Elliott Carter, 1908-2012

[bhodges]

Joe, thanks for the heads-up about the concert on the 13th.  Unfortunately, I have a pretty full weekend already (3 concerts and dinner on Sunday night), so I may have to pass on this one.   But I hope you and Mark get to go.

PS, the Kaplan Penthouse is a wonderful place to hear stuff: a large room seating maybe 300 people (?), with enormous windows on all sides with views of Manhattan.  It is excellent for chamber music.

--Bruce

[CRCulver]

I'm looking forward to the Three Inventions and the Symphonia here in Helsinki next week. It's nice that Carter is finally getting some performances here.

I do worry about his recent output though. The pace at which he's working, and the fact that he has now gone almost deaf, make me concerned that he is just producing generic pieces in an established style without really developing as a composer. Granted, I haven't heard anything post-2002 yet, but I've heard others make this very complaint about e.g. the Horn Concerto.

[bhodges]

Enjoy the Three Illusions and Symphonia--all wonderful live! 

PS, off-topic, I just mentioned your excellent Amazon review of Grisey's Les espaces acoustiques in the WAYLT thread, after listening to a live recording of the piece from last spring's Munich Biennale.  Very good job, explaining how spectralism works!

--Bruce

[Joe Barron]

I'm looking forward to the Three Inventions and the Symphonia here in Helsinki next week. It's nice that Carter is finally getting some performances here.

I do worry about his recent output though. The pace at which he's working, and the fact that he has now gone almost deaf, make me concerned that he is just producing generic pieces in an established style without really developing as a composer. Granted, I haven't heard anything post-2002 yet, but I've heard others make this very complaint about e.g. the Horn Concerto.

I think you mean Three Illusions. I'm not aware of any piece called Three Inventions. As for your fear that Mr Carter might not be developing as a composer, there are a couple of points to make. First, he's a hundred years old. There's no reason he should continue to develop. It took him sixty years to stake out his territory, and if he continues to mine it, well, that's his prerogative. As I said earlier in this thread --- specifically about the Horn Concerto --- he's got nothing left to prove. We should all be so stagnant when we're ninety-nine.

Second, some of his recent short pieces, such as Catenaries and Sound Fields, are not typical of his earlier work and have surprised some of us both with their directness and by the way they build substantial structures out of simple premises.

Third, even if the bigger pieces are not breaking new ground, they are still  fine examples of Mr. Carter's maturity --- clear views from the summit, as it were. I don't know how much, say, Brahms's late Clarinet Quintet furthered his development as a composer, but it is a beautiful piece. I think of Brahms because Bruce and I heard Carter's own late Clarinet Quintet last January, and it is also a very beautiful piece.

Not that I'm arguing with you, CR. As you can probably tell, I've thought a lot about the kind of questions you raise, but Mr. Carter's situation is unique. No composer has ever remained so active so long. There is nothing and no one to compare him to, and we cannot make any informed statements about how an artist should be developing at his age. To ask more from him than what he has in fact been doing is, I think, unreasonable.

Back in 1983, when he turned 75, I spoke with Mr. Carter briefly at the Kennedy Center. When we shook hands, I ended with, "And keep going." He laughed and said, "We do what we can." Well, he has granted my wish. I can only be grateful.

[bhodges]

I think you mean Three Illusions. I'm not aware of any piece called Three Inventions.

Oops!     Interesting: I read "inventions" and thought "illusions," then typed "inventions."  Maybe I need a vacation...

Nice mentioning Brahms and Carter in the same sentence, by the way. 

--Bruce

[karlhenning]

Oops!     Interesting: I read "inventions" and thought "illusions," then typed "inventions."  Maybe I need a vacation...

If you need my approval, Bruce, I'll sign right off.

[bhodges]

If you need my approval, Bruce, I'll sign right off.

--Bruce

[Joe Barron]

Excellent interview with Mr. Carter in the Boston Globe today. It has a different focus: Mr. Carter's years at Harvard.

[Joe Barron]

Matthew Guerrieri, the author of the Globe article, has also written ablog post containing some information he couldn't fit into the paper. Carter tells a funny story about meeting Reagan. And it turns out he was for Obama, which makes me happy.

[Mark G. Simon]

I've bought my ticket to the Carter concert on Dec. 13.

I'm taking a clarinet lesson immediately afterwards, so any socializing will probably have to take place before the concert. My teacher tells me he's participating, along with Drucker, in that evening's concert performance of Elektra.

