# Getting into Elliott Carter?



## soni (Jul 3, 2018)

I've read some positive things about the music of Elliott Carter, but I'm not sure where to start in exploring his music. What pieces do you recommend? And what should I also listen out for in his music? With modern composers I often find it helpful to read a non-technical explanation of what to look out for before listening.

Thanks!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I think the string quartets may be the easiest route into Carter's music. They are excellent and seem more accessible than his more dense music. Or - he mellowed a little in his late years - this disc might work for you (it is certainly one I've played often since getting it):


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

I think starting with early pieces (pre-late 50's) then going to late pieces (90's & onward) is best. The in between are the toughest nuts.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

His _Three Occasions for Orchestra_ make a nice point of entry.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

It took me awhile to like any of Carter's works. I'm really not sure how best to approach him. Unfortunately, people may give you a wide range of suggestions. Personally, I liked his orchestral works first (A Symphony Of Three Orchestras, Symphonia: Sum fluxae pretium spei, and concertos such as Clarinet Concerto and Boston Concerto). There is a fun chamber work called Triple Duo that I like, but of course, it's hard to know what might appeal to you.

I'm not aware of simple descriptions of his works that you could use as a hook. I agree such descriptions can be very helpful.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

soni said:


> I've read some positive things about the music of Elliott Carter, but I'm not sure where to start in exploring his music. What pieces do you recommend? And what should I also listen out for in his music? With modern composers I often find it helpful to read a non-technical explanation of what to look out for before listening.
> 
> Thanks!


One favourite of mine is called Penthode. I can't explain it, I just find it rather haunting. I can't find it on youtube unfortunately, I have it on a Carter recording by Pierre Boulez.

Another nice one, colourful and cheerful, is the brass quintet -- that _is _on youtube.



soni said:


> And what should I also listen out for in his music? With modern composers I often find it helpful to read a non-technical explanation of what to look out for before listening.
> 
> Thanks!


In some of the pieces you hear lots of different instruments sounding like they're doing their own thing -- it's chaotic like people talking with their own agenda, not listening to each other very well. Then sometimes in the music there are these brief moments of concord, of harmony, where the music doesn't sound so conflicted.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Good luck. Here's a quote, which was true of me:

"Ned Rorem, for instance, has written that nobody really likes the music of Elliott Carter: his many admirers only pretend to like it."

I was able to get into his music at one time, but I think was due purely to intentional autosuggestion, or at best just focussing on the technical aspects. This was one piece that made sense at the time when I was studying it, but relistening to it, is just a bunch of ambiguously (without looking at the score) selected notes. I tried what Yoda suggested, to unlearn what I thought I know of music, and was at best able to feel neutral towards the music.






I've heard it's all about the tone colours and rhythms, which I agree since there is little else to latch onto. But then there is a lot of other kinds of music that "make more sense" and that have those qualities as well.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

> "Ned Rorem, for instance, has written that nobody really likes the music of Elliott Carter: his many admirers only pretend to like it."


One of the composers I _pretend_ to like the most!

I am a huge Carter fan.

I (pretend) to like so much of his music, it's hard from to choose what to recommend.

I would try:

Variations for Orchestra
Concerto for Orchestra
Piano concerto
All the string quartets
Three Occasions for Orchestra


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Just get the EMI CD with the painted desert photo on the cover. That's a great place to start.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Phil loves classical said:


> I. This was one piece that made sense at the time when I was studying it, but relistening to it, is just a bunch of ambiguously (without looking at the score) selected notes.


I wonder whether some of Carter's stuff would make good ballet music, I'm listening to Penthode now and that's what crossed my mind. It's theatrical, like Harrison Birtwistle - I don't know if the two got on.

Anyway my experience of it is greatly enhanced by imagining a dance setting.

I'm a living counterexample to the idea that no one enjoys his music, or whatever it was you said.


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## soni (Jul 3, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> I wonder whether some of Carter's stuff would make good ballet music, I'm listening to Penthode now and that's what crossed my mind. It's theatrical, like Harrison Birtwistle - I don't know if the two got on.
> 
> Anyway my experience of it is greatly enhanced by imagining a dance setting.
> 
> I'm a living counterexample to the idea that no one enjoys his music, or whatever it was you said.


