Eliott Carter

by Richard Wilson

My acquaintance with Elliott Carter the person began on December 20, 1969 when he served as moderator for the Composers’ Forum held at the Donnell Library Auditorium in New York City. I was one of two composer featured on that occasion, the other being Joel Chadabe, who had studied with Carter. My then very limited acquaintance with Elliott Carter the composer had begun in 1964 as his Second String Quartet was performed in Rome when I was living at the American Academy. That work thrilled me and led me to investigate the much longer First Quartet, the score and recording of which were in the Academy library. Back in New York, like many young composers who attended the series of his frequent premieres in the next years (Concerto for Orchestra, Third String Quartet, Symphony for Three Orchestra etc.), I began to view him as the most innovative and exciting figure in American music. But I was in awe both of the man and his music. It was not until the Huddersfield Festival in 1983 that I got to know him and his formidable wife Helen well enough to feel comfortable in their presence. His music continued to induce in me a certain sense of inadequacy.

It was the premiere of the Duo for Violin and Piano that particularly challenged and even discouraged me. The work was done twice, before and after intermission. The second performance was not recognizable to me as something I had just heard. The apparent complexity of the work put it beyond my comprehension. I have since heard Rolf Schulte and Ursula Oppens give riveting performances of this same work, and I have not felt defeated by it. But that was later.

Very soon after this experience, I attended a full evening of Carter’s music in London conducted by Oliver Knussen. Hearing the Double Concerto live for the first time gave me the feeling of being on a sonic adventure into a strange and intriguing environment—a sensation that is vivid in my memory today. The keenness of his aural imagination in dealing with so many unpitched percussion sounds staggered me. Every detail seemed precisely in place. Any loss of faith in this composer, occasioned by the Duo, was quickly restored.

From the start, one particular aspect of Carter’s music impressed me.

Whereas the eighteenth-century symphony might typically begin with a call to attention and stating of the main key; and would predictably end with an emphatic tonal cadence in that key, Elliott Carter’s works tended to show an unusually imaginative approach to both extremes. There is no predicting how they will begin; and how they end is only marginally less surprising.

Certain of Carter’s earlier works have ‘logical’ endings. The cello sonata begins with the piano as clock and cello as rhapsodist. It ends with the cello ticking away pizzicato and the piano providing connected notes of irregular length—an unmistakable reversal of roles. (Of course one should not neglect the witty surprise of the triple octave harmonic combined with the plucked C-string that is actually the last sound heard.) The first string quartet, in a detail famously inspired by film (Cocteaus’s Le Sang d’un Poete), ends with a continuation of the first violin’s opening line—which was heard more than forty minutes earlier.

With the Double Concerto as model, an unusual number of later works end with an emphatic, typically very loud, climax after which the music reverberates and undergoes sonic decay. In the case of the single instrument concertos, this post-climactic passage—an exodos, to use a term from Greek drama which might have appeal to Carter—gives a valedictory opportunity to the solo instrument and whatever ‘concertino’ may have been associated with it.

The coda of the Double Concerto begins with a crash and reverberates for seventy-one bars during which four strands of music fluctuate in conflicting wave patterns. Because of the length of this section, about two and one-half minutes, as well as the complexity of the texture, it may prove difficult for the uninitiated listener to grasp fully the overall design, which is one of carefully controlled sonic decay from the dynamic climax that finally stops on an amusing click in the claves. The triple forte blast in bar 619 risks being forgotten in the energetic and consuming dialogue between the piano and harpsichord and their associated ensembles. Later works will show much greater clarity in the presentation of the dynamic highpoint and its contrasting aftermath.

This is evident already in the Piano Concerto, finished four years later. This work begins and ends with the piano alone quietly occupying itself with three-note sonorities. The orchestra reaches a stabbing climax, marked sfff, at bar 663. The next fifteen bars are largely reverberation and decay with final appearances of the group of instruments associated with the solo piano: flute, English horn, bass clarinet and solo strings mostly playing pianissimo. Unlike the opening, where the piano’s pitches gradually reach upward, here the notes push downward, ending on the lowest G#.

