its own way. This manner of combining instruments is also used in his first String Quartet (1951-1952), in which the four instruments are treated like individual soloists, not sharing the same musical material. "I regard my scores as scenarios," the composer once said, "for performers to act out with their instruments, dramatizing the players as individuals and as participants in the ensemble." In this piece there are also examples of "metrical modulation," a method devised by Carter for precisely changing from one tempo and meter to another, giving a subtlety and flexibility to the time dimension of his music not achieved by other composers.

Variations for Orchestra (1955), a second String Quartet (1959), and a Double Concerto for Harpsichord, Piano, and Two Chamber Orchestras (1961) are later examples of his complex style. "I have tried to give musical expression to experiences anyone living today must have when confronted with so many remarkable examples of unexpected types of changes and relationships of character uncovered in every domain of science and art."

The Piano Concerto (1964-1965) continues the explorations of new tonal and temporal relationships. The composer described the piece as a "conflict between man and society. The piano is born, the orchestra teaches it what to say. The piano learns. Then it learns the orchestra is wrong. They fight and the piano wins - not triumphantly, but with a few, weak, sad notes - sort of Charlie Chaplin humorous." In his Concerto for Orchestra (1969) Carter achieves his complex texture by dividing the orchestra into four sections, each one different in composition and complete in itself.

Much of the composer's music since the 1970s took the form of solo and chamber works. His A Mirror on Which to Dwell (1978) is a song cycle based on the work of American poet Elizabeth Bishop. His String Quartet No. 5 was premiered by the Arditti Quartet in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1995. The same year also saw the premiere of a new song cycle, Of Challenge and Of Love. His later orchestral works include Three Occasions (1986-89) and his enormously successful Violin Concerto (1990). The latter piece has been performed frequently in more than a dozen countries. His Partita was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1994) and around the same time his Adagio Tenebroso was commissioned by the BBC Symphony Orchestra for the 100th anniversary of the BBC Proms.

Carter has remained active well into his 80s. He has twice won the Pulitzer Prize and was the first composer to receive the United States National Medal of Arts. Carter was one of only four composers to win Germany's Ernst Von Siemens Music Prize, and in 1988 he was made a commander in the Orders of Arts and Letters by the French government. Among his other honors were Guggenheim fellowships, UNESCO citations, and several honorary doctorates. His compositions are performed and recorded as soon as they are completed. "I write for records," he said. "My last three pieces run about twenty-five minutes - the length of an LP side. They should be so rich that they can be played many times." It is this richness that makes a first hearing of Carter's music a confusing experience for many listeners, and the chief reason why it has not found popularity with a general audience.

Further Reading

Carter was the subject of Elliott Carter, Collected Essays and Lectures, 1937-1995, published by the University of Rochester Press. Edited by Jonathan W. Bernard, the book presents Carter's lectures and thoughts about music, literature, dance, film, philosophy, and his fellow composers such as Charles Ives and Igor Stravinsky. Joseph Machlis, Introduction to Contemporary Music (1961), contains a good chapter on Carter which discusses his String Quartet No. 2 in detail. David Ewen, The World of Twentieth-Century Music (1968), includes a critical essay on Carter and analyses of his works. See also Otto Deri, Exploring Twentieth-Century Music (1968), and Peter S. Hansen, An Introduction to Twentieth Century Music (3d ed. 1971).

Among the Internet web sites that contain biographical and critical data about Carter are and .

Columbia Encyclopedia:

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr.

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Carter, Elliott Cook, Jr., 1908-, American composer, b. New York City. Carter is considered by many to be the most important contemporary American composer. He studied with Walter Piston, E. B. Hill, and Gustav Holst at Harvard and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris (1932-35). Carter's complex mature music is organized into highly intellectualized contrapuntal patterns to which sympathetic listeners attribute great emotional power. He characteristically uses tempo as an element of form, notably in his technique of "metric modulation," his most famous musical innovation. Highlights from an unusually long and prolific musical career include the ballet Pocahontas (1939), a cello and piano sonata (1948), five string quartets (1951, 1958-59, 1973, 1986, 1995), Variations (1953-55) for orchestra, a piano concerto (1966), a concerto for orchestra (1969), A Mirror on Which to Dwell (1976) for soprano and nine players to poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Night Fantasies (1980) for piano, Changes (1983) for guitar, Adagio Tenebroso (1995) for orchestra, the opera What's Next? (1999), and a cello concerto (2001) composed for Yo-Yo Ma.

