All Topics  
Elliott Carter

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Elliott Carter
 
 
  Topics Elliott Carter Topic Home

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. (born December 11, 1908) is a two-time Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize for Music

The Pulitzer Prize for Music was first awarded in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer did not call for such a prize in his will, but had arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year....
-winning American composer
Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, usually in the medium of musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of music....
 born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger was an influential French composer, conducting, and music professor. An outstanding music educator at the highest level, she taught many of the most important composers and conductors of the 20th century....
 in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical
Neoclassicism (music)

Neoclassicism in music was a 20th century development, particularly popular in the period between the two World Wars, in which composers drew inspiration from music of the 18th century, though some of the inspiring canon was drawn as much from the Baroque music period as the Classical music era period ? for this reason, music which draws infl...
 phase, he went on to write atonal
Atonality

Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a Tonality, or Key . Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used and the notes of the chromatic scale function independently of one another ....
, rhythmically complex music. His compositions, which have been performed all over the world, include orchestra
Orchestra

An orchestra is an Musical ensemble, usually fairly large with string, brass, woodwind sections, and possibly a percussion section as well. The term orchestra derives from the name for the area in front of an theatre of ancient Greece reserved for the Greek chorus....
l and chamber music
Chamber music

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber....
 as well as solo instrumental and vocal works.

er's father, Elliott Carter, Sr.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Elliott Carter'
Start a new discussion about 'Elliott Carter'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. (born December 11, 1908) is a two-time Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize for Music

The Pulitzer Prize for Music was first awarded in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer did not call for such a prize in his will, but had arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year....
-winning American composer
Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, usually in the medium of musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of music....
 born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger was an influential French composer, conducting, and music professor. An outstanding music educator at the highest level, she taught many of the most important composers and conductors of the 20th century....
 in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical
Neoclassicism (music)

Neoclassicism in music was a 20th century development, particularly popular in the period between the two World Wars, in which composers drew inspiration from music of the 18th century, though some of the inspiring canon was drawn as much from the Baroque music period as the Classical music era period ? for this reason, music which draws infl...
 phase, he went on to write atonal
Atonality

Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a Tonality, or Key . Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used and the notes of the chromatic scale function independently of one another ....
, rhythmically complex music. His compositions, which have been performed all over the world, include orchestra
Orchestra

An orchestra is an Musical ensemble, usually fairly large with string, brass, woodwind sections, and possibly a percussion section as well. The term orchestra derives from the name for the area in front of an theatre of ancient Greece reserved for the Greek chorus....
l and chamber music
Chamber music

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber....
 as well as solo instrumental and vocal works.

Biography

Carter's father, Elliott Carter, Sr. was a businessman and his mother was the former Florence Chambers. The family was well-to-do. As a teenager he developed an interest in music and was encouraged in this regard by the composer Charles Ives
Charles Ives

Charles Edward Ives was an American musical modernism composer. He is widely regarded as one of the first American composers of international significance....
 (who sold insurance to his family). In 1924 a "galvanized" 15-year-old Carter was in the audience when Pierre Monteux
Pierre Monteux

Pierre Monteux was an orchestra conducting. Born in Paris, France, rue de la Grange Bateli?re. Monteux later became an American citizen....
 conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra

The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five "....
 in the New York première of The Rite of Spring
The Rite of Spring

The Rite of Spring, commonly referred to by its original French language title, Le Sacre du Printemps is a ballet with music by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, original choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky, and original set design and costumes by archaeologist and painter Nicholas Roerich, all under impresario Serge Diaghilev....
, according to a 2008 report. Carter was again in attendance (see below) at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City located at 881 Seventh Avenue , occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street , two blocks south of Central Park....
, on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 2008, when the orchestra, now under the baton of James Levine
James Levine

James Lawrence Levine is an United States orchestral conducting and piano. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and of the Boston Symphony Orchestra....
, again performed the Stravinsky piece as part of its tribute to Carter. Although Carter majored in English at Harvard College
Harvard College

Harvard College is the undergraduate section and oldest school of Harvard University, a private university in the United States founded in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature....
, he also studied music there and at the nearby Longy School of Music
Longy School of Music

The Longy School of Music is a College or university school of music located near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is one of the four independent degree-granting music schools in the Boston region along with the New England Conservatory, Berklee College of Music, and Boston Conservatory....
. His professors included Walter Piston
Walter Piston