In the Oboe Concerto, written twenty-two years later, we find the orchestral climax, which features triple-forte karate-chops, in bar 403. The remaining thirty bars are an oboe-dominated tranquillo which culminates with the oboe delineating its musical space, which is rather more rigidly limited than that of the violin, cello, or clarinet. High A is directly followed by low Bb; the final pitch is C#, which falls just shy of the midpoint of this space. High A is the first note played by the oboe in this work, and low Bb receives an almost obsessive amount of emphasis as a fortissimo pedal point in the passage bars 186-197: seven loud, low Bb’s.

The Violin Concerto of 1990 concludes with an especially quick aftermath. The orchestra reaches a climactic, triple-forte tutti chord in bar 620; the work ends five bars later, the solo violin descending alone from a stratospheric B (so high it is almost off the piano keyboard) with music marked ‘very dramatically’ and ‘marcatissimo’ and punctuated by chords with up to six notes. At the very ending, muted strings join in a quick, gossamer cadence, pianissimo with the solo on a high Eb.

The Clarinet Concerto of 1996 is one of the relatively few Carter works that actually ends loud. As with the Third String Quartet, there is no echoing coda. The hyperactive solo clarinet finishes the work on an emphatic tuning A.

The Cello Concerto of 2001 on the other hand returns to the more familiar design. We find loud orchestral tuttis—a series of screaming sonorities, with full-orchestra attacks against a sheet of sustained string sound. After this, the cello carries on for nearly a minute with virtuosic agility until it resorts to pizzicato, guitar style. The very last gesture is a pair of plucked harmonics in an optimistic, rising perfect fourth.

Between the concertos for clarinet and cello, Carter composed the Asko Concerto for a chamber ensemble of sixteen players. The overall design involves two trios, two duos, a quintet and a solo. The solo is for bassoon, and it is a two-minute extravaganza that is followed by a set of accelerating staccato chords from the full ensemble—another loud ending.

The Boston Concerto of 2002, inspired by William Carlos Williams’s poem “Rain,” contains passages clearly meant to suggest precipitation. Its ending is approached with a descrescendo of repeated notes, many of them pizzicatos, in conflicting rhythmic patterns. Although there are some loud staccato chords there is no real sense of an orchestral climax. The last note is a plucked B below middle-C—B presumably for Boston.

The texture of pizzicatos found in the Boston Concerto may have its antecedent in String Quartet No. 5, composed in 1995, which ends with a considerable section of plucking in cross rhythms—a corn popping effect—before the last eight seconds, where arco playing returns for a brief comment from each of the four players.

In Dialogues for Piano and Orchestra, composed in 2003, we again find an emphatic climactic cadence in the orchestra. This has the effect of freezing time: the piano provides single notes covering the keyboard from top to bottom against a quietly sustained background. The piano shares its line with the clarinet; a scattering of trombone notes seem left over from the tutti.

The only generality that occurs about how Carter’s works begin is that, where an impression of chaos or disorder prevails at the very start, a specific instrumental character will tend to appear and establish a focus. A particularly vivid example of this is not a solo concerto, but rather the Symphony of Three Orchestras. We hear first quiet, ethereal strings in the high register. The sonority is momentarily consonant, then becomes a cluster. Rapid piano repeated notes high up usher in piccolo twittering, other winds join, and the trumpet sneaks in on a high Ab. This single note broadens into a trill, then spirals out into a chromatic line. This captivating trumpet solo goes on for more than a minute, gently speeding and slowing. Whether or not we know that the intention is to portray the wheeling of a sea gull, an image made vivid in Frank Scheffer’s film, (A Labyrinth of Time) we are in no doubt that the work is purposefully underway.