Bibliography

See F. Meyer and A. C. Shreffler, ed., Elliott Carter: A Centennial Portrait in Letters and Documents (2008).

Gale Musician Profiles:

Elliott Carter

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Composer

Elliott Carter ranks comfortably among the most celebrated classical American composers of the twentieth century. Twice a Pulitzer Prize winner, Carter’s compositions consistently earn critical acclaim from every aspect of sense and sound. He has been called a visionary, a composer of rich and flawless work, sensitive, vigorous, a master of texture and transparency. Carter’s collection of international awards and citations includes an assortment of the most prestigious honors to be bestowed on any professional, in or out of the musical realm. Among his most impressive honors were those won for his string quartet compositions. He received first prize at the International Quartet Competition for his first String Quartet and a Pulitzer Prize each for his second and third quartets. In addition to these celebrated quartets and orchestral scores, Carter composed pieces expressly for a vast assortment of instruments. His Quintet for Piano and Winds, Trilogy for Harp and Oboe, Clarinet Concerto, Gra for Clarinet, Figment for Cello Alone, Eight Pieces for Four Timpani, and Letter for English Horn Alone are typical of his diversity in instrumentation.

Carter was born Elliott Cook Carter, Jr., on December 11, 1908 in New York City. His father, was a businessman and the family was well to do. Carter’s mother was the former Florence Chambers. Elliott Carter developed an interest in music as a teenager, although as an undergraduate at Harvard he majored in English. He continued at Harvard through graduate school, where he majored in music. He studied with Walter Piston and was mentored by the noted modern composer, Charles Edward Ives. Carter graduated with a master’s degree in 1932. He went on to Europe to obtain a doctorate, because he had traveled through Europe with his father as an adolescent and developed a strong fondness for the Continent. In Paris, France, he studied with Nadia Boulanger from 1932-35 while attending École Normale; he graduated in 1935. In time Carter became acquainted with many of the great European artists of the era. He found Bela Bartók and Igor Stravinsky to be particularly engaging; Carter was known to reflect publicly that the two noted musicians were among those whom he admired the most. Stravinsky later praised Carter openly—for the 1961 Double Concerto for harpsichord, piano, and two chamber orchestras, and for Piano Concerto of 1967.

After completing his studies in France and with Boulanger, Carter returned to the United States where in 1939 he penned his first musical work, his neoclassic ballet Pocahontas. He spent the years from 1940-42 working as a professor at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland where in 1941 he reworked and improved his original ballet. He completed his second work, Holiday Overture, in 1944 and two years later completed his first Piano Sonata. According to critics his style by that time was fully mature, rife with the complexity that distinguishes a great musician from all

others. Between 1948 and 1950 Carter served as professor at Columbia University. There he completed his Sonata for Cello and Piano in 1948 before undertaking the creation of his first award-winning String Quartet in the early 1950s.

Perhaps most notably, Carter earned a brilliant reputation for his string quartets. When his First String Quartet premiered in Rome in 1951, it caught the attention of William Glock of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). Glock was immediately taken by Carter’s work and included Carter’s compositions regularly thereafter in the repertoire of radio concerts on BBC. Carter’s second String Quartet, of 1959, won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1960 as well as the UNESCO prize for composition, and the New York Critics Award. Again in 1971, his third String Quartet earned the Pulitzer Prize. Nearly 25 years later Carter continued to write music for the string quartet, and 1995 marked the premiere of his String Quartet No. 5 in Belgium; he was 87 years old at the time.

From 1960-61 he held a professorship at Yale. Two works—Piano Concerto and Concerto for Orchestra—monopolized his time throughout much of the sixties. He served as the Andrew P. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University from 1970-74 and was a professor of composition at Juilliard School of Music for much of the 1970s.

