I just hope they're warning off all the pregnant mothers, Michael, lest their unborn babies be irritated by all the unseemly dissonance, which they are "hard-wired" to get the fantods over 
The earlier you start them listening, the better. I've always thought exposure to Carter should begin in the womb.
WednesdaySteady rain today, which scotched my plan to go for a bike ride in the Berskhires. Brining the bike was a mistake. I got out only once, on Sunday afternoon, and got two flat tires.
Oliver Knussen said: I wrote Carter a fan letter years ago that I wish I could forget. This during a panel discussion Monday with Fred Sherry and the critic from the Boston Globe. He hid his bearded face in one of his beefy hands when he said it. I thanked him for the comment, since the first time I ever met Carter, in 1976, I made a slight joke about the Duo for violin and piano. (The line itself will be lost to history.) Carter replied, "What do you mean by that?" I've felt self-conscious and gushy every time I've spoken to him, and I haven't yet had the nerve to approach him this week.
David Schiff said: Some of Carter's work is lucid and easy to grasp on first hearing, and some is difficult and requires repeated listening before it becomes clear. The Triple Duo accessible and engaging to him immediately, but the Fourth Quartet was a puzzle, and to some extent still is. (John Link, sitting next to him, said his impressions were just the opposite.) What is strange, he said, is that on a technical level, there is no difference between the easy and the hard pieces. The notes and the rhythms are all very much the same. The cause of the difference in accessibility is elusive.
Two strong programs yesterday. In the 5 p.m. chamber recital, Megan Levin, the harpist who delighted Carter Sunday in Luimen, and oboist Nicholas Stoval, gave an outstanding account of the Trilogy, one of my favorite of Mr. Carter's late chamber pieces. (As I've said in the past, it's astonishing how Mr. Carter manages to say something substantive with such a diaphanous combination, and at nineteen minutes, the piece is more filling than some of his other occasional works.) Levin approaches the harp in a way I can describe only as aggressive. She puts muscle into what is usually a delicate sound. The program ended with the crazy Catenaires, which Sandra Gu made to seem effortless. Jerry Kuderna, who was hearing the piece for the first time, said he never would have identified the work as Carter's if he hadn't known the composer beforehand. It reminded him of Ligeti, but it does strike me as Carterian, if not typical, recent Carter, then older Carter --- specifically, the one of the etudes for wind quartet in which the instruments play nothing but a rising half step, in eighth notes, followed by a rest. The whirling effect is created by the interweaving of a simple, repeated pattern. Catenaires follows much the same trajectory, only with runs up and down the scale.
Other pieces on the program were Figments I and II for solo cello, Esprit rude I and II, Au Quai for basson and viola, and the Intermittances, all memorably performed.
We were sorry Carter did not attend the afternoon performance, but he was on hand in the evening, as was the poet John Ashbery, for the premiere of Mad-regales, Carter's first piece for a capella voices in 60 years. It's scored for six singers, and it felt like a set of 21st century madrigals (hence the word play in the title, I suspect). It lasts about nine minutes and consists of three Ashbery settings: eight of the 37 Haiku, Meditations of a Parrot, and At North Farm. In the first piece, one or two of the haiku are assigned to each singer, with the others vocalizing sustained chords. In Meditations of a Parrot, the lines again are shared among the soloists and duets, and the parrot's catch phrase, Robin Hood! Robin Hood!, is repeated throughout. Some members of the audience gave an appreciative chuckle at the end. At North Farm is the first vocal piece of Carter's I can recall that breaks up the text. Normally, he aims for a conversational effect, setting poems straight through from beginning to end with no repetition. Here, lines and fragments of lines recur, as in a baroque aria, or more accurately, a madrigal. The singers did it twice, at the request, conductor Jeffrey Milarsky said, of a special person. He didn't say who, but I assume it was Ashbery. It's a delightful piece. I wish Carter would write a few more, and that they will be recorded soon.
The program also included two major song cycles: In the Distances of Sleep, on poems by Wallace Stevens, and A Mirror on Which to Dwell, on poems of Elizabeth Bishop. Mezzo in the first was Kate Lindsey. The soprano in the second was Jo Ellen Miller. Both sang beautifully. Lindsay was the more dramatic and in character, I thought, but Miller was the more lyrical. I was most impressed with "Re-statement of Romance" in Distances. It's a sort of love song with a string accompaniment that is as romantic as Carter ever gets, like distilled Wagner.
(Have you noticed how all new, unfamiliar music must be described in terms of the familiar? Schiff said he heard echoes of Mahler in Sound Fields, though Link agreed with me that it reminded him of The Unanswered Questions. He said he considered asking if Carter had considered adding a trumpet and woodwinds, but he lacked the courage.)
Yesterday's program also included Mosaic for harp and chamber orchestra, with Ann Hobson Pilot as soloist, and the Sonata for Flute, Oboe Cello and Harpsichord, which was the only piece on the program older than I am. Of course, A Mirror on Which to Dwell is also a little older, but it didn't seem out of place, since it was the first of the great song cycles Carter has written over the past thirty years, the direct ancestor of In the Distances of Sleep. Still, the sonata is a wonderful piece, and it's always good to hear, even if it is being used as a appetizer.
