A Celebration of Some 100 Years x 150 Zillion Notes
It continues to blow my mind that Elliott Carter is still as active as he is -- 100 years old today! -- and moreover that his recent work has been some of his strongest, most incisive stuff. May we all have such long years, and so filled with atonality.
I don't know for how long, but the Boston Symphony is streaming videos of several Carter performances from Tanglewood last summer -- definitely worth checking out. The short piano concerto "Dialogues" (2003) and the colorful mixed ensemble piece "Luimen" (1997) are both fine examples of recent-period Carter; there's a seven-minute string orchestra piece up there called "Sound Fields" (2007) which is atmospheric and eerie in a distinctly non-Carterian manner. Also, among older works, the fantastic Concerto for Orchestra (1969). And the entirety of Carter's one-act opera "What Next?" (1997), although I can never get into his vocal writing.
OK, I think that's more Carter than you can listen to in the next 45 minutes.
Some ten-month-old Carter thoughts are still posted here.
I don't know for how long, but the Boston Symphony is streaming videos of several Carter performances from Tanglewood last summer -- definitely worth checking out. The short piano concerto "Dialogues" (2003) and the colorful mixed ensemble piece "Luimen" (1997) are both fine examples of recent-period Carter; there's a seven-minute string orchestra piece up there called "Sound Fields" (2007) which is atmospheric and eerie in a distinctly non-Carterian manner. Also, among older works, the fantastic Concerto for Orchestra (1969). And the entirety of Carter's one-act opera "What Next?" (1997), although I can never get into his vocal writing.
OK, I think that's more Carter than you can listen to in the next 45 minutes.
Some ten-month-old Carter thoughts are still posted here.
2 Comments:
Alex Ross notes that Willard Scott is slated to announce Carter's birthday on the Today Show, along with the rest of the latest batch of 100-year-olds, sometime next week. I don't quite know how to describe that sort of cultural moment.
I'm on what... hour three or four of listening to this carter TV thing. Awesome!
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