In 1988, to mark his eightieth birthday celebration, he was honored at Tanglewood, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival presented the United States premiere of his Oboe Concerto to celebrate the occasion. International celebrations of his eightieth birthday were held also at the Pontino Festival in Italy and at the United Kingdom’s Huddersfield Festival. An astonishing number of Carter’s works were in fact written when he was already more than 80 years old. Of his later compositions, Three Occasions, completed in 1989 at age 81, and the 1990 Violin Concerto, completed at age 82, were hailed among his greatest works. In 1991—at age 83—he put forth a Quintet for piano and winds. In 1994, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences named Violin Concerto the Best Contemporary Composition.

Carter’s Partita was written at age 85 as a commission for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and his 1994 Adagio Tenebroso was commissioned by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in celebration of the BBC Proms centennial. Not only did he present String Quartet No. 5 at age 87, but the following year he completed a Clarinet Concerto which became a particular favorite of the Ensemble Inter Contemporain, a group that had helped popularize his Double Concerto of 1961. In 1997, when the Cleveland Orchestra commissioned a composition from Carter, he created his Allegro Scorrevole, which combined with his 1993 Partita and 1994 Adagio Tenebroso To form a symphonic tryptych, called Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei. The complete work premiered on April 25, 1998, with Oliver Knussen conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra at Manchester’s ISCM World Music Days festival; Carter was 89 years old.

To mark the occasion of his ninetieth birthday in 1998, the radio station at Columbia University celebrated with a 23-hour broadcast of Carter’s music, and performing organizations worldwide once again dedicated performances to his honor. Yet where others might have ceased to create masterpieces years earlier, Carter undertook composing the score of his first opera, a 45-minute drama, entitled What Next? The work, which premiered at Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter Den Linden in 1999, received an enthusiastic reception and was widely promoted by Daniel Barenboim, who personally conducted the program. Perhaps equally impressive as the beauty of the work was the age of the composer, at 91 years. When asked how he came to undertake such a difficult task as a nonagenarian, Carter indicated that it was a long-time wish of his to write an opera, and that the libretto (by Paul Griffiths) had seemed appropriate. The years turned over again and again, and critics never ceased to admire the energy and vitality of the beloved composer, as a renewed depth of feeling characterized his later compositions.

Carter’s melodies, by his own admission, please him; they are created so that they can be recorded, for listening again and again. For these reasons the composer spends great care in creating rich and lasting music, sufficiently complex to be capable of bringing repeated pleasure to the listener. Indeed, Carter’s works are widely recorded, without hesitation, by the most talented musical groups and ensembles around the world.

The complete list of honors and awards bestowed upon Carter is extensive. He was installed as Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Government of France in 1988. Earlier, in 1969 he received the Premio delle Muse from the City of Florence, Italy. Additionally he was awarded the Ernst Von Siemens Music Prize of Germany and the Prince Pierre Foundation Music Award of Monaco. He received the Prince Rainier Foundation Music Award in 1998 and he is enshrined in the Classical Music Hall of Fame. Carter is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and Guggenheim fellowships. His works are heard regularly at the Warsaw Autumn Festival, at London’s South Bank Festival, also at festivals at Bath and Holland, and at the Venice Biennale, the Donaue-schingen Festival, and elsewhere. The Carter manuscripts are collected and permanently archived by the Paul Sacher Foundation as part of a collection of manuscripts of the greatest twentieth century composers. In David Harvey’s paraphrase of essayist D. Phil’s discussion of the complexity of Carter’s compositions, no words were spared in describing the patterns as "multilayered textures, elaborate rhythmic counterpoints, precisely measured, (uncompromising) [and] tough… in the angular lines."

It is difficult to overestimate the energy that Carter brought to his work. After nearly a century of creativity, he remains a Sigma Alpha lota Arts Associate and boasts memberships in the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Letters; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Akademie der Kunste. He sits on the board of directors of the American Academy in Rome and the Naunberg Music Foundation. Netherlands Broadcasting Corporation and London Weekend Television each have produced and aired documentaries about Carter; and in 1996 Johnathan Bernard edited a collection of Carter’s writings, Elliott Carter—Collected Essays and Lectures (1937-95) for University of Rochester Press.