[not edward]

This would appear to be the sole Carter centenary event here in Toronto: http://www.newmusicconcerts.com/New_Music_Concerts/Concerts_Events/Entries/2008/12/15_Celebrating_Elliott_Carter.html

I envy you guys in NYC and Boston!

[Joe Barron]

I envy you guys in NYC and Boston!

I'm lucky to be so near NYC, since nothing, absolutely nothing, is happening in Philadelphia.

[bhodges]

This would appear to be the sole Carter centenary event here in Toronto: http://www.newmusicconcerts.com/New_Music_Concerts/Concerts_Events/Entries/2008/12/15_Celebrating_Elliott_Carter.html

That actually looks pretty fun!  (I wish they'd list what they're playing, though.)  Are you going? 

--Bruce

[Joe Barron]

Just finished listening to Interventions on the live stream. It should dispel any suspicion Mr. Carter is just coasting at this point in his life. Really a very appealing work with some striking sonorities for the orchestra. I especially like the string writing, which consists of those long lines that so impressed me in the Boston Concerto, and the way the music for the piano seems to grow out of the preceding orchestral passages --- and vice versa. The piano seems to take up not just the music, but the sonority of the orchestra and run with it. The term "Interventions" describes the structure of the music, which is threefold. In the program notes, quoted in the webcast, Carter writes that it consists fundamentally of the music for strings, with the piano "intervening" at various points, and in turn, the winds and percussion intervenes with the piano. As usual, the orchestral music is very colorful. There is a striking phrase for flute just before the end, and some oddball percussion instrument produces a kind of ringing, whooshing sound --- I'm guessing a Chinese bowl  with a pestle drawn around the rim, like a finger circling a musical glass --- somewhere near the middle. It appears first by itself, and then later with the piano. It's a memorable effect, since the sounds of piano and percussion seem to blend. Interesting, too, how some of the piano writing derivesfor techniques found initially in the smaller solo pieces. Some of the passages reminded me of Catenaires, though I'd have to hear them again to be sure.

A lovely work (even with the diminished sound quality of the computer stream). It will be a pleasure to hear it live next week.

[Homo Aestheticus]

Joe and other Carter enthusiasts,

A nice piece in today´s Guardian:

Boulez describes Carter's career as a "résumé of the century" and contrasts its arc with that of Messiaen, who was born just one day before him: while Messiaen established his approach early in his career and then, albeit in highly imaginative ways, largely stuck to it, Carter rediscovered his "compositional voice" in his 50s and "became quite adventurous. Today," Boulez continues, "he is more flexible, inventive, less complicated and easier to perform as a consequence. I am amazed . . . everybody is amazed that he still composes and creates so many new works."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/dec/06/elliott-carter-classical-music

[Joe Barron]

It is a nice article. Thanks, Eric.

[springrite]

Thought I had Night Fantasy on one of the Carter CDs I have. But as I prepare my program, I can not find it. Does this mean I never had it? Or did someone (once again) borrowed it and not returned?

I was going to schedule it was the closing piece. Instead, it will be the Cello Sonata.

[Joe Barron]

Thought I had Night Fantasy on one of the Carter CDs I have. But as I prepare my program, I can not find it. Does this mean I never had it? Or did someone (once again) borrowed it and not returned?

I was going to schedule it was the closing piece. Instead, it will be the Cello Sonata.

The cello sonata is a wonderful piece. It will do just as well as night fantasies, though it's odd you misplaced the CD, Paul. The Night Fantasies has been recorded 10 times. I'd think you'd have it lying around somewhere.