Walter Hamor Piston Jr. was an American composer and music theorist....
 and Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst

Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer and was a teacher for nearly 20 years. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
. He sang with the Harvard Glee Club
Harvard Glee Club

The Harvard Glee Club is a 60-voice, all-male choir ensemble at Harvard University. Founded in 1858 in music in the tradition of English and American glee club, it is the oldest college chorus in the US....
. He did graduate work in music at Harvard, from which he received a Master's degree in music in 1932. He then went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger was an influential French composer, conducting, and music professor. An outstanding music educator at the highest level, she taught many of the most important composers and conductors of the 20th century....
 (as did many other American composers). Carter worked with Mlle Boulanger from 1932-35 and in 1935 he received a doctorate in music (D Mus) from the Ecole Normale in Paris. Later in 1935 he returned to the US where he directed the Ballet Caravan.

From 1940 to 1944 Elliott Carter taught courses in physics, mathematics and classical Greek, in addition to music, at St. John's College
St. John's College, U.S.

St. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: Annapolis, Maryland and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the institution received a collegiate charter in 1784....
 in Annapolis, Maryland. On July 6, 1939, Carter married Helen Frost-Jones. They had one child, a son, David Chambers Carter. During World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
, Carter worked for the Office of War Information. He later held teaching posts at the Peabody Conservatory (1946 - 1948), Columbia University
Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York , is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights, Manhattan neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City....
, Queens College, New York (1955-56), Yale University
Yale University

Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, Yale is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher education in the United States and is a member of the Ivy League....
 (1960-62), Cornell University
Cornell University

Cornell University located in Ithaca, New York, USA, is a private university with four Statutory college. Its two medical campuses are in New York City and Education City, Qatar....
 (from 1967) and the Juilliard School
Juilliard School

The Juilliard School, located on the Upper West Side in New York City, is a performing arts music school. It is informally identified as simply Juilliard, and trains in dance, drama, and music....
 (from 1972). In 1967 he was appointed a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Carter has lived in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village , often simply called the Village, is a largely residential area on the lower west side of southern Manhattan in New York City....
 since 1945.

Carter continues composing. Interventions for Piano and Orchestra received its premiere on December 5, 2008, at Symphony Hall, Boston
Symphony Hall, Boston

Symphony Hall is a concert hall located at 301 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts. Designed by McKim, Mead and White, it was built in 1900 for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which continues to make the hall its home....
 by pianist Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim

Daniel Barenboim is a renowned piano and conducting. He lives in Berlin and holds citizenship in Argentina, Israel, Spain, and the Palestinian Authority....
 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra

The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five "....
 conducted by James Levine
James Levine

James Lawrence Levine is an United States orchestral conducting and piano. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and of the Boston Symphony Orchestra....
. The same musicians also played the work at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City located at 881 Seventh Avenue , occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street , two blocks south of Central Park....
 in New York in the presence of the composer on his 100th birthday. According to John Link, Carter "is now working on a song cycle on Ezra Pound's Pisan Cantos." On February 7, 2009, Carter was given the Trustees Award
Grammy Trustees Award

The Grammy Award Trustees Award is awarded by the Recording Academy to "individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording" ....
 (a lifetime achievement award given to non-performers) by the Grammy Award
Grammy Award

The Grammy Awards ?or Grammys?are presented annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States for outstanding achievements in the music industry....
s.

Style and works

Carter's earlier works are influenced by Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian-born composer, considered by many to be the most influential composer of 20th century music. He was a quintessentially Cosmopolitanism Russian who was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people of the century....
, Harris
Roy Harris

Roy Ellsworth Harris , was an United States classical composer. He wrote much music on American subjects, becoming best known for his Symphony No....
, Copland
Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American classical music composer of concert and film music, as well as an accomplished pianist. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, he was widely known as "the dean of American composers." Copland's music achieved a balance between modernism music and American folk styles....
, and Hindemith
Paul Hindemith

Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and Conducting....
, and are mainly neoclassical
Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism is the name given to quite distinct Cultural movement in the Decorative art and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw upon Western classical art and culture ....
 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 Pocahontas (1938-9). Some of his music during the Second World War is frankly diatonic, and includes a melodic lyricism reminiscent of Samuel Barber
Samuel Barber

Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings is among his most popular compositions and widely considered a masterpiece of modern classical music....
. Interestingly, Carter abandoned neoclassicism around the same time Stravinsky did, saying that he felt he had been evading vital areas of feeling.