Carter married Helen Frost-Jones on July 6, 1939. They had one son, David Chambers Carter. In his later years, Carter took to wintering in New York and spending his summers in Southbury, Connecticut. His biography, Elliott Carter, was published in 2000 by Faber & Faber of London.

Interestingly, Carter scoffs at comparisons between himself and the great classical composers. Although his work is performed more widely in Europe than in America, he regards his style as completely modern and attributes his European popularity to circumstances of his early career.

Selected discography
Partita, Teldec.
Orchestral Music, Arte Nova.
Orchestral Music, Virgin Classics.
Clarinet Concerto, Virgin Classics.
The Works for String Quartet, Etcetera.
In Sleep, In Thunder, Wergo, 1981.
Eight Compositions, Bridge.
The Complete Music for Piano, Bridge.
Double Concerto, Electra Nonesuch.
Of Challenge and Love, Koch.
Chamber Music, Auvidis Montaigne MO.
Symphonia/Clarinet Concerto, Deutsche Grammophon.
String Quartet No. 3 (1971)/Elegy (1943) in "The Music for String Quartet, Vol. li" Etcetera, 1988.
Holiday Overture, 1944; reissued, CRI, 1991.
Variations for Orchestra (1954-1955), reissued, Deutsche Grammophon, 1994.
Choral Music, Koch International, 1998.

Sources
Books
Encyclopedia of World Biography, second ed., Gale Research, 1998.


Periodicals
Billboard, February 19, 2000.

Online
"Elliott Carter: An Annotated Discography," http://web.ftech.net/Tioneyg (August 24, 2000).
"Elliott Carter—Biography," B&H Composers, http://www.ny.boosey.com/composerpages/carterbio.html (August 24, 2000).
"Elliott Carter," Sigma Alpha lota, http://sai-national.org/(August 24, 2000).
Harvey, David, Carter the Empiricist, 1997, http://web.ftech.netThoneyg (August 24, 2000).
AMG AllMusic Guide to Classical Music:

Elliott Carter

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Elliott Carter
  • Genres: Ballet, Chamber Music, Choral Music, Concerto, Keyboard Music, Orchestral Music, Symphony, Vocal Music

Biography

Elliott Carter (born 1909 in New York) is an American composer whose rigorous music began in a tonal idiom, but developed into a highly personal style involving atonality, metric modulations, and the use of time and drama in his works. Carter's early music resembled a fusion of Stravinsky's neo-Classicism and Copland's American vernacular style, but by the 1950s he was composing in his own manner, as represented by the String Quartet No. 1, then later by such dense works as the Double Concerto, A Symphony of Three Orchestras, and the Concerto for Orchestra. Carter continues to compose past age 100. ~ Blair Sanderson, Rovi

Discography

Elliott Carter: Three Poems Of Robert Frost/Mirror In Which To Dwell/Syringa/In Sleep, In Thunder

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The John Oliver Chorale Sings Elliott Carter

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The John Oliver Chorale Sings Elliott Carter

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The Music of Elliott Carter, Vol. 5: Nine Compositions (1994-2002)

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Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Elliott Carter

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Elliott Cook Carter, Jr.

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. (born December 11, 1908) is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music. His compositions, which have been performed all over the world, include orchestral and chamber music as well as solo instrumental and vocal works.

He has been extremely productive in his later years, publishing more than 40 works between the ages of 90 and 100,[1] and over 14 more since he turned 100 in 2008.[2]

Contents

Biography

Carter's father, Elliott Carter, Sr., was a businessman and his mother was the former Florence Chambers. The family was well-to-do. As a teenager, he developed an interest in music and was encouraged in this regard by the composer Charles Ives (who sold insurance to his family). In 1924, a "galvanized" 15-year-old Carter was in the audience when Pierre Monteux conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the New York première of The Rite of Spring, according to a 2008 report. Carter was again in attendance (see below) at Carnegie Hall, on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 2008, when the orchestra, now under the baton of James Levine, again performed the Stravinsky piece as part of its tribute to Carter.[3] Although Carter majored in English at Harvard College, he also studied music there and at the nearby Longy School of Music. His professors included Walter Piston and Gustav Holst. He sang with the Harvard Glee Club. He did graduate work in music at Harvard, from which he received a Master's degree in music in 1932. He then went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger (as did many other American composers). Carter worked with Mlle Boulanger from 1932–35 and in 1935 he received a doctorate in music (D Mus) from the Ecole Normale in Paris. Later in 1935, he returned to the US where he wrote music for the Ballet Caravan.