Today, Dec. 11, lovers of modern music everywhere — and we do exist — will celebrate the 100th birthday of Elliott Carter, one of the few classical composers of truly international stature America has produced. Concerts of Mr. Carter's music are being presented this week on both U.S. coasts and several European capitals, and the tributes will continue well into next year.
Centennial commemorations are commonplace in the world of classical music, where any anniversary ending in a zero is sufficient excuse for a festival. In 2006, we heard performances in honor Mozart's 250th birthday. Leonard Bernstein's 90th is being observed this year, and in 2009, I'm sure, we'll be hearing a lot of the music of Haydn to mark the 200th anniversary of that composer's death.
What makes the Carter centenary unique is that the object of the fuss is still with us, still sharp and still writing music that sounds as fresh as ever. Many of the programs on tap this week include world premieres and recent work in addition to established masterpieces. 
I've heard it said that as people are living longer, 50 has become the new 30. In one case, at least, 100 is the new 75.
If you haven't guessed it already, I'm a fan, and anyone who is a fan of anything, from Frank Sinatra to Monty Python's Flying Circus, can understand the impulse, if not the thing itself. Mr. Carter's music has been described, accurately and not always sympathetically, as difficult. Atonal is a good word for it. Dense is another. It has also been called dry, cerebral, academic and too European, though I disagree with all those assessments. As with most artistic movements of the 20th century, critical opinion is sharply and often acrimoniously divided. When Aaron Copland, composer of "Appalachian Spring" and the high priest of American musical populism, first heard Mr. Carter's Third String Quartet back in the early 1970s, he famously remarked, "If that's music, I don't know what music is anymore." (And the two men were lifelong friends.) On the other hand, rockers like Frank Zappa and Warren Zevon were great admirers. Phil Lesh, former bass player for the Grateful Dead, loves Mr. Carter's work so much he financed a recording of it
So, yes, it's tough stuff, but it's like strong coffee or spicy food. The taste must be acquired, but once it is, much else seems bland in comparison. For me, Mr. Carter provides the same sense of discovery, of the breaking down of barriers, that older masters such as Beethoven, Stravinsky and Carl Nielsen do. Music, like any other stimulant, needs to get stronger as time goes on, or the effect is lost. Rock got louder and gnarlier over the years, and the same Third Quartet that made Copland doubt his senses is one of my all-time favorite pieces.
We all pay for our obsessions, however, and I've paid for mine. For one thing, it has priced me out of the romance market. Mr. Carter's music is not something you discuss to impress dates. You don't drag a woman to an all-Carter concert and expect her to return your calls, ever. Like the revelation that insanity runs in your family, you shouldn't even bring it up until you know the relationship is secure.
Yet thanks to Mr. Carter's music, and the timely appearance of the Internet, I have friends all over the world. Some I've met in online chat rooms. Others have e-mailed me after reading my reviews of Carter CDs at Amazon.com. One e-pal of several years' acquaintance, a lawyer — or barrister, as they say — in Manchester, England, regularly sends me CDs he burned from BBC broadcasts of Mr. Carter's music, keeping me abreast of new pieces that have not yet been recorded commercially. A second, who lives in Beijing, tells me he's planning a listening party at his home Thursday with some friends. If I ever travel to China, I know whom to look up.
Still a third lives in lower Manhattan — just a block away from an apartment on West 12th Street Mr. Carter has owned since 1945 —  and we'll be getting together at Carnegie Hall Thursday to listen to the centenarian's latest piano concerto.
I'll return to New York on Friday evening and again Saturday afternoon for further chamber programs. In addition to all the performances, there have also been a number of new CD releases, many newspaper articles and interviews and even a handsome coffee-table book of letters, photos and manuscript facsimiles. It's been like waking up every morning to find a new present under the tree.
Indeed, I can't help thinking this is what Christmas was meant to feel like, back in the day when it was actually about something other than shopping, and the visits and gift-giving lasted for a week or more.
I met Mr. Carter for the first time in 1976, when he was young man of 67, and have chatted briefly with him on several occasions since. Usually, I've felt tongue-tied around him — how many times can you tell a man you like what he does? — but once, I managed to make him smile. It was in 1983, after a recital at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. I was thinking of Groucho Marx, another of my heroes, who wrote in his memoirs that the nicest thing anyone ever said to him was, "Don't ever die. Just go on living." Trying to make a similar impression, I shook Mr. Carter's hand and told him yet again I like what he does.
"And keep going," I said.
He chuckled and replied, "We do what we can."
Twenty-five years later, he has granted that wish many times over.

[bhodges]

Great tribute, Joe!  Thanks for the mention, too, and can't wait for the big party on Thursday. 

PS, speaking of the Cello Sonata, recently I heard a young cellist, Victoria Bass, play it about as well as I've ever heard.  She performed it as if it were her favorite sonata in the world, and yet more evidence of the increasing technical capabilities of many of today's young musicians.  Here is her website.

* PS, just found out that on Friday, Dec. 12 on The Today Show (for non-U.S. readers, a popular morning television show), Willard Scott will mention Carter's 100th birthday.  Every week Scott mentions 7 or 8 people around the country who are 100 years old or more, but I don't recall ever hearing him cite anyone of Carter's stature.

--Bruce

[Joe Barron]

A cello player named Bass? You just blew my mind.