every gesture, every cluster, every whiz bang is a musical thought that eludes categorization and is so very listenable. without a doubt one of the great modernists to ever compose. irascible, joyous, impenetrable, lucid, arcane, intelligent, witty, tense, fluid, enjoyable.
Tense AND fluid? Hmm interesting-🤔. You sure you didn't just point at different words blindfolded with one hand while keeping your fingers crossed on the other?😄
Please, the character of a piece can change from a section to another. More in general “tense” and “fluid” are not necessarily contradictory, they can be part of the same movement, either consequentially or as on limiting/morphing the other. I see no problem with OP’s description, even if it were contradictory, art can make us feel those contradictions (oxymoron)
Sort of an anecdotal consensus emerging that the "later" works are more accessible. In that vein you might look at the clarinet quintet - a masterpiece to be sure - and far more user friendly than the first 4 string quartets. Ironically his one and only symphony is a gorgeous piece of music written before he went stone cold radical modern, and similarly the piano sonata. The first string quartet written I think 1951 was his first full blown modernist work. Give it perhaps 20 to 30 listens over the course of a few months. It is one of a handful of my singularly favorite works of the 20th century by any composer. While I eventually tired of masterpieces like bartok piano concerto 1, Prokofievs 7th piano sonata, i still find carter string qt #1 fresh. Though I confess I listen more to #2's and #3 more these days. Variations for orchestra is dense but can be cracked with repeated listening.
I don't have a great love for this work, and I've known it since it was premiered. However, after having just listened to Andrew Norman's Grawemeyer winning 'Play', my appreciation of it has risen. In fact, much of the 'new 'music these days has encouraged me to appreciate the music I didn't care for as a student. That said, I have great respect for Carter, without really liking his music.
Je suis de votre avis. Je suis parfaitement insensible au charme éventuel de cette musique qui ressemble à un tintamare plus ou moins organisé. D'accord, on a dit cela du Sacre du Printemps aussi, mais ici je n'ai rien trouvé qui organise le chaos, qui envoûte, qui stabilise puis déstabilise. Bravo à Carter d'avoir pu convaincre des éditeurs, des chefs d'orchestres, des musiciens d'exécuter une musique aussi exigeante et aussi ch... Donc si quelqu'un a un indice pour l'apprivoiser voire l'apprécier, je lui serai reconnaissant.
@@stueystuey1962 In my student days I was attracted to the music of Stravinsky, Lutoslawski, Gerhard, Ligeti, Crumb, Varese, Copland - 20th century composers who seemed to try to communicate with concert goers, as opposed to alienating them. I'm still attracted to them in my old age, perhaps less so with Lutoslawski (his final period I find less interesting, except for Chantefleurs et Chantefables) and Crumb. On a good day I find some of the music of Morton Feldman fascinating. I studied one summer with Crumb, and I had a 25 year correspondence with Lutoslawski. I was accepted as a composition student with Donatoni, but decided against it. As far as what's going on in new classical music these days, I'm basically ignorant, since the composers I followed are all dead now, and the little of what I've heard I haven't been impressed.
@@muslitto be sure I am way outside the music community as far as trends go. If Carter is of the 'new music' world then I am accidentally on the leading edge. There are probly ten to twenty works of his that in any given I listen to over and over. Fwiw: not a week goes by that I dont listen to this piece all the way through like this morning as I drink coffee, smoke, pray and write. Same with his quartets and one or two other large orchestral pieces such as Variations and Concerto. Then there are works like the Cello Concerto and Double Concerto that I am drawn to more and more but might bail on by virtue of losing the thread of continuity. A feature imo that has more to do with the very nature of serial composition. Now that this piece had ended my unconscious wants to jump to Babbitt - Corresponfrnves in particular. So bye for now.
Independientemente del gusto personal de cada quien, hay que reconocer que Carter mantuvo su capacidad creativa hasta sus últimos momentos de vida. De sus obras orquestales, ésta es la que suelo escuchar con mayor frecuencia. Muchas gracias por postear el ciclo de "Sinfonías"!