From 1940 to 1944, Carter taught in the program, including music, at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. On July 6, 1939, Carter married Helen Frost-Jones. They had one child, a son, David Chambers Carter. During World War II, Carter worked for the Office of War Information. He later held teaching posts at the Peabody Conservatory (1946–1948), Columbia University, Queens College, New York (1955–56), Yale University (1960–62), Cornell University (from 1967) and the Juilliard School (from 1972). In 1967, he was appointed a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1981, he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, in 1985 the National Medal of Arts. Carter has lived in Greenwich Village since 1945.[1]

On December 11, 2008, Carter celebrated his 100th birthday at Carnegie Hall in New York, where the Boston Symphony Orchestra and pianist Daniel Barenboim played his Interventions for Piano and Orchestra from 2008. Between the ages of 90 and 100, Carter published more than 40 works, and after his 100th birthday he has composed at least 14 more.[1]

On February 7, 2009, Carter was given the Trustees Award (a lifetime achievement award given to non-performers) by the Grammy Awards.[4]

Carter is on the faculty of the Tanglewood Music Center where he gives annual composition master classes.

Style and works

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Carter's earlier works are influenced by Stravinsky, Harris, Copland, and Hindemith, and are mainly neoclassical in aesthetic. He had a strict and thorough training in counterpoint, from medieval polyphony through Stravinsky, and this shows in his earliest music, such as the ballet Pocahontas (1938–39). Some of his music during the Second World War is frankly diatonic, and includes a melodic lyricism reminiscent of Samuel Barber.

His music after 1950 is typically atonal and rhythmically complex, indicated by the invention of the term metric modulation to describe the frequent, precise tempo changes found in his work. While Carter's chromaticism and tonal vocabulary parallels serial composers of the period, Carter does not employ serial techniques in his music. Rather he independently developed and cataloged all possible collections of pitches (i.e., all possible three-note chords, five-note chords, etc.). Musical theorists like Allen Forte later systematized this data into musical set theory. A series of works in the 1960s and 1970s generates its tonal material by using all possible chords of a particular number of pitches.

The Piano Concerto (1964–65) uses the collection of three-note chords for its pitch material; the Third String Quartet (1971) uses all four-note chords; the Concerto for Orchestra (1969) all five-note chords; and the Symphony of Three Orchestras uses the collection of six-note chords. Carter also makes frequent use of "tonic" 12-note chords. Of particular interest are "all-interval" 12-tone chords where every interval is represented within adjacent notes of the chord. His 1980 solo piano work Night Fantasies uses the entire collection of the 88 symmetrical-inverted all-interval 12 note chords. Typically, the pitch material is segmented between instruments, with a unique set of chords or sets assigned to each instrument or orchestral section. This stratification of material, with individual voices assigned not only their own unique pitch material, but texture and rhythm as well, is a key component of Carter's musical style. Carter's music after Night Fantasies has been termed his late period and his tonal language has become less systematized and more intuitive, but retains the basic characteristics of his earlier works.

Carter's use of rhythm can best be understood within the concept of stratification. Each instrumental voice is typically assigned its own set of tempos. A structural polyrhythm, where a very slow polyrhythm is used as a formal device, is present in many of Carter's works. The solo piano work Night Fantasies, for example, uses a 216:175 tempo relation that coincides at only two points in the entire 20+ minute composition. This use of rhythm is part of his goal to expand the notion of counterpoint to encompass simultaneous different characters, even entire movements, rather than just individual lines.