In the earlier Concerto for Orchestra, the listener is drawn in by quiet, unpitched percussion: a drum roll without snares, gong, then snares, then more gong and cymbals. Dynamic action precedes the introduction of pitch, which comes as high Ab in string harmonics. Pulsation in the harp, featuring repeated G’s; a dotted figure in the trumpet, an eloquent rising minor seventh in the tuba. A gradual crescendo underlies the swells and fades of the percussion: we perceive two levels of dynamic activity going at once. A violent buildup introduces a staccato clock motif in the trumpets and other brass; the ticking is punctuated by karate-chops. The piano, joined by mallet instruments, establishes order and focus. Familiarity with the Double Concerto and the Piano Concerto, the immediately preceding major works, gives this opening a sense of connection to a much larger project, as though Carter had in mind his entire oeuvre in which one piece leads directly to the next with little interruption in continuity.

How solo instrument concertos begin necessarily involves the placement of the first appearance of the soloist. The Oboe Concerto opens with a low, murky, menacing sonority comprised of contrabasses, cellos, bass clarinet, and timpani. As has been mentioned, the oboe so to speak falls from the sky. Its squealing high A is so high a note that one hardly recognizes the distinctive color of the oboe—it might as well be an Eb clarinet. As it descends into a more normal register, it plays a multiphonic—two pitches at once in a distorted timbre, that further confuses the ear. The character of its music is lyrical, and the instrument seems to be exploring its available musical space. The lower limit, the Bb mentioned above, is sounded before the orchestra takes over in a burst of assertiveness.

The Clarinet Concerto opens loudly, in medias res, with the solo clarinet entering directly after an orchestral “call to attention.” The soloist’s rapid, athletic figuration gives way briefly to the piano.

The Violin Concerto similarly opens up a Pandora’s Box of activity: scrubbing strings, swirling winds, hammer strokes from trumpets and trombone. The violin exhibits a contrasting affect, more expressive, lyrical, and legato. It ruminates in its low register, apparently indifferent to the confusion surrounding it. Before the first minute is up, it acquires a more assertive, emphatic and dramatic persona.

Like the Piano Concerto, the Cello Concerto begins and ends with the solo instrument. Karate-chop chords, highly dissonant, interrupt the cello’s opening rhetorical statements.

Similar loud chords open the Asko Concerto but as each is struck, a varying set of instruments remains sounding, so that the after-resonance produces successively different instrumental colors. A gradually accelerating central strand vies with short, rapid punctuations.

The rain-inspired Boston Concerto begins with a burst that unleashes a scattering of pizzicatos combined with flute twittering, a measured trill in the harp, and finally a trumpet rising through a quintuplet to high A: this becomes the focus that convinces us the argument of the piece has truly begun.

Most unusually, the Dialogues for Piano and Orchestra begin with an unaccompanied English horn solo. As the English horn was prominent as one of the instruments in the concertino of the Piano Concerto of 1964-5, one takes this to be an oblique reference to that earlier work. Here the piano enters with Carter’s version of the upward flourish at the opening of the Emperor Concerto.

Describing in this way how works begin and conclude falls considerably short of explaining why the openings and endings seem so apt. Conversations with Elliott Carter have led me to believe that he plans his endings well before his draft has reached that point in the creative process. So he knows, as it were, where he is going as he composes. How he arrives at the beginnings is something one could hardly expect him to disclose, if he even has anything to say on the subject.

Of course, works with text or a dramatic situation offer up a suggestion about how to begin and end. Carter’s one opera, What Next?, sports an overture made up entirely of unpitched percussion. This recalls the Double Concerto but is dramatically apt as the opera’s plot begins with a car crash. The first noun of the libretto’s text is ‘star’ and the individual singers begin with sibilants that emerge from scraping, sizzling sounds drawn largely from cymbals.

The opera ends with a staccato orchestral chord, sfff, immediately followed by one of opera’s mainstay effects: a sustained high C sung by Rose, the operatic diva.

What occurs between the opening and the ending of any Carter work cannot easily be generalized. If any one observation is useful it is that the music typically takes on a conversational character: individual instruments, or groups of instruments, are personified and exchange commentary—some gruff, some light-hearted, some passionate—with each other. Conversation is important to Elliott Carter, an unusually and surprisingly sociable man. What follows is an attempt to convey this aspect of his personality.