This is a great piece of music with all sorts of immediate appeal, and yet somebody thinks they’re doing Carter a favor by writing “For the most part . . . melody and rhythm are nowhere to be found.” That’s utter nonsense. The same atonal lyricism that’s in Ives’s Unanswered Question and Ruggles’s Sun-Treader can be found in Carter. What can make Carter difficult listening isn’t his dissonances or his layered independent tempo changes but his refusal to give listeners uninterrupted moments of quietude or beauty: there’s always something else going on that’s not lovely, these little scurrying figures he seems to like so much form a grotesque contrast with the lines that are lovely. It’s a deliberate aesthetic choice, making different contrapuntal lines as independent as possible, and I can understand if people don’t want music where the lovely is in conflict with the grotesque and the lovely doesn’t prevail, which is usually the case with Carter’s music. But that means understanding the interplay between the lyric and grotesque in his music, responding to melody and rhythm (or rather tempi, but my point here is that there’s a felt sense of time in his music that, again, speaks directly to the listener.) It’s music within the reach of any listener, and this listener loves it and want to convey his enthusiasm for Carter’s music to others.
Just listened to the partita for the 1st time. I observe that for all it's dissonance and starkness it is not particularly dark or gloomy to me...the continual changes perhaps, the discontinuity, makes apprehension of light or dark so transient...there are of course his very intentional rhythmic structures but this internal framework didn't leave an overall structural impression. There are some dramatic moments in it, but you feel as if the music were played backwards or from end to beginning it might not make much difference in the listener's apprehension because of the relentless abstraction and fragmentation. The tenebroso is dark and flirts with more sustained sonorities that resonate a certain cold beauty and ferocity. This one feels more emotionally accessible. The final allegro communicates it's meaning better than the opening movement. Only thing I've listened to very recently that I can compare it to is Peter Maxwell Davies...who I think I like better.
Maybe so. Thank G-d DG took a chance and committed a fantastic rendering of it on their most important label. EC's works will continue to increase in stature even if his listeners inly grow by onesies and twosies for the foreseeable future.
It's time for someone to say that the emperor has no clothes. We still listen to Bach and Beethoven - yes those straight, white dead males - after 200 years. In 50 years no one will be longing to hear this sonic offal. Of course, it will still be programmed by enlightened orchestra directors who wish to 'educate" their benighted, ignorant listeners, all those barbaric philistines who still would occasionally like to hear a melody, or who wish to have some emotion other than mal-de-mer. elicited by what they're hearing.
Not only are you undeniably wrong, since music similar to this has been made for 100 years and is still being listened to and celebrated as masterful, but secondly why even write your comment, why not just keep listening to Beethoven and ignore Elliott Carter and similar music? You're acting like every fan of this music is some pretentious smart-ass, when your stance is far, far more pretentious.
This is full of beautiful, expressive melodies, especially in the Adagio. For instance listen to the exchange of melodic lines between strings and oboe.
You are wrongheaded on so many levels it is hard to know where to begin. "Straight, white" dead males - what does that have to do with anything? Carter's first masterpiece String Quartet #1 is now 70 years old and its popularity is certainly on the increase not the other way around. Beethoven (let's leave Bach out; different era and a different cultural phenomenon) was one of the first composers whose music was performed in Concert houses fro anything that might be described as a concert going "public". Said "public" by today's standards would be considered rather small and rather elite. Your love and appreciation of Beethoven was sculpted and formed by a learned elite that existed nearly 180 to 200 years ago. Art appreciation and the acknowledgement of genius is no different now than it has ever been - true genius is almost always recognized and that recognition always grows. It starts with an elite. The number of artists that I have to accept as genius by virtue of that elite probably exceeds the number of artists that i genuinely appreciate. And though in my less virtuous moments and depending upon audience might lash out at some of these artists I never lose sight of the reality around me. That people still listen to Beethoven: he was a genius of the first rank. That some people can't move past Beethoven - that is to be expected. To bash those who appreciate genius of which you are not capable, that is first rank ignorance.
It is doubtful Carter's works will be played by large orchestras in any quantity, one of the reasons being the demands on rehearsal time. It takes many hours of costly rehearsal to simply play the notes of a Carter piece, and time is something a chamber group has plenty of and professional orchestras do not. (On the other hand music schools of a high caliber may have that time.) The other reason of course lies in the music itself, which is no longer new music by a living composer and of interest to only a small (or even minuscule) segment of the listening public that goes to orchestral concerts.
Why not 45 minutes of this? I love Carter-dramatic, imaginative, fierce. Who needs blockbuster movies when there’s music this exciting and unusual and alive? I’m sure there’s 45 minutes of something you enjoy. Go listen to that rather than shit on stuff that other people like or even love.
