Elliott Carter, 1908-2012

[Joe Barron]

... I never knew there was a Figment III.

But there is, according to Boosey. Completed this year and scored for double bass.

[Lilas Pastia]

I just wrote a short appreciation of some recent Carter works in today's What are you listening to thread (Sept 11)

[Joe Barron]

Lilas,

Thanks for your comments on the other thread, though  Mr. Carter's music has never reminded me of farts or borborygmus. 

And I have to disgaree with you about In the Distances of Sleep. I loved it when BH and I heard it live last year. Of course, I've only heard it once. I may be able to judge it better if I ever get the CDs people keep promising me.  0:)

[Lilas Pastia]

Joe, these farts and borborygms are utterly musical, you know  .

I listened to In The Distances of Sleep again yesterday. I still feel it doesn't work quite well as sung poetry. It's like the orchestra is playing one work, the singer another. But the orchestral contribution is fascinating. Let us know how you feel when you get to listen to it.

Hark ! I think I hear the postman's footsteps 

[Joe Barron]

It's like the orchestra is playing one work, the singer another.

Yeah, but Andre, that's kind of what Carter does. I remember thinking the work was very unified and smooth when I heard it last year. I thought the voice was well intergrated into the instrumental texture, but that impression might have been reinforced by the arrangment onstage: The soprano stood behind the string section, rather than downstage beside the conductor.

[Joe Barron]

link to a Carter audio interview on the BBC...

Thanks very much, James. Very nice interview. What's interesting is that Mr. Carter has written so much music since then that it seems a long time ago, It's strange: I'm beginning to think of anything written before 2000 as "Old Carter."

I'd like to get back to Andre and his remarks on Carter's vocal music for a moment. I've since heard In the Distances of Sleep again (thanks to Andre) and I must say I'm still impressed. Andre said that he can't quite reconcile atonality with the singing of verse. But what impresses me about Carter's vocal lines is how they match the sense and rhythm of the spoken word. Contrast them with say, those of Milton Babbitt, who tends to force the words to fit the pre-esablished musical scheme, and you may see what I mean. Mr. Carter's  expanded, irregular rhythms are appropriate to free verse. You couldn't set Wallace Stevens of Robert Lowell the way Schubert set Goethe, for example, because the verses don't have the sort of regularity that lends itself to a strophic melody.  To my ear, Mr. Carter has found a way of making the verses sound conversational. Of course, the vocal lines keep going up and down, but then, all vocal lines go up and down ...

[Wendell_E]

Thanks for the interview link, but someone should tell the BBC that it's 'Elliott' with two 't's, not 'Elliot'.

Actually I did just tell them that.   

Hmm. They also misspell Monteux.  And Stokowski.  

[Joe Barron]

Thanks for the interview link, but someone should tell the BBC that it's 'Elliott' with two 't's, not 'Elliot'.

Actually I did just tell them that.   

Hmm. They also misspell Monteux.  And Stokowski.  

Yeah, I noticed that, too, but I figured they just just paid someone in the office to transcribe it phonetically. I didn't want to turn it into a thing.

[Joe Barron]

How Mr. Carter spent his summer vacation

Below is a list of compositions completed this year, with durations and scoring. Only Figment IV has a premiere date scheduled, though I know Levine has already performed Matribute. Interventions seems like the most substantial, but I'm most looking forward to hearing the vocal pieces and Sound Fields for string Orchestra. The latter is brief, but if we're lucky, it might become the first movement of a suite like the Illusions.

Three Mad-regales (2007) 9'
for 6 solo voices
Text :John Ashbery (E)
Scoring: S.M.A.T.Bar.B

Figment III (2007) 3'
for solo contrabass

Figment IV (2007) 3'
for solo viola
(World Premiere: 3/18/2008
Freer Gallery, Washington, DC
Samuel Rhodes)

Interventions (2007) 15'
for piano and orchestra

Matribute (2007) 4'
for piano

La Musique (2007) 2'
for mezzo-soprano solo
Text: Baudelaire (F)

Sound Fields (2007) 4'
for string orchestra

[karlhenning]

All right, show of hands:

Who's coming to Boston to hear the premiere of the Horn Concerto?

[Joe Barron]

All right, show of hands: Who's coming to Boston to hear the premiere of the Horn Concerto?

Me!

[karlhenning]

Oh, and my hand is up, too, of course 

[Joe Barron]

Yet another title from this prolific year:

Clarinet Quintet (2007) 15'
for clarinet and string quartet

This is exciting. A major new chamber piece, of the same duration as the wonderful Oboe Quartet, and a companion piece to Brahms's great work, too. Listed on the Boosey site, but no word yet on a premiere.

Thanks to Richard Derby at the Bridge Records site for bringing this piece to my attention.

It's a great time to be a Carter fan. This could really be his annis mirabilis.

[Joe Barron]

Oh, and my hand is up, too, of course 

Well, it looks like it's just you and me, Karl.

[bhodges]

Well, it looks like it's just you and me, Karl.

I may join you guys, but I won't know for a few weeks. 

--Bruce

[karlhenning]

I may join you guys

[bhodges]

James, thanks for reminding me of this DVD, which I haven't yet seen.  Others have made very positive comments about it. 

--Bruce

[Joe Barron]

Firm information on the Pacifica concert and recording:

Pacifica Quartet -- The Carter Quartets
January 30, 2008 7:30 PM
New York Society for Ethical Culture
Tickets: $54.00, $44.00, $30.00

Program
Elliot Carter String Quartet No. 1
Elliot Carter String Quartet No. 2
Elliot Carter String Quartet No. 3
Elliot Carter String Quartet No. 4
Elliot Carter String Quartet No. 5

Meet the Artists
Pacifica Quartet, ensemble

About This Performance
The running time for this concert is approximately 2 hours 30 minutes, performed with two intermissions.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not many living composers are absolutely assured that their works will be inscribed in the honor role of classics, but that?s not in doubt for Elliott Carter, who in the course of a century-long career has drawn from an apparently inexhaustible font of creative ideas. Quite a few of his pieces have long been recognized as touchstones of modernism, and none more so than his five string quartets, produced at intervals of roughly a decade between 1950 and 1995, and often cited as one of the most extraordinary quartet cycles in all of music.

The Pacifica Quartet, one of the best and brightest among younger chamber ensembles and an especially persuasive interpreter of modern music, scored a breakthrough success several years by astonishing audiences with its electrifying performances of the complete cycle of Carter's quartets... two-and-a-half hours of music in a single evening. Here it caps a daylong mini-festival that includes talks and master classes about Carter's Quartets, a historic exploration no music lover will want to miss.

SPECIAL EVENTS ASSOCIATED WITH THIS CONCERT
* On January 28th, Naxos will release the Pacifica Quartet's new album of Elliott Carter's complete string quartets as part of the label's acclaimed American Classics series. The Quartet will sign copies of the CD immediately following the concert. CDs will be available for purchase at the concert.


* On the day preceding this concert, CMS hosts a workshop with the Pacifica Quartet and other guest artists focusing on interpretation and performance of these seminal works. The day will include components of master class and panel discussion. For information, call 212-875-5788.

Wasn't aware that the Naxos recording was being released so soon. And the hell of it is, I'm more upset at the lack of a sixth quartet on the program than excited at the presence of the first five ...

[bhodges]

Thanks, Joe, for mentioning all this, and I'm putting down Jan. 30 on the calendar.  (BTW, that night is also the first of four performances of Berio's Sinfonia with Maazel and the NY Phil...too much going on in this town...)

--Bruce

[Joe Barron]

too much going on in this town...

Which compensates for the nothing going on in Philadelphia.