Counterpoint

[bwv 1080]

EC was a contrapuntal composer and made great efforts studying it under Nadia Boulanger...however, what about the meaning behind a lot of Carter and music of this nature? Is it as transcendent? A lot of it seems like mere arbitrary gestures than all else, complexity for the sake of it, experimental, his personal formal & structural designs/contrivances, are less than compelling compared to Bach, and certainly not the controlled organic evolution seen in earlier periods. ...and its nowhere near as universal, perfectly crafted and meaningful as Bach. Nor was any counterpoint after Bach's time truly conceived and heard in the same manor, it all went downhill after...and Bach was the peak. His musical utterence exists on a level of of human-spiritual nobility that serenely floats above the transient & inconsistent attempts of even the very great composers who followed him ... and they knew it too ! He is incomparable... the greatest solace, and the greatest joy. Bach is pre Ego... pre Individual, and the characteristic interior intensity of his writing - the cogency - is achieved through not just his genius, but also his craft & his learning. His music is for the Glory of God and is dedicated thus. Not for his glory... he would never allow himself the self-aggrandising indulgences of say Beethoven and his ilk.

So, what does the 4th fugue from Book 1 of the WTC mean?  Does it have more meaning than Esprit Rude / Esprit Doux?  I could write gushing hyperbole about Carter but what would it mean anymore than yours about Bach?

[bwv 1080]

I like bits of Carter, but not many people understand it as listeners, unless of course they are offered up some dry "explanation" of his formal and structural contrivances, which I have never found too compelling and merely surface bound. He like many composers of the 20th century were often afflicted with the malaise of the time: the neurotic imperitive to start from scratch ... to conjure newness like a rabbit out of a hat. So much of it is rootless & arbitrary.

But the complete opposite is the case.  Carter (unlike many of his peers) is completely grounded in his tradition (largely thanks to Boulanger).  He no more started from scratch than Bach did.  Just as JS Bach wove together and expanded the musical language of Vivaldi, Telemann, Froberger, Corelli etc.  So has Carter done the same with Schoenberg, Webern, Ives, etc.  As far as acceptance by listeners goes, he has a committed group of performers and listeners who hold his music in highest regard.  Much the same as the audience for Bach in the 100 years following his death.

[karlhenning]

Bach inherited and consolidated the great polyphonic tradition that came before him, and his age was a contrapuntal one. It changed after that. He was the great consolidator of that age. Nothing I have heard in Elliott Carter really comes close to the essence that is Bach

James, the very comparison is problematic.  The two composers lived in very different ages;  it is a serious lapse to suppose that, for his music to be "as transcendent as Bach's," Carter needs to stand in the same relation to musical culture, today, that Bach did two hundred years ago.

It simply doesn't matter that you don't here in Carter anything that "really comes close" to Bach's essence;  the content, the style, the context for the two composers is entirely different (and of course, Bach himself is part of Carter's context).  Their essence is not going to be the same.

[bwv 1080]

Bach cannot but prostrate himself before Josquin's Purity of Essence.

[bwv 1080]

James you are conflating two separate concepts. The "greatness" of the composer within the tradition and the quality of the composer's music.  Bach in the first sense has an unsurmountable position within the tradition.  In the second sense Bach has many peers, Carter among them.  The first incorporates the idea of historical importance and influence while the second ties to the general quality and sophistication of the work.  Carter is certainly a more sophisticated contrapuntalist than Bach, his language is much more complex and is more emotionally expressive.  Carter, and every other composer since 1750 had the advantage of hearing and absorbing Bach so you cannot directly compare the two.

A like analogy in another tradition would be the relation of Louis Armstrong in the Jazz tradition to everyone who came after him.  No jazz musician will ever be as "great" as Louis even though there are plenty of Jazz that of equal or greater sophistication. 

[bwv 1080]

Carter's music is more expressive and less austere than Bach's.  Carter views the individual instruments in a piece like the 4th SQ as players in a drama.  Carter's counterpoint is more complex and sophisticated from the standpoint of rhythm, an area of relative simplicity in Bach's music.

