Uncommon Sonoroties: Celebrating Elliott Carter at 100
Published by Natasha February 6th, 2008 in Music, Guest Blogger, Uncommon Sonorities.
[Text by Aaron P. Tate; photo of Carter in 2000 by Meredith Heuer; appears in the Jan. 31 edition of the Ithaca Times]
Though his birthday is not until December 11, the year 2008 marks the centenary of the birth of one of America’s finest living composers, Elliott Carter, whose seven decade-long meditation on form, pitch relation, and temporal structure have left an indelible mark on the landscape of contemporary classical music.
And what a centenary it will be! That Carter is alive to witness the event is remarkable in its own right, but to consider that the anniversary will provide the occasion for world premieres of new works by the composer, along with new releases of recordings not yet heard by the general public, is truly astonishing.
Just last week, in fact, Julliard began a weeklong concert series devoted to Carter’s music, in which Pierre Boulez conducted and a jovial 99-year old Carter attended (he’s lived in the same lower Manhattan apartment since 1945). A recording of his String Quartet No. 5 (1995) was released by Naxos this week as well, with other releases already planned.
Since turning 90, Carter has not only continued to compose, but has continued to compose major works for a variety of major ensembles, including: the opera (his first) “What Next?” in 1998, a concerto for the ASKO ensemble in 2000, a Cello Concerto in 2001, the “Boston Concerto” for the Boston Symphony in 2002, “Au Quai” for bassoon and viola in 2002, “Dialogues for Piano and Orchestra” for the London Sinfonietta in 2003, and others — a level of aesthetic production by a nonagenarian that gives new meaning to the word ‘jawdropping.’ His publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, lists no less than 175 performances scheduled worldwide in 2008 alone for performances of Carter’s music.
In 1924, when Carter was only 15-years-old, his Horace Mann high school music teacher introduced him to composer Charles Ives, who, after an afternoon spent discussing music and aesthetics, began inviting Carter to attend concerts at Carnegie Hall, Manhattan lofts, and his own family’s apartment. (Ives wrote Carter’s letter of recommendation to attend college at Harvard.) The concerts were both an education for the young Carter and a window into music history: among other now-legendary concerts, Carter witnessed the New York premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Stokowski conducting Berg’s Wozzeck — all while sitting alongside Ives and his wife in their Carnegie Hall box seats.
After taking a degree in English at Harvard, Carter went on to study with Walter Piston; was a close personal friend of Edgard Varèse; spent the obligatory years in France under Nadia Boulanger’s tutelage (1932-1935); and even passed through a phase of semi-populist, Copland-esque works written in the 1940s before moving on to develop the deeply intellectual, and highly personal, compositional language for which he is so well known today.
Carter’s maturation was spurred in part by another composer of note, Conlon Nancarrow, who was living in Mexico at the time that Carter was writing his first string quartet in the Arizona desert. The two met, and Nancarrow showed his pieces written for player piano to Carter — it is widely believed that the development of Carter’s concept of metrical modulation was influenced by the encounter.
After many decades of dense, thorny, and demanding works, Carter entered a phase, beginning in the mid-80s, in which a slightly more stripped down and direct — though no less complex — writing style prevailed. “Triple Duo” (1983) and “Penthode” (1985) are good examples of this period, in which surprising instrumental combinations are placed in odd, pointilistic groupings — Carter scholar David Schiff describes “Penthode” as an “entropy-haunted collage.”
When viewed through the lens of today’s debates surrounding postmodernism and the arts, one is struck by the fact that Carter created such a deep and relentlessly modernist compositional vocabulary almost exclusively on his own terms: you will find no electronics, graphic scores, aleatoric strategies, or extended instrumental techniques in Carter’s music. His brilliance lies instead in the rigor and systematic manner in which he developed his own craft, not to mention the singular vision he brought to bear on that craft — in centuries to come, historians of 20th century art will have much to learn from Carter’s achievement.
Upcoming local new music events in February: Celebrated composer Joan Tower will visit Ithaca College and on Monday, Feb. 4, at 8:15pm, will discuss her music and career in the Iger Lecture Hall in the Whalen Center; various Ithaca College ensembles will perform her music the following evening, on Tuesday, Feb. 5, in Ford Hall (also in the Whalen Center) at 8:15pm.
On Friday Feb. 29 at 8:00pm in Barnes Hall, Cornell’s Electroacoustic Music Center (directed by Kevin Ernste) will give a concert of classic and new electronic works, including Davidovsky’s “Synchronism #6,” Charles Dodge’s “Any Resemblance is Purely Coincidental,” and Ingram Marshall’s “Fog Tropes.” Marshall will be in attendance to present his piece, and will lead a rehearsal, open to the public, on Friday afternoon at 1:30pm.
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