Elliott Carter, 1908-2012

[San Antone]

First Daniel Asia trashes Cage, and now Carter.  He seems to have a compulsion to attack composers of much higher stature than himself.  To make this comment about Carter: " His deluded music of the eternal present will sadly have little future," displays Mr. Asia's disconnect with reality.

[bhodges]

First Daniel Asia trashes Cage, and now Carter.  He seems to have a compulsion to attack composers of much higher stature than himself.  To make this comment about Carter: " His deluded music of the eternal present will sadly have little future," displays Mr. Asia's disconnect with reality.

Nothing in particular against Asia (aside from puzzling why he would write an article like this) but I have to agree with sanantonio's comment above. And other statements I can't agree with, either, like the following:

"In the brashness of this decision he was very much hooking up with the nascent European Avant-garde that privileged idea over sound and philosophical exegesis over beauty."

I guess those of us who find Carter's music filled with ideas, sound, philosophical exegesis - and beauty - have been deluded.

--Bruce

[snyprrr]

First Daniel Asia trashes Cage, and now Carter.  He seems to have a compulsion to attack composers of much higher stature than himself.  To make this comment about Carter: " His deluded music of the eternal present will sadly have little future," displays Mr. Asia's disconnect with reality.

He's just this generation's Virgil Thompson, Ha!

Well, in a way, it is daring. Asia has poured what amounts to the most corrosive acid there could be to Carter's legacy. Perhaps, secretly, Asia hopes that Carter's achievement will withstand this unprecedented (unless he's high on Boulez) assault. It reminds me of how the word 'self-pitying' has been grafted onto Pettersson. God help the pop star who has to sing 'THAT' song every night though it's their worst song.

Even so, in the Big Picture he certasinly is correct, if we simply compare Carter with, say, Beethoven. 99% will probably pick LvB and relegate Carter to the dustbin (I'm guessing, right?). You'd have to play the Carter spread-game really really carefully for him to SERIOUSLY get into your Top...what?...10? 20? OF ALL TIME?

I mean, come ON, he IS craggiest of the craggy? Shapey? The same. ONLY WONDERFUL PEOPLE LIKE US, THE ELITE OF THE ELITE HERE AT GMG and Fred Sherry can appreciate Carter's 'psychological states'.

I think it brilliant to equate Composers like Carter, Schoenberg, Boulez, all of them, with the psychological states of severe mental illness. Brilliant, 'sane' men such as Carter and Boulez make music, that, to lay people, sound as though the ravenings of madmen. So, them of 'reason' make 'mad' music?? Hahah, that's rich,... but true?

How else can we explain that MOST every Composer of High Modernism REINTEGRATED soooome aspect of 'Tradition' BACK INTO 'The Void' They 'mellowed out'... I know, not like Zeppelin, but, my point is, you'd have to be pretty ass stubborn (Boulez) not to COME BACK from 'The Void' (the ether into which the 12 tones MUST be placed).

Unisons in Carter? Hahahahahaha.... ONE? UNISON? Hahahahahahaha...

The People Have Spoken: We need SOMETHING to 'hold'.

[not edward]

Like the moment-form pieces of his European brethren, his music is in the always present, without past or future.

Say what? This doesn't even make sense, if I understand what he's trying to say here. One of Carter's recurrent tropes in the late music is the passage where the textures clear, the density of musical narrative lessens and the musical pacing eases off. You know, the sort of thing that if it were in a tonal composer's work, Professor Asia would be describing as "a window onto eternity" or some other cliched figure of speech.

All Professor Asia manages to do in this article is to sound like one of the many academic mediocrities I've had the misfortune to encounter, seething with resentment and constantly talking himself up and others down in a vain attempt to distract himself from the fact that he isn't anything special himself.

[Karl Henning]

I found Asia's article quite honest . . .

. . . as are snypsss's posts.

[Karl Henning]

Say what? This doesn't even make sense, if I understand what he's trying to say here. One of Carter's recurrent tropes in the late music is the passage where the textures clear, the density of musical narrative lessens and the musical pacing eases off. You know, the sort of thing that if it were in a tonal composer's work, Professor Asia would be describing as "a window onto eternity" or some other cliched figure of speech.

All Professor Asia manages to do in this article is to sound like one of the many academic mediocrities I've had the misfortune to encounter, seething with resentment and constantly talking himself up and others down in a vain attempt to distract himself from the fact that he isn't anything special himself.

This.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Say what? This doesn't even make sense, if I understand what he's trying to say here. One of Carter's recurrent tropes in the late music is the passage where the textures clear, the density of musical narrative lessens and the musical pacing eases off. You know, the sort of thing that if it were in a tonal composer's work, Professor Asia would be describing as "a window onto eternity" or some other cliched figure of speech.

Yeah, this business about Carter's music always being in the present and lacking dramatic form...how would he apply that to things like Variations for Orchestra or the Piano Concerto or Symphonia?

Note also the reference to dementia near the end - it's common among folks like this to compare modernist music to mental illness.

[snyprrr]

. . . as are snypsss's posts.

String Quartet No.1

In response to the article, I pulled out the old classic Nonesuch, and realized I did indeed need to listen to No.1 again; it's been a couple of years. I remember, after already enjoying the piece, that it was written in the American SouthWest, and when I listened again, I heard what I have myself experienced, and yes, Carter's landscape in SQ 1 is somewhat akin to the opening desert shots of the old sci-fi flick 'Them!'. One can hear the cragginess, the wind, the desolation, the hot sun, all many of things scurrying about.

As I now listened, I did hear Asia's 'right here right now' criticism as no more than Carter's moment-by-moment recollection of the desert scene. Far from being a Schoenbergian angst filled paean to hospital stays, Carter's dislocation and remoteness fits perfectly with its muse, a desert landscape.