[jochanaan]

...and music has been in a constant decline for 2 1/2 centuries, and no one will ever recapture Bach's genius, and today's composers are only a bunch of intellectuals--yeah, right!   Your prejudices are showing, James.  Especially when with one post you complain about Carter's lack of understandability, while in another you complain about his appeal to our "animal nature."

But it seems that Carter's music has had SOME effect on you, since it has drawn out this torrent of words...

[bwv 1080]

Carter's music shines above the coarse vulgarity of much of Bach's music.  Carter's use of rhythm never stoops to the common 'bump & grind' grooves of lavicious dances like the Sarabande.  Carter rises above the crudeness of common dances and folk tunes.

[bwv 1080]

Hey, this sort of pontification is fun.  I think I am starting to get the knack of it. 

Carter's harmony is superior to Bach's because Bach's heirarchial tonal system is inherently fascist, whereas Carter has liberated all the tones of the chromatic scale

[Haffner]

Hey, this sort of pontification is fun.  I think I am starting to get the knack of it. 

Carter's harmony is superior to Bach's because Bach's heirarchial tonal system is inherently fascist, whereas Carter has liberated all the tones of the chromatic scale

Shouldn't we start up an educative "James" topic? Imagine all the folks clamoring to learn more from such a far-ranging, eclectic mind!

[Montpellier]

Carter's harmony is superior to Bach's because Bach's heirarchial tonal system is inherently fascist, whereas Carter has liberated all the tones of the chromatic scale

Scuse me saying but didn't Schoenberg do that, setting off a track through Webern to the total serialists like Boulez?  They set free every tone, interval, dynamic, duration and the price of the tickets.  Sadly I know too little about Carter to know how he fitted into that scheme... there are only so many hours in a day to listen to things, so I'll happily be enlightened.... 

[karlhenning]

Scuse me saying but didn't Schoenberg do that . . . .

Sure, and bwv 1080 is aware of Schoenberg.  There's a facetious tinge to the post, which I hope does not escape you . . . .

[Haffner]

Sure, and bwv 1080 is aware of Schoenberg.  There's a facetious tinge to the post, which I hope does not escape you . . . .

I'm not sure how facetious he's being (I'm basically "duh"), but I sure do hear Schoenberg utilising those techniques, with often remarkable results.

You know, much like several other members on this board, I went about a month believing that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the "absolute best", "Tiger Beat" champeen of music composition, and that his music was pretty much all that was worth listening to and praising.

My life got so much better when I loosened up, especially in terms of the latter. This board, and the wonderful friends I've made on it,  helped me do that.

There are other members on this forum whom have different "faves", but similar adherences. And they've had the same preferences for quite awhile now. If anyone feels defensive in regard to my pointing this out, it tends to prove the assertion.

That doesn't mean that Mozart is any less of a "Tiger Beat" champeen for me, however .

[karlhenning]

That doesn't mean that Mozart is any less of a "Tiger Beat" champeen for me, however .

Nor should it 

[bwv 1080]

Scuse me saying but didn't Schoenberg do that, setting off a track through Webern to the total serialists like Boulez?  They set free every tone, interval, dynamic, duration and the price of the tickets.  Sadly I know too little about Carter to know how he fitted into that scheme... there are only so many hours in a day to listen to things, so I'll happily be enlightened.... 

Schoenberg and Webern are but Trotsky and Lenin to the Mao of Carter

[karlhenning]

Berg would be Kerensky, of course.

[bwv 1080]

Berg would be Kerensky, of course.

And Boulez Stalin

[karlhenning]

And Virgil Thomson, Chiang-Kai Shek

[karlhenning]

I probably misplaced a hyphen somewhere . . . .

[quintett op.57]

Harmony, to him, was God's gift to man.

It's probably why he spent time repeating his secret was work.

Do you simply believe I can't grasp Bach's superiority because I'm an atheist?
I'm wondering, sometimes.