Carter, Elliott (1908 - 2012)

[Joseph K]

I've been enjoying this disk a lot recently:



Particularly the Oboe Concerto about which I wrote:

A very enjoyable piece. One moment the oboe is nonchalant, playful and lyrical, the next the orchestra paroxysmal. I like the rhythms which here, like other aspects of the piece, are dispatched with ruthless aplomb.

Other recordings I love include the Concerto for Orchestra under Oliver Knussen - an incredible, exhilarating work that might, if you're anything like me, leave you breathless, such is its sheer mastery; the Symphony of Three Orchestras under Boulez, a work whose textural approach, like the Concerto, is intricate and spellbinding with lyrical solos.

Anyway, I have a fair few CDs of his music and like a lot in my collection, his is an oeuvre that I mean to better-acquaint myself with, particularly the string quartets which I own more than one recording of.

From what I've read, Carter is someone who, as with most other musical modernist of the 20thC, rethought their music from the ground up, so to speak - that is to say, formulated their own post-tonal style. And yet I am also aware that Carter trained until a fairly late age in things like Harmony & Counterpoint and general musicianship with Nadia Boulanger (there was a time I enjoyed reading his reminiscences of his time in France) and I think you can hear it in his style, particularly in the awesome grasp of polyphonic and polyrhythmic complexities his music evinces. And while such works as the Double Concerto, Concerto for Orchestra and Piano Concerto can be placed with the trends of High Modernism, what I find sets his music apart at its best is its flighty, windswept sense of forward motion.

What do other people think?

[Pulcinella]

I have that apex CD, and the Knussen recording of the Concerto for orchestra (EMI, c/w Three occasions and the Violin concerto), as well as a Bernstein recording of the Concerto for orchestra with the NYPO, but confess to having found all of the pieces rather unrewarding to listen to.
Maybe I need to try harder: your enthusiasm is encouraging and infectious.


PS: Just realised that I have A Symphony of 3 Orchestras and another version of A mirror..... (missing in the Discography index in the book, presumably as it's not conducted by Boulez) that are included in the big Sony Boulez box.

[Joseph K]

PS: Just realised that I have A Symphony of 3 Orchestras and another version of A mirror..... (missing in the Discography index in the book, presumably as it's not conducted by Boulez) that are included in the big Sony Boulez box.

Interesting - I didn't realise there was another version of A Mirror in that box - must investigate...

[Pulcinella]

Interesting - I didn't realise there was another version of A Mirror in that box - must investigate...

I think you have the box, but this is it as a separate issue:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/works/340406--carter-e-a-mirror-on-which-to-dwell-six-poems-of-elizabeth-bishop/browse

[ahinton]

The best account of the Concerto for Orchestra that I've heard is that from Oliver Knussen; I believe it to be among his most fearsomely exciting yet intensely concentrated pieces. The 1960s was really quite a decade for Concertos for Orchestra, what with Tippett, Gerhard, Carter, Musgrave and the 7th of Petrassi's 8.

As someone who knew Carter said to me recently, "he's been gone now for almost a decade yet still I expect a new piece from him!"; I suppose that a composing career uniquely spanning almost 90 years might be expected to engender such a reaction...

[Joseph K]

Yes, my favourite recording of the Concerto for Orchestra is Knussen's. However, I think Gielen's with the SWF Symphony Orchestra, which I'm currently listening to, is also fine and offers perspectives that Knussen's doesn't...

[Serial_Apologist]

From what I've read, Carter is someone who, as with most other musical modernist of the 20thC, rethought their music from the ground up, so to speak - that is to say, formulated their own post-tonal style. And yet I am also aware that Carter trained until a fairly late age in things like Harmony & Counterpoint and general musicianship with Nadia Boulanger (there was a time I enjoyed reading his reminiscences of his time in France) and I think you can hear it in his style, particularly in the awesome grasp of polyphonic and polyrhythmic complexities his music evinces. And while such works as the Double Concerto, Concerto for Orchestra and Piano Concerto can be placed with the trends of High Modernism, what I find sets his music apart at its best is its flighty, windswept sense of forward motion.

What do other people think?

From a jazz perspective (in case I haven't mentioned this before) it's interesting to note that Carter claimed that the method of metric modulation, a central principle of his formal preoccupations, was initially inspired by the then-new bebop jazz he was hearing in the 1940s.

[Joseph K]

From a jazz perspective (in case I haven't mentioned this before) it's interesting to note that Carter claimed that the method of metric modulation, a central principle of his formal preoccupations, was initially inspired by the then-new bebop jazz he was hearing in the 1940s.

Also, he wrote a guitar piece called 'Changes'.

[Joseph K]

Currently spinning the second string quartet by the Pacifica Quartet and enjoying it more than I ever remember doing. I think the Pacifica Quartet is more lyrical than the Ardittis, but maybe my brain and ears have come around to this music as well, and it seems like a fulfilment of Goethe's observation (perhaps in relation to a Haydn quartet?) of a string quartet being like a conversation between four intelligent people (or something like that). Also it helps to have the movements and the cadenzas that separate them marked out with different tracks.