I hear the whole first part as a large tapestry, which isn't hard to imagine once the notes start picking up speed and intertwining with each other. The 'still' music of the adagio suggests either the calm and starry night, or the heavy heat of midday. Again, one can practically see the heat waves coming off the asphalt

At points in the Finale I was wondering if I was hearing 'normal' music, but, I was more able to interpret the etched shapes as almost paleo-symbols, the strange symmetry of nature, the rocks.


The is, Carter's music IS GOING SOMEWHERE! When compared to the busy stasis of Boulez's totally serial String Quartet 'Livre pour Cords(sic)', Carter does appear to have a trajectory, whereas Boulez is stuck in a serial vortex from which there is no escape: the landscape in Carter changes, but no matter how much stuff is happening in the Boulez, it is still always stuck in a thorny brambles or ripe overgrown vegetation. There is never really any haze in the Carter, only haze in the Boulez (if I may make it brutally simple).

The Carter is no doubt a blooming Masterpiece to stand alongside the Sessions SQ No.2 (Vox recording only!), probably the two greatest SQs of the '50s. Anyone care to challenge?

[Concord]

My reaction to Asia's article may be seen at my blog. In essence, it's nothing I haven't read before

John Link suspects the story that Carter didn't notice the wrong clarinet tranposition in the Concerto for Orchestra may be an urban legend. The same thing has been said about Schoenberg. There is some doubt as to where Asia got the story, since he wasn't at the rehearsal. I'd be interested in knowing his source.

[Concord]

In contrast to Snypyrr, I hear nothing of the desert in the SQ1. I don't think Carter meant to paint the desert in the piece, either.

[Karl Henning]

Our snypsss certainly dances with different stars.

As to Asia, he appears to be milking his 5 minutes of fame, and I am disinclined to squander any energies upon him at all.

[Concord]

I've read so many attacks on Carter over the years I've become immune to them. It's a form of mithridatism.

[DavidRoss]

I've read so many attacks on Carter over the years I've become immune to them. It's a form of mithridatism.

Oh, boy -- a new word!

Regarding political news, it works -- that is, if it doesn't kill you before the tolerance effect kicks in.

[snyprrr]

In contrast to Snypyrr, I hear nothing of the desert in the SQ1. I don't think Carter meant to paint the desert in the piece, either.

My reasoning for the imagery is that Carter wrote the piece in the US SouthWest, so, I believe even he himself might acknowledge the imagery as the correct interpretation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_Quartet_No._1_(Carter)

"Like the desert landscapes I saw each day as I wrote..."

[Concord]

Yes, but read to the end of the sentence:

Like the desert horizons I saw daily while it was being written, the First Quartet presents a continuous unfolding and changing of expressive characters—one woven into the other or emerging from it—on a large scale.

It's a quick comparison, and a "continuous unfolding of expressive characters" has a wide range of applications. Indeed, it could describe Carter's entire oeuvre. As I say, I don't see the desert when I'm listening, and I wouldn't think of the desert if I didn't know the story of Carter's time in Arizona. But it's a small point. We all have our own associations when listening to music. Crumb likes to say that "La Mer" could be called "La Terre" and nothing would be lost. And I certainly agree with you on the point that counts: it's a masterpiece, and it goes places.

[not edward]

And I certainly agree with you on the point that counts: it's a masterpiece, and it's goes places.

There's a sense in which I almost think of much of Carter's 50s and 60s work as his 'Beethovenian' phase. The music has such a sense of drive and purpose, and a certain severity to it, in comparison to the later work, which often seems to me to take Haydn and perhaps Mozart as exemplars.

[snyprrr]

I'm sure the combined brain trust we have here has spoken as one, and given Asia a collective stfu!!

There's a sense in which I almost think of much of Carter's 50s and 60s work as his 'Beethovenian' phase. The music has such a sense of drive and purpose, and a certain severity to it, in comparison to the later work, which often seems to me to take Haydn and perhaps Mozart as exemplars.

He's perky and spunky, Boulez is not! You're right

[Concord]

There's a sense in which I almost think of much of Carter's 50s and 60s work as his 'Beethovenian' phase. The music has such a sense of drive and purpose, and a certain severity to it, in comparison to the later work, which often seems to me to take Haydn and perhaps Mozart as exemplars.

I've referred to the music of the '50s and '60s as Carter's "heroic" phase. The later music does have a lighter, more improvisatory feel, mostly, I think, because the textures aren't as dense. But as I've said elswhere, this doesn't preclude moments of anguished lyricism - as is true of Mozart, as well. Carter often said Mozart was his favorite composer, and that his "desert island" disks were the three Da Ponte operas.

[Concord]

Well, I got mine. Haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but I have heard the Piano Concerto, Nine by Five, and the Two tThoughts About the Pianio, and in my opinion this is a very fine disk and worth having despite the duplications. The Rosen-Smirnoff rendition of the Piano Concero is much different from the other recordings I have (which is all of them) - more intimate, even romantic, yet it works very well. The orchestral playing is exquisite. Now that the concerto has been around a while, it seems, it is lending itself, like all great music, to a variety of approaches. I also liked Steve Beck's account of Catenaires. It's lighter  and more fleet than the Oppens version. He doesn't punch it the way she seems to. Nine by Five, played by Slow Wind, was not as aggressive as I thought it was at the live premiere. I said then it was a return to the Carter of the 70s, but now I'm not so sure. Maybe that's just the fault of my memory, or maybe it's a difference in the playing, but still, it's a lovely, lively, colorful piece.

Get this disk, you clowns. 

[bhodges]

This looks really great. The page with tributes is especially good.

http://elliottcarter.com/

--Bruce