I've been listening to a couple of the recommendations, and this is the impression I got - that there's quite a lot of drama in his music. Recently I've been listening to a lot more contemplative music, so this is a bit of a change - it will probably take some time before I get fully accustomed to his music, but if it really is worth listening to then I should get there eventually, as I did with the music of Milton Babbitt.

I'm hoping Phil gets proven wrong, but if I absolutely can't get anywhere with Carter, then there always is that to fall back on


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## Lilijana (Dec 17, 2019)

Elliott Carter became extraordinarily active as a composer when he was an octogenarian, and even more so after he turned 90, whipping up many short pieces bursting with character and are probably the best place to start. These works have pretty much all been recorded in multiple volumes which are worth seeking out on spotify and to purchase. Here's one with loads of goodies on it:


















The *Late Works* CD posted above by Enthusiast is also probably one of the best recordings of any of his works available.

Most things he has composed since the 90s tends to be less texturally dense, so it's easier to hear everything that is going on all at once.

It's also good to keep in mind that Carter was a composer who was very concerned with pitch and rhythm and had less interest in extended techniques and electronics. His melodic style is very evident in his later works as well, and they may come across as less austere than the things he was composing in the 1960s to the 1980s.

After all that, I'd definitely give _Triple Duo_ and _A Mirror on Which to Dwell_ a listen, too.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

soni said:


> I've been listening to a couple of the recommendations, and this is the impression I got - that there's quite a lot of drama in his music. Recently I've been listening to a lot more contemplative music, so this is a bit of a change - it will probably take some time before I get fully accustomed to his music, but if it really is worth listening to then I should get there eventually, as I did with the music of Milton Babbitt.
> 
> *I'm hoping Phil gets proven wrong*, but if I absolutely can't get anywhere with Carter, then there always is that to fall back on


I hope so too. With Babbitt, I do genuinely like quite a lot of music of. I think maybe because Babbitt is more strict in his compositions and I feel is more ordered, but Carter I feel is more explosive and volatile but harmonically bland (not a fan of his "all-interval" technique) to the point I feel nothing really sticks.


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## Janspe (Nov 10, 2012)

Yay, Carter-related discussion! He's one of my favourite composers, so I'm very happy to help getting you (or anyone who's interested) started.

I'd definitely recommend starting with the later works, but this might be just a personal preference. In any case, it was the way I made my way into his works. I think the first piece that really _clicked_ was the fantastic _Interventions_ for piano and orchestra, on an Ondine recording that was already posted on this thread by Enthusiast (post #2). Just put it on, close your eyes and allow the swarm of rippling, playful notes flow over you. There's not a single weak work on that CD, and it's one of the most impressive Carter recordings I've ever had the privilege of hearing.

One piece that really shook me in the beginning was the Oboe Concerto, obviously interpreted by Holliger. It was one of those moments where I just thought, _what_ is this and why is it making my braing tickle in the most wonderful of ways? I'm generally very fond of Carter's concertos; the ones for Cello and Clarinet are the ones I keep returning to the most often, but all of them are definitely worth exploring. The Violin Concerto, for example, is a piece that would grace any concert programme. And don't get me started with the Double Concerto for piano and harpsichord: it really is a brilliant piece, and a good entry into Carter's early, admittedly tightly-packed orchestral output.

Basically I'd advice just going through the orchestral works somewhat systematically, starting with the later ones and then gradually continuing to the earlier ones. The Piano Concerto is a particularly notorious piece for all its complexity, but it's still great fun when you embrace it stubbornly.

Once you feel confident with Carter's orchestral idiom, it's time to face the _Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei_, Carter's magnum opus of orchestral writing, a force to be reckoned with. It's an amazing piece that brings together all the essentials of his orchestral style. This piece should be given time to grow on you; it's rather long, and definitely not a piece that can be explored with a single listen. I'm so very fond of it and always looking forward to hearing it again. One of my biggest dreams is to hear this piece live in my home city of Helsinki.