[RichardB]

I think EC's music is highly sensitive to interpretation. I once saw Boulez conduct Penthode, for example, and it didn't make any sense to me at al. Some years later I saw Knussen conduct the same piece and everything fell into place. I don't like the way he writes for voices and I find a lot of his chamber music sounds like unmemorable note-spinning, despite always being beautifully written for the instrument(s) involved. I like Symphony of Three Orchestras a lot more than any of his other orchestral music although I agree that the Concerto for Orchestra is very fine too, also many of the later more sparsely scored pieced like Boston Concerto, Cello Concerto and the seemingly Feldman-inspired Sound Fields. I've never got on with his string quartets but his piano music, especially the early Sonata, appeals to me very much. His compositional methods are very fascinating and thought-provoking.

[Joseph K]

His compositional methods are very fascinating and thought-provoking.

Indeed - and I once remember coming across his Harmony Book (either in Bangor University or Birmingham Central libraries) and being very impressed by its exhaustiveness. His charts for works like the Concerto for Orchestra are also very interesting to behold:





(These are photos I've taken from David Schiff's book on Carter).

Anyway I've just ordered a CD with the Boston Concerto and Cello Concerto on (though I have a few weeks to wait) thanks for bringing these works to my attention.

[RichardB]

(These are photos I've taken from David Schiff's book on Carter).

Yes, an excellent book. Around 2010 I got very interested in Carter's idea of basing pieces on one or more 12-note all-interval chords spanning 78 semitones (1+2+3... +12) but I didn't get around (yet?) to doing anything with it. Most writers on Carter's music pay much attention to his rhythmic techniques but I find those less interesting.

[ahinton]

I have a feeling that, at the time of its completion, the Piano Sonata was his finest achievement to date. It's quite a challenge to perform but must surely be a very rewarding experience that more than repays the work that it requires. Little is known of the works from Carter's teenage years although quite a lot preceded the earliest known piece, a James Joyce setting fromn 1928, including what was described somewhere (I can't now recall where) as an ambitious piano sonata dating from 1923-24 that apparently he showed to Ives but I've seen no record of Ives' reaction to it and it's sadly most unlikely ever to surface again now. Carter was quite interested in Scriabin at that time and any impact on his work from the Russian composer who'd died less than a decade earlier would be fascinating to observe if only the opportunity were to present itself. Whilst Carter had no especial ambitions as a pianist, the Piano Sonata that we know from him strikes me as the work of a serious pianist with a profound understanding of his instrument - so much so, indeed, that I am surprised that it's not "standard repertoire" for pianists.

[Joseph K]

Yes, an excellent book. Around 2010 I got very interested in Carter's idea of basing pieces on one or more 12-note all-interval chords spanning 78 semitones (1+2+3... +12) but I didn't get around (yet?) to doing anything with it. Most writers on Carter's music pay much attention to his rhythmic techniques but I find those less interesting.

Interesting. I'd say it was Carter's rhythmic and textural techniques that I cottoned onto as a way into his music at first - his harmony came a bit later.

The one minor gripe I have about Schiff's book is the sideswipe at Stockhausen for his use of nested tuplets being 'Augenmusik'. But otherwise it's very good. I also have Carter's Centennial Portrait in Letters and Documents, a very attractively produced book, and a book of Carter's own writings which is where one can find his reminiscence on Nadia Boulanger.

Looking now at the scheme for the Concerto for Orchestra, and how he's quite specific about how the poem 'Winds' relates to it, makes me want to read this poem. I wonder if there's an English translation somewhere online. I'll look later - now, I'm off for a walk.

[smittims]

I first came across Carter's music about fifty years ago when the Bernstein disc of the Concerto for Orchestra appeared. He wsn't much mentioned i Britain before that, though there had been recordings, e.g. of the double concerto.

I was fortunate in having a score of the Concerto for orchestra and found that very helpful in comprehending it. He struck me as a rigorous intellectual but tempered with a traditional American 'pioneer' approach. He seems to have been a very well-balanced man mentally, i.e. emotionally, and to have had a fundamentally cheerful view of life, which probably helped him live such a long and productive life.

I remember I think the UK premiere of the Symphony of Three Orchestras at the 1979 Proms. I especially recall John Wallace playing that difficult solo at the start. It was a memorable concert including Lutoslawski conducting his 'Espaces du Sommeil' , also I think its UK premiere and Tippett conducted 'A Child of Our Time '

Some American music students, who apparently had come to 'sing along' with the Spirituals in the Tippett, were in front of me in the Promenade and they werer surprised at the warm applause for Carter's piece. 'Back home they wouldn't clap' one said , perhaps unaware that it was by an American composer.