His music after 1950 is typically atonal
Atonality

Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a Tonality, or Key . Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used and the notes of the chromatic scale function independently of one another ....
 and rhythm
Rhythm

Rhythm is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events....
ically complex, indicated by the invention of the term metric modulation
Metric modulation

In music a metric modulation is a change from one time signature/tempo to another, wherein a note value from the first is made equivalent to a note value in the second, like a pivot....
 to describe the frequent, precise tempo changes found in his work. While Carter's chromaticism and tonal vocabulary parallels serial composers of the period, Carter does not employ serial
Serialism

In music, serialism is a technique for Musical composition#A musical composition that uses Set to describe Aspect of music, and allows the Permutation of those sets....
 techniques in his music. Rather he independently developed and cataloged all possible collections of pitches (i.e. all possible 3 note chords, 5 note chords etc.). Musical theorists like Allen Forte later systematized this data into musical set theory. A series of works in the 1960s and 1970's generates its tonal material by using all possible chords of a particular number of pitches.

The Piano Concerto (1964-65) uses the collection of three note chords for its pitch material; the Third String Quartet (1971) uses all four-note chords; the Concerto for Orchestra (1969) all five-note chords; and the Symphony of Three Orchestras utilizes the collection of six note chords. Carter also makes frequent use of "tonic" 12-note chords. Of particular interest are "all-interval" 12-tone chords where every interval is represented within adjacent notes of the chord. His 1980 solo piano work Night Fantasies utilizes the entire collection of the 88 symmetrical-inverted all-interval 12 note chords. Typically the pitch material is segmented between instruments, with a unique set of chords or sets assigned to each instrument or orchestral section. This stratification of material, with individual voices assigned not only their own unique pitch material, but texture and rhythm as well, is a key component of Carter's musical style. Carter's music after Night Fantasies has been termed his late period and his tonal language has become less systematized and more intuitive, but retains the basic characteristics of his earlier works.

Carter's use of rhythm can best be understood within the concept of stratification. Each instrumental voice is typically assigned its own set of tempos. A structural polyrhythm, where a very slow polyrhythm
Polyrhythm

Polyrhythm is the simultaneous sounding of two or more independent rhythms. Polyrhythms can be distinguished from irrational rhythms, which can occur within the context of a single Part ; polyrhythms require at least two rhythms to be played concurrently, one of which is typically an irrational rhythm....
 is used as a formal device, is present in many of Carter's works. The solo piano work Night Fantasies, for example, uses a 216:175 tempo relation that coincides at only two points in the entire 20+ minute composition. This use of rhythm is part of his goal to expand the notion of counterpoint to encompass simultaneous different characters, even entire movements, rather than just individual lines.

Carter developed his technique to further his artistic goals. His use of rhythm allows his music a structured fluidity and sense of time perhaps unique in classical music. The music also is overtly expressive and dramatic. He has said that "I regard my scores as scenarios, auditory scenarios, for performers to act out with their instruments, dramatizing the players as individuals and participants in the ensemble." He has also talked about his desire to portray a "different form of motion," in which players are not locked in step with the downbeat of every measure.

He has said that such steady pulses remind him of soldiers marching or horses trotting, sounds that are not heard anymore in the late 20th century, and he wants his music to capture the sort of continuous acceleration or deceleration experienced in an automobile or an airplane. While Carter's atonal music shows little trace of American popular music or jazz
Jazz

Jazz is a primarily American musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
, his vocal music has demonstrated strong ties to contemporary American poetry. He has set works of Elizabeth Bishop
Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet and writer. She was the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, and a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1956....
, John Ashbery
John Ashbery

John Ashbery is an American poet. He has won nearly every major American award for poetry and is recognized as one of America's most important, though still controversial, poets....
, Robert Lowell
Robert Lowell

Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1946....
, William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was an list of American poets closely associated with Modernist poetry and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine....
 and, most recently, Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens was a United States Modernism poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, and spent most of his life working for an insurance company in Connecticut....
. Several of his large instrumental works such as the Concerto for Orchestra or Symphony of Three Orchestras are inspired by Twentieth Century poets as well.