Carter developed his technique to further his artistic goals. His use of rhythm allows his music a structured fluidity and sense of time perhaps unique in classical music. The music also is overtly expressive and dramatic. He has said that "I regard my scores as scenarios, auditory scenarios, for performers to act out with their instruments, dramatizing the players as individuals and participants in the ensemble."[cite this quote] He has also talked about his desire to portray a "different form of motion," in which players are not locked in step with the downbeat of every measure.

He has said that such steady pulses remind him of soldiers marching or horses trotting, sounds that are not heard anymore in the late 20th century, and he wants his music to capture the sort of continuous acceleration or deceleration experienced in an automobile or an airplane. While Carter's atonal music shows little trace of American popular music or jazz, his vocal music has demonstrated strong ties to contemporary American poetry. He has set works of Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery, Robert Lowell, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, and Marianne Moore. Several of his large instrumental works such as the Concerto for Orchestra or Symphony of Three Orchestras are inspired by twentieth-century poets as well.

Among his better known works are the Variations for Orchestra (1954–5); the Double Concerto for harpsichord, piano and two chamber orchestras (1959–61); the Piano Concerto (1964–65), written as an 85th birthday present for Igor Stravinsky; the Concerto for Orchestra (1969), loosely based on a poem by Saint-John Perse; and the Symphony of Three Orchestras (1976). He has also written five string quartets,[5] of which the second and third won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1960 and 1973 respectively. Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei (1993–1996) is his largest orchestral work, complex in structure and featuring contrasting layers of instrumental textures, from delicate wind solos to crashing brass and percussion outbursts.

In spite of a usually rigorous derivation of all pitch content of a piece from a source chord, or series of chords, Carter never abandons lyricism, and ensures that a text is sung intelligibly, sometimes even simply. In A Mirror on Which to Dwell (1975) (based on poems by Elizabeth Bishop) Carter writes colorful, subtle, transparently clear music; yet almost every pitch in the piece is derived from the content of a single sonority. Most of Carter's music is published by either G. Schirmer/Associated Music Publishers (works up to 1981) or Boosey & Hawkes (works since 1981).

Carter continues composing. Interventions for Piano and Orchestra received its premiere on December 5, 2008, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine featuring pianist Daniel Barenboim at Symphony Hall in Boston. The pianist reprised the work again with the BSO at Carnegie Hall in New York in the presence of the composer on his 100th birthday.[1] Carter was also present at the 2009 Aldeburgh Festival to hear the world premiere of his song-cycle On Conversing with Paradise, based on Ezra Pound's Pisan canto 95 and the unfinished canto 121.[6] The premiere was given on June 20, 2009 by baritone Leigh Melrose and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group conducted by Oliver Knussen.[7]

Figment V for marimba with Simon Boyar was premiered in New York on 2 May 2009 and Poems of Louis Zukofsky for soprano and clarinet had its first performance by Lucy Shelton and Stanley Drucker at the Tanglewood Festival on August 9, 2009. The US premiere of the Flute Concerto took place on February 4, 2010 with soloist Elizabeth Rowe and the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine.

Partial list of works

See also: Category:Compositions by Elliott Carter

Ballet

  • Pocahontas (1938–39)
  • The Minotaur (1947)

