Elliott Carter

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. (born December 11, 1908) is an American composer of classical music.

Style and Works

Carter's earlier works are influenced by Stravinsky and Hindemith, and are mainly neoclassical in aesthetic. He had a strict and thorough training in counterpoint, from medieval polyphony through Stravinsky, and this shows in his earliest music, such as the ballet Pocohontas (1938-9). Some of his music during the Second World War is frankly diatonic, and includes a melodic lyricism reminiscent of Samuel Barber. Interestingly, Carter abandoned neoclassicism around the same time Stravinsky did, saying that he felt he had been evading vital areas of feeling.

Related Topics:
Stravinsky - Hindemith - Neoclassical - Samuel Barber

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His music after 1950 is typically atonal and rhythmically complex, indicated by the invention of the term metric modulation to describe the frequent rhythmic changes found in his work. Among his better known works are the Variations for Orchestra (1954-5); the Double Concerto for harpsichord, piano and two chamber orchestras (1959-61); the Piano Concerto (1967), written as an 85th birthday present for Igor Stravinsky; the Concerto for Orchestra (1969), loosely based on a poem by Saint-John Perse; and A Symphony of Three Orchestras (1976). He has also written five string quartets, of which the second and third won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1960 and 1973 respectively. Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei (1993-1996) is his largest orchestral work, complex in structure but fascinating in its use of contrasting layers of instrumental textures, from delicate wind solos to crashing brass and percussion outbursts.

Related Topics:
1950 - Atonal - Rhythm - Metric modulation - Harpsichord - Piano - Igor Stravinsky - Saint-John Perse - String quartet - Pulitzer Prize for Music

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In spite of a usually rigorous derivation of all pitch content of a piece from a source chord, or series of chords, Carter never abandons lyricism, and ensures that a text is sung intelligibly, sometimes even simply. In A Mirror on Which to Dwell (1975) (based on poems by Elizabeth Bishop) Carter writes colorful, subtle, transparently clear music; yet almost every pitch in the piece is derived from the content of a single sonority. While Carter seems to set up rigorous systems for deriving the pitch content of a piece, he deviates from them on occasion: not every note can be explained with the same rigor as can be done, for example, in Webern.

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