Among his better known works are the Variations for Orchestra (1954-5); the Double Concerto for harpsichord
Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when each Key is pressed....
, piano
Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard instrument. Widely used in Western music for solo performance, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to musical composition and rehearsal....
 and two chamber orchestras (1959-61); the Piano Concerto (1964-65), written as an 85th birthday present for Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian-born composer, considered by many to be the most influential composer of 20th century music. He was a quintessentially Cosmopolitanism Russian who was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people of the century....
; the Concerto for Orchestra (1969), loosely based on a poem by Saint-John Perse
Saint-John Perse

Saint-John Perse was a France poet and diplomat who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1960 "for the soaring flight and evocative imagery of his poetry."...
; and A Symphony of Three Orchestras (1976). He has also written five string quartet
String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string instruments — usually two violins, a viola and cello — or a piece written to be performed by such a group....
s, of which the second and third won the Pulitzer Prize for Music
Pulitzer Prize for Music

The Pulitzer Prize for Music was first awarded in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer did not call for such a prize in his will, but had arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year....
 in 1960 and 1973 respectively. Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei (1993-1996) is his largest orchestral work, complex in structure and featuring contrasting layers of instrumental textures, from delicate wind solos to crashing brass and percussion outbursts.

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
Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet and writer. She was the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, and a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1956....
) 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
Anton Webern

Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and Conducting. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known proponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of pitch, rhythm and dynamics were formative...
. Most of Carter's music is published by either G. Schirmer/Associated Music Publishers
G. Schirmer

G. Schirmer Inc. is a classical music publishing company based in New York, NY, in the USA.Schirmer publishes sheet music for sale and rental, including opera and orchestral scores, band and wind ensemble parts, chorus and chamber music....
 (works up to 1982) or Boosey & Hawkes
Boosey & Hawkes

Boosey & Hawkes is a British Sheet music that claims to be the largest specialist classical music publisher in the world. Until 2003, it was also a major manufacturer of brass instrument, string instrument and wind instrument musical instruments....
 (works since 1982).

Partial list of works

  • Pocahontas (Ballet) (1938-39)
  • The Defense of Corinth (1942)
  • Symphony No. 1 (1942, revised 1954)
  • Elegy for Viola and Piano (1943)
  • Holiday Overture
    Holiday Overture

    The Holiday Overture is a composition for orchestra by Elliott Carter. Carter wrote the work during the summer of 1944, on commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, to celebrate the liberation of Paris during World War II....
     (1944, revised 1961)
  • Piano Sonata (1945-46)
  • The Minotaur (Ballet) (1947)
  • Cello Sonata (1948)
  • Woodwind Quintet (1948)
  • Eight Etudes and a Fantasy for Wind Quartet (1949)
  • String Quartet No.1
    String Quartet No. 1 (Carter)

    The First String Quartet by United States composer Elliott Carter was written during a year spent in the Arizona desert from 1950-51. To some extent, it can be said that this was his first major breakthrough work as a composer....
     (1951)
  • Variations for Orchestra (1954–1955)
  • String Quartet No.2 (1959)
  • Double Concerto for piano, harpsichord and 2 chamber orchestras (1959-61)
  • Piano Concerto (1964)
  • Eight Pieces for Four Timpani
    Eight Pieces for Four Timpani

    Eight Pieces for Four Timpani is a collection of short pieces by Elliott Carter for solo timpani ? four drums played by one musician. Six of the pieces were composed in 1950....
     (1950/66)
  • Concerto for Orchestra (1969)
  • String Quartet No.3 (1971)
  • Brass Quintet (1974)
  • Duo for Violin & Piano (1974)
  • A Mirror on Which to Dwell for Soprano and Ensemble (1975)
  • A Symphony of Three Orchestras (1976)
  • Syringa for Mezzo-Soprano, Bass-Baritone, Guitar and Ensemble (1978)
  • Three Poems of Robert Frost for Baritone and Ensemble (1942, orchestrated 1980)
  • Night Fantasies for Piano (1980)
  • In Sleep, in Thunder for Tenor and Ensemble (1981)
  • Changes for Guitar (1983)
  • Triple Duo (1983)
  • Penthode (1985)
  • String Quartet No.4 (1986)
  • Oboe Concerto (1986-1987)
  • Three Occasions for Orchestra (1986-89)
  1. A Celebration of Some 150x100 Notes
  2. Remembrance
  3. Anniversary


  • Violin Concerto (1989)
  • Quintet for Piano and Winds (1991)
  • Trilogy for Oboe and Harp (1992)
  1. Bariolage for Harp
  2. Inner Song for Oboe
  3. Immer Neu for Oboe and Harp