Chamber

  • Canonic Suite for saxophone quartet (AAAA) (1939)
  • Elegy for viola and piano (1943)
  • Piano Sonata (1945–46)
  • Cello Sonata (1948)
  • Woodwind Quintet (1948)
  • Eight Etudes and a Fantasy for wind quartet (1949) [2]
  • String Quartet No. 1 (1951)
  • Sonata for flute, oboe, cello, and harpsichord (1952)
  • String Quartet No. 2 (1959)
  • Canon for 3 (1971)
  • String Quartet No. 3 (1971)
  • Brass Quintet (1974)
  • Duo for violin and piano (1974)
  • Birthday Fanfare for three trumpets, vibraphone, and glockenspiel (1978)
  • Triple Duo (1983)
  • Esprit rude/esprit doux for flute and clarinet (1984)
  • Canon for 4 (1984)
  • String Quartet No. 4 (1986)
  • Enchanted Prelude for flute and cello (1988)
  • Con leggerezza pensosa for clarinet, violin, and cello (1990)
  • Quintet for piano and winds (1991)
  • Trilogy for oboe and harp (1992)
  1. Bariolage for harp
  2. Inner Song for oboe
  3. Immer Neu for oboe and harp
  • Esprit rude/esprit doux II for flute, clarinet, and marimba (1994)
  • Fragment I for string quartet (1994)
  • String Quartet No.5 (1995)
  • Luimen for ensemble (1997)
  • Quintet for piano and string quartet (1997)
  • Fragment II for string quartet (1999)
  • Oboe Quartet, for oboe, violin, viola, and cello (2001)
  • Hiyoku for two clarinets (2001)
  • Au Quai for bassoon and viola (2002)
  • Call for two trumpets and horn (2003)
  • Clarinet Quintet (2007)
  • Tintinnabulation for percussion sextet (2008)
  • Tre Duetti for violin and cello (2008, 2009)
  1. Duettone
  2. Adagio
  3. Duettino
  • Trije glasbeniki for flute, bass clarinet, and harp (2011)
  • String Trio (2011)
  • Double Trio for trumpet, trombone, percussion, piano, violin and cello (2011)

Choral

  • Tarantella for men's chorus and two pianos (1937)
  • Let's Be Gay for women's chorus and two pianos (1937)
  • Harvest Home for a capella choir (1937)
  • To Music for a capella choir (1937)
  • Heart Not So Heavy for a capella choir (1939)
  • The Defense of Corinth for speaker, men's chorus and two pianos (1941)
  • The Harmony of Morning for women's chorus and chamber orchestra (1944)
  • Musicians Wrestle Everywhere for a capella choir (1945)
  • Emblems for men's chorus and piano (1947)

Concertante

  • Double Concerto for piano, harpsichord and 2 chamber orchestras (1959–61)
  • Piano Concerto (1964)
  • Concerto for Orchestra (1969)
  • Oboe Concerto (1986–1987)
  • Violin Concerto (1989)
  • Clarinet Concerto (1996)
  • Cello Concerto (2001)
  • Boston Concerto (2002)
  • Dialogues for piano and chamber orchestra (2003)
  • Mosaic for harp and ensemble (2004)
  • Horn Concerto (2007)
  • Flute Concerto (2008)
  • Concertino for bass clarinet and chamber orchestra (2009)
  • Conversations for piano, percussion, and chamber/full orchestra (2010)

Large ensemble

  • Penthode for ensemble (1985)
  • ASKO Concerto for sixteen players (2000)
  • Réflexions for ensemble (2004)
  • Wind Rose for wind ensemble (2008)

Opera

Orchestra

  • Symphony No. 1 (1942, revised 1954)
  • Holiday Overture (1944, revised 1961)
  • Variations for orchestra (1954–1955)
  • A Symphony of Three Orchestras (1976)
  • Three Occasions for orchestra (1986–89)
  1. A Celebration of Some 150x100 Notes
  2. Remembrance
  3. Anniversary
  • Symphonia: Sum fluxae pretium spei (1993–96)
  1. Partita
  2. Adagio Tenebroso
  3. Allegro Scorrevole
  • Three Illusions for orchestra (2002–04)
  1. Micomicón
  2. Fons Juventatis
  3. More's Utopia
  • Soundings for piano and orchestra (2005)
  • Interventions for piano and orchestra (2007)
  • Sound Fields for string orchestra (2007)

Solo instrumental

  • Piano Sonata (1945–46)
  • Eight Pieces for Four Timpani (1949/66)
  • Night Fantasies for piano (1980)
  • Changes for guitar (1983)
  • Scrivo in Vento for flute (1991)
  • Gra for clarinet (1994)
  • 90+ for piano (1994)
  • Figment for cello (1994)
  • A 6-letter Letter for English horn (1996)
  • Shard for guitar (1997)
  • Two Diversions for piano (1999)
  • Four Lauds for solo violin (1999, 1984, 2000, 1999)
  1. I. Statement – Remembering Aaron
  2. II. Riconoscenza per Goffredo Petrassi
  3. III. Rhapsodic Musings
  4. IV. Fantasy – Remembering Roger
  • Retrouvailles for piano (2000)
  • Figment II for cello (2001)
  • Steep Steps for bass clarinet (2001)
  • Retracing for bassoon (2002)
  • Intermittences for piano (2005)
  • Caténaires for piano (2006)
  • HBHH for oboe (2007)
  • Figment III for contrabass (2007)
  • Figment IV for viola (2007)
  • Tri-Tribute for piano (2007, 2008)
  1. "Matribute"
  2. "Fratribute"
  3. "Sistribute"
  • Figment V for marimba (2009)
  • Retracing II for horn (2009)
  • Retracing III for trumpet (2009)