The following notes were made after a visit on Saturday, October 3, 2005 by Dee and Richard Wilson to Elliott Carter in his apartment on 12^th Street. The notes were an afterthought, set down for no other purpose than to serve as a reminder of the liveliness and range of these conversations which would take place every month or so over many years. Dependent as they were on the memories of the two visitors, they represent probably four-fifths of the substance of the conversation. This is the only one of many conversations where notes were later taken.

Presented with a program from the 2005 Bard Music Festival, E. wanted to know how Copland’s music had fared. He seemed surprised to learn that his Wind Quintet had been included in the programs. R. mentioned favorably Grohg, Symphonic Ode, and Statements. E. particularly likes Statements and also Music for the Theater. He wondered about The Tender Land. We discussed what R. thought was a possible weakness in the plot: that a missed high school graduation should be the dramatic highpoint. R. mentioned that Vivian Perlis had said originally it was to have been a Christmas party. E.: “What an odd idea for an opera.” R. praised Regina and E. said he had seen it and liked it. “Not quite as good as Cradle Will Rock, but good nonetheless.” R. asked if he knew Blitzstein. “Oh yes…” He knew him from Paris days. He recounted that Blitzstein had married a woman (daughter of a well known actor or actress) who was a virulent Communist. She could be tiresome about this. She moved to Cambridge, MA and starved herself to death. He wasn’t sure whether this was a deliberate protest or a neurotic act of some kind.

E. doesn’t much like the Copland piano concerto: “too much conventional counterpoint.” He was surprised to hear good things about George Antheil’s Jazz Symphony. He thought the Ballet Mechanique was terrible.

E. asked what the Bard Festival would do next summer. R. mentioned Liszt and he looked intrigued. “Very interesting composer. Of course some of it is trashy. Valle d’Obermann is especially beautiful. And that big sonata, what a strange piece. But rather good. He had to learn to orchestrate late in his career.” E. had read Alan Walker’s volumes about Liszt. Talked about Liszt failing to show up for his wedding. Thinks Les Preludes one of his best pieces. “Corny but good. Not played much anymore.” Doesn’t think much of Hunanschlag. Thinks Orpheus is uneven.

E. has a positive impression of the music of Schumann’s Genoveva but couldn’t remember much about the story. R. mentioned that Meyerbeer had been considered for an opera to go with the Liszt festival before the Schumann was chosen. E. did not respond to the title Robert le Diable but said he had heard L’Africain when young (done at the Met) and liked it a lot. Thinks William Tell is a great bore. Rossini trying to be romantic.

At Harvard, in E.’s day, there was a summer scholarship for study in Munich. He spent two summers there hearing a lot of opera (Wagner and Strauss) but learned very little German. E. and D. discuss the difficulties of mastering German, particularly irregular verbs, which E. likes to practice before falling asleep.

E. is thinking of going to Basel in March to help celebrate the anniversary of Paul Sacher’s birth. Boulez is writing a violin concerto for Ann Sophie Mutter. Heinz Holliger was supposed to compose something, but may not finish in time, so they are planning to do one of E.’s pieces as a backup.

When the Sacher Foundation was established, Hoffman-La Roche threw a dinner for about two hundred people. Helen sat next to Rostropovich, who seemed always to be looking around for more important people to pay attention to. E. sat next to Luciano Berio’s wife. At the end, E. said to Berio (in Italian) “isn’t this all rather ridiculous” but Berio shushed him saying that many people there could understand Italian.

If he goes he’ll stay at his favorite hotel, some twenty minutes out of Basel, which has Roman baths. The owners have put on festivals of his music in the past. They get top performers like the Holligers. They even had T-shirts made about E’s music. Helen threw them all out. He has an open invitation to return there.