  • Of Challenge and of Love for Soprano and Piano (1994)
  • String Quartet No.5 (1995)
  • Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretiam Spei (1993-96)
  1. Partita
  2. Adagio Tenebroso
  3. Allegro Scorrevole


  • Clarinet Concerto (1996)
  • What Next?
    What Next? (opera)

    What Next? is the only opera to date by Elliott Carter. The libretto is by Paul Griffiths. It was written in 1997-8 on a commission from Berlin State Opera in Berlin and premiered there in a concert performance conducted by Daniel Barenboim in 1999....
     (opera in one act) (1997)
  • Luimen for Ensemble (1997)
  • Quintet for Piano and Strings (1997)
  • Tempo e Tempi for Soprano, Oboe, Clarinet, Violin and Cello (1998-99)
  • Two Diversions for Piano (1999)
  • Four Lauds for Solo Violin (1999, 1984, 2000, 1999)
  • ASKO Concerto (2000)
  • Oboe Quartet (2001)
  • Cello Concerto (2001)
  • Boston Concerto (2002)
  • Dialogues for Piano and Orchestra (2003)
  • Three Illusions for Orchestra (2002-04)
  1. Micomicón
  2. Fons Juventatis
  3. More's Utopia


  • Mosaic for Harp and Ensemble (2004)
  • Réflexions for Ensemble (2004)
  • Soundings (2005) for piano and orchestra
  • Intermittences for Piano (2005)
  • Catenaires for Piano (2006)
  • In the Distances of Sleep for Voice and Ensemble (2006)
  • Horn Concerto (2007)
  • Interventions (2007) for piano and orchestra
  • Clarinet Quintet (2007)
  • Figment III for Double Bass Solo (2007)
  • Figment IV for Viola Solo (2007)
  • Tinntinabulation for percussion sextet (2008)
  • Wind Rose for wind ensemble (2008)
  • Duettino for violin and cello (2008)
  • Flute Concerto (2008)
  • Poems of Louis Zukofsky (2008) for mezzo-soprano and clarinet
  • On Conversing with Paradise (2008) for baritone and chamber orchestra
  • Duettone for violin and cello (2009)
  • Figment V for marimba (2009)


Partial discography

  • Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord; Sonata for Cello and Piano; Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano With Two Chamber Orchestras. Paul Jacobs
    Paul Jacobs

    Paul Jacobs is the name of:*Paul Jacobs , American organist*Paul Jacobs , American pianist*Paul Jacobs , American songwriter* , Flemish writer...
    , hpschd; Joel Krosnick
    Joel Krosnick

    Joel Krosnick is an United States solo , cellist, recitalist, and chamber musician who has performed all over the world for over thirty-five years....
    , cello; Gilbert Kalish
    Gilbert Kalish

    Gilbert Kalish is an American pianist.He was born in New York and studied with Leonard Shure, Julius Hereford and Isabelle Vengerova. He was a founding member of the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, a pioneering new music group that flourished during the 1960s and '70s....
    , piano; The Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Arthur Weisberg
    Arthur Weisberg

    Arthur Weisberg was an United States bassoonist, conductor, composer and author....
    , cond. Elektra/Nonesuch 9 79183-2.
  • String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2. The Composers Quartet. Elektra/Nonesuch 9 71249-2
  • Piano Concerto; Variations for Orchestra. Ursula Oppens
    Ursula Oppens

    Ursula Oppens is an American European classical music pianist....
    , piano; Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
    Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

    As the fifth-oldest orchestra in the United States, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra has a legacy of fine music making as reflected in its performances in historic Music Hall , recordings, and international tours....
    , Michael Gielen
    Michael Gielen

    Michael Andreas Gielen is an Austrian conductor and composer.Gielen was born in Dresden, Germany, to opera director Josef Gielen, and began his career as a pianist in Buenos Aires, where he studied with Erwin Leuchter and gave an early performance of Arnold Schoenberg's complete piano works in 1949....
    , cond. New World Records, NW 347-2.
  • Triple Duo; Clarinet Concerto; short pieces. Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Lorraine Vaillancourt, cond. ATMA Classique, ACD2 2280.
  • Complete Music for Piano. Charles Rosen
    Charles Rosen