Voice

  • My Love Is in a Light Attire for voice and piano (1928)
  • Tell Me Where Is Fancy Bred for voice and guitar (1938)
  • A Mirror on Which to Dwell for soprano and ensemble (1975)
  • Syringa for mezzo-soprano, bass-baritone, guitar, and ensemble (1978)
  • Three Poems of Robert Frost for baritone and ensemble (1942, orchestrated 1980)
  • In Sleep, in Thunder for tenor and ensemble (1981)
  • Of Challenge and of Love for soprano and piano (1994)
  • Tempo e Tempi for soprano, oboe, clarinet, violin, and cello (1998–99)
  • Of Rewaking for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (2002)
  • In the Distances of Sleep for mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra (2006)
  • Mad Regales for six solo voices (2007)
  • La Musique for solo voice (2007)
  • Poems of Louis Zukofsky (2008) for mezzo-soprano and clarinet
  • On Conversing with Paradise (2008) for baritone and chamber orchestra
  • What Are Years (2009) for soprano and chamber orchestra
  • A Sunbeam's Architecture (2010) for tenor and chamber orchestra
  • Three Explorations (2011) for bass-baritone, winds, and brass

Partial discography

  • Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord; Sonata for Cello and Piano; Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano With Two Chamber Orchestras. Paul Jacobs, hpschd; Joel Krosnick, cello; Gilbert Kalish, piano; The Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Arthur Weisberg, cond. Elektra/Nonesuch 9 79183-2.
  • String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2. The Composers Quartet. Elektra/Nonesuch 9 71249-2
  • Piano Concerto; Variations for Orchestra. Ursula Oppens, piano; Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Michael Gielen, cond. New World Records, NW 347–2.
  • Triple Duo; Clarinet Concerto; short pieces. Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Lorraine Vaillancourt, cond. ATMA Classique, ACD2 2280.
  • Complete Music for Piano. Charles Rosen, Piano. Bridge 9090.
  • Vocal Works (1975–81): A Mirror on Which to Dwell; In Sleep, In Thunder; Syringa; Three Poems of Robert Frost. Speculum Musicae with Katherine Ciesinki, mezzo; Jon Garrison, tenor; Jan Opalach, bass; Christine Schadeberg, soprano. Bridge, BCD 9014.
  • Dialogues; Boston Concerto; Cello Concerto; ASKO Concerto. Nicolas Hodges, piano; Fred Sherry, cello; London Sinfonietta, BBC Symphony Orchestra, ASKO Ensemble, Oliver Knussen, cond. Bridge 9184.

Notable students

References

  1. ^ a b c d Daniel J. Watkin (2008-12-11). "Turning 100 at Carnegie Hall, With New Notes". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/arts/music/12carter.html?hp. Retrieved 2008-12-17. 
  2. ^ "Boosey & Hawkes works catalog". Boosey & Hawkes. http://www.boosey.com/pages/cr/catalogue/cat_results.asp?composerid=2790&stype=1. 
  3. ^ "Celebrating a Birthday as Well as a Score" by Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times 12-13-2008
  4. ^ "Recording Industry Salutes Musical Alums." The Horace Mann Report. Vol 106: Issue 9. January 23, 2009. (Retrieved February 9, 2009)
  5. ^ 'Minimalism is death'. Telegraph, 26 July 2003.
  6. ^ http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_features.php?id=7220
  7. ^ [1]

Doering, William T. Elliott Carter: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood Press, 1993.

Interviews

Listening

External links

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