E. says he is reading Proust in French and enjoying the remarkable detail. He marvels at the structure of sentences that contain long parenthetical digressions with a mixture of genders that finally make you wonder what is going on. He recounts an episode about Marcel and his aunt, who is about to have her photograph taken and has gone and bought a new outfit—which displeases Marcel. He talks about the bit of music that Proust uses as a motif. I mention that Henze wrote the violin and piano music used in the film with Jeremy Irons. “Oh Henze…I’ve known him since he was a child.” He mentions a poet Ingeborg Bachmann, a friend of Henze’s, who used to turn up in Rome. D. has been reading some of her work. “I think she took drugs. Maybe that’s why she was a friend of Henze’s.” R. reminds him that we were both in Huddersfield with Henze. R. mentions having attended The Bassarids in Carnegie Hall at which the conductor neglected to acknowledge the presence of the composer. This led to memories of Elegy for Young Lovers. Elliott, Helen, and Wystan Auden (who wrote the libretto with Chester Kallman) attended the premiere together. Henze came on stage at the end but failed to acknowledge Auden, who was clearly miffed. At a reception afterwards, Auden made a quick survey upon their arrival and said to Helen and Elliott, “There isn’t a thing here worth eating. Let’s go.” He was really miffed.

R. asked him whether Auden ever said anything about Stravinsky’s setting of his words in The Rake’s Progress. He doesn’t remember any such talk. R. mentioned von Blankenhagen, whom he knew at the Academy in Rome, who said that Auden was unhappy about Stravinsky’s word setting. E. had a very positive memory of von Blankenhagen—“very intelligent.” He and Helen had had him for dinner once.

E. had seen that the new biography of Edmund Wilson was featured in The Times Book Review. Wilson had once tried to get Elliott taken on as music critic of The New Yorker. R. asked if this was in the 30s. At first he said yes, then said no, it was after the war. He said he was very glad this did not come to pass. “It would have been a big mistake.”

Edmund Wilson once called and invited him to go along to a lecture by Vladimir Nabokov. It turned out to be all in Russian, which E. found very annoying.

R. asked about Charles Rosen. E. reported that Charles is participating in a summer music program south of Rome. Very hot there. When Helen and E. were once there, whenever they opened their car door, swarms of beggar children appeared.

R. and D. had just been in Dresden. When E. and Helen had visited there. much of the city was still in ruins. E. remembers particularly the Zwinger and, of course, the opera house.

This led to mention of Prague. E. remembers it as a beautiful city with “that ‘castle up on the hill” plus “St. Vitas Church.” He and Helen once stayed in a grand hotel on the Avenue Wenseslas. The lobby was filled with prostitutes.

Tanglewood this summer. Students played his piano concerto with Ursula Oppens. They were remarkable, especially since they play so much every day. Also did his Adagio tenebroso. The conductor Metzmacher was very good. “He calls me Elliott but I have trouble calling anyone Ingo. Pia Gilbert says she has many friends called Ingo.”

E. wrote a piece during the past year for the Nash Ensemble featuring harp. Virgil Blackwell took him to Tanglewood where two young harp students helped him work out various effects invented (or described) by Salzedo that he wanted to incorporate. Finally, he sent the part to Ursula Holliger who responded with suggestions for alteration in nearly every bar. E. complained to her husband, Heinz, who said she is always like that. “Argues over anything he writes for harp.” In any case, the player in London had no trouble with the part.

E. has also finished a 6-minute piano piece for Peter Serkin.

On another subject, E. is pleased that Daniel Barenboim has decided to play the piano parts that begin and end the orchestral work written (also during this year) for Chicago Symphony to mark Barenboim’s departure. The premiere is to be the same night that James Levine is doing his Three Allusions in Boston. He must make the difficult decision of which performance to attend. Many things are coming up in Europe. Holliger will be doing his Oboe Quartet in several cities in Italy.

As a next project, E. is planning a setting of Wallace Stevens poems for moderately high soprano (not above Ab) and about twelve to fourteen instruments. This will be performed by James Levine and the Met Chamber Players. E. has read through all the Stevens poems twice before making a selection. He wonders whether at some point, given his age, he shouldn’t simply draw a line and say, “that’s all… but it is hard to stop.”

Richard and Dee Wilson left Elliott Carter after about ninety minutes.

Note: This essay is an adaptation of one that appeared in Elliott Carter: A Centennial Celebration; edited by Marc Ponthus and Susan Tang. Festschrift Series No. 23. Pendragon Press 2008.

©2021 by Richard Wilson