    Charles Rosen is an Americanpianist and music theory.Charles Rosen studied piano with Moriz Rosenthal, but in an interview published in the June 2007 edition of BBC Music Magazine, he cites Josef Hofmann, whom he says he heard every year from age three, as a greater influence....
    , Piano. Bridge 9090.
  • Vocal Works (1975-81): A Mirror on Which to Dwell; In Sleep, In Thunder; Syringa; Three Poems of Robert Frost. Speculum Musicae with Katherine Ciesinki, mezzo; Jon Garrison
    Jon Garrison

    Jon Garrison is a successful American operatic tenor who has been performing in locations around the world since 1965. He first appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in 1974, in a secondary role in the company premiere of Death in Venice, which featured Sir Peter Pears....
    , tenor; Jan Opalach, bass; Christine Schadeberg, soprano. Bridge, BCD 9014.
  • Dialogues; Boston Concerto; Cello Concerto; ASKO Concerto. Nicolas Hodges
    Nicolas Hodges

    Nicolas Hodges is a United Kingdom pianist and composer. He specializes in avant garde music. He was educated at Christ Church Cathedral School, Oxford, Winchester College, and the University of Cambridge....
    , piano; Fred Sherry, cello; London Sinfonietta
    London Sinfonietta

    The London Sinfonietta is an England chamber music orchestra founded in 1968 and based in London. The ensemble specialises in contemporary music and works across a wide range of genres, performing modern classics alongside world premieres, and includes music by electronica artists as well as folk and jazz musicians....
    , BBC Symphony Orchestra
    BBC Symphony Orchestra

    The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation and one of the leading orchestras in United Kingdom....
    , ASKO Ensemble
    Asko Ensemble

    Asko Ensemble is a Netherlands chamber orchestra that specializes in contemporary classical music. Formed in 1965 and based in Amsterdam, the group performs traditional concerts along with film music programmes, dance and multimedia projects and modern opera....
    , Oliver Knussen
    Oliver Knussen

    Oliver Knussen CBE is a United Kingdom composer and conducting....
    , cond. Bridge 9184.


Notable students

  • Ronald Caltabiano
    Ronald Caltabiano

    Ronald Caltabiano is an Italian American composer of contemporary classical music, with his music showing elements of modernism and romanticism....
  • Joel Chadabe
  • Alvin Curran
    Alvin Curran

    Composer Alvin Curran is the co-founder, with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, of Musica Elettronica Viva, and a former student of Elliott Carter....
  • Tod Machover
    Tod Machover

    Tod Machover , the son of a piano and a computer science, is a composer and an innovator in the application of technology in music.He attended the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1971 and received a BM and MM from the Juilliard School in New York where he studied with Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions ....
  • Jeffrey Mumford
    Jeffrey Mumford

    Jeffrey Mumford is a U.S. composer. He holds degrees from the University of California, Irvine and the University of California, San Diego . He was a student of Elliott Carter and Lawrence Moss....
  • David Schiff
  • William Schimmel
    William Schimmel

    William Schimmel is one of the principal architects in the resurgence of the accordion, the revival of the Tango music in America, and the philosophy of "Musical Reality" ....
  • Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
    Ellen Zwilich

    Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is an American composer, the first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Her early works are marked by atonal exploration, but by the late 1980s she had matured to a post-modernist, Neoromanticism style....


See also

Category:Compositions by Elliott Carter

External links

  • by Felix Meyer & Anne C. Shreffler published by the Boydell Press in association with the Paul Sacher Foundation.
  • Booklet note for recording by the Arditti Quartet
    Arditti Quartet

    The Arditti Quartet is an internationally acclaimed string quartet founded in 1974. The quartet is associated particularly with contemporary music....
     of Quartets 1-4 and Elegy (1988 ETCETERA KTC 1065/1066), by David Harvey


Interviews

  • by Bruce Duffie, June 1986
  • : An Interview with Elliott Carter, by Andy Carvin, 1992
  • by Phil Lesh
    Phil Lesh

    Phillip Chapman Lesh is a musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead. Lesh played bass guitar in that group throughout their 30-year career....
  • by Alan Baker, Minnesota Public Radio, July 2002
  • : Elliott Carter and Phil Lesh
    Phil Lesh

    Phillip Chapman Lesh is a musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead. Lesh played bass guitar in that group throughout their 30-year career....
     in Conversation, December 2007]
  • , an interview with Frank J. Oteri, November 27, 2007
  • (with Daniel Barenboim and James Levine) by Charlie Rose, December 10, 2008


Listening

  • four works by the composer