It's perhaps interesting that I started with the orchestral works, since I consider Carter's chamber output to be the most important aspect of his art. At the centre of it all lie the 5 String Quartets, an immense achievement. Of these five, I'd definitely start with the first one. It's a tremendously long work but incredibly rewarding, buzzing with the energy of Carter's developing mature style. There are quite a lot of recordings, but currently I'm most impressed with the Pacifica Quartet's incredible efforts on Naxos.

There's a huge amount of works for other chamber ensembles as well. I love the rather early _Duo_ for piano and violin, the _Enchanted Preludes_ for flute and cello, the _Trilogy_ for oboe and harp, the many Quintets, the _Triple Duo_, the _Epigrams_ for piano trio... And so many more, there's so much available and almost all of it recorded! Just dive in and find the works that move you the most. It's a very exciting adventure, going through all that music for the first time. Oh, and I also _adore_ the early, stylistically transitional Sonata for piano and cello!

Carter also composed solo works for most standard instruments. They're mainly very short works, but definitely worth checking out; I often listen to them as little interludes between bigger works. Something I also do regularly is check out the solo works for an instrument and then the concerto - for example, first the _Four Lauds_ and _Mnemosyné_ for solo violin and then right after that the Violin Concerto. Don't know if anyone else would find this approach interesting, but I like it. 

I hesitate talking too extensively about Carter's vocal works even though I've heard all of them - I just don't feel like I have strong enough a connection with that part of his output, yet. In his later years he wrote many song cycles - often with very carefully selected poetry - so under no circumstances should those works be ignored in any way. I've definitely enjoyed them quite a bit so far. There's also Carter's only opera, _What next?_, which surprised everyone (since it came so late in his career) and has also received quite a lot of criticism because of the libretto and other reasons. It's his biggest vocal work by far and every Carter fan should know it, but I must admit that it doesn't belong to my favourite Carter works, at least not yet. Maybe future listens will add to my appreciation of it; definitely seeing it on stage would be _amazing_ but I'm not optimistic enough to think that that might happen here anytime soon...

Hopefully someone could find some tips from this post - the thought of people exploring, discovering and enjoying Carter's work makes me very happy indeed.



Phil loves classical said:


> "Ned Rorem, for instance, has written that nobody really likes the music of Elliott Carter: his many admirers only pretend to like it."


With all due respect to Mr. Rorem I'd just like to point out that I could never _ever_ be bothered to spend so much time with any composer's work as I have done with Carter's if I didn't appreciate, and indeed _love_ their music with 100% honesty. But I have to fight off these kinds of accusations all the time regarding my passion for Carter. I don't mind. 

PS. On a more personal note: writing this post with my slightly tired (but at the same time excited by the topic!) brain was bloody awful, I mean I had to fix like a trillion little mistakes. There are probably some still here and there but I decided that I'm done checking and re-checking! I don't often moan about this, but writing in English can be dreadful sometimes, and I say that lovingly since it's an amazing and expressive language that I enjoy using a lot.  It's just that sometimes jotting down posts like this in my native Finnish would be so much more effortless! Rant over...


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> I think the string quartets may be the easiest route into Carter's music. They are excellent and seem more accessible than his more dense music. Or - he mellowed a little in his late years - this disc might work for you (it is certainly one I've played often since getting it):
> 
> View attachment 128676


I'm laughing at the idea of someone who doesn't know what to expect, and he reads a comment like this and goes "ok, let's try these quartets because those are more accessible" and then the third quartet in all its accessibility begins


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## soni (Jul 3, 2018)

Janspe said:


> Yay, Carter-related discussion! He's one of my favourite composers, so I'm very happy to help getting you (or anyone who's interested) started.
> 
> I'd definitely recommend starting with the later works, but this might be just a personal preference. In any case, it was the way I made my way into his works. I think the first piece that really _clicked_ was the fantastic _Interventions_ for piano and orchestra, on an Ondine recording that was already posted on this thread by Enthusiast (post #2). Just put it on, close your eyes and allow the swarm of rippling, playful notes flow over you. There's not a single weak work on that CD, and it's one of the most impressive Carter recordings I've ever had the privilege of hearing.
> 
> ...


Thanks a lot for this post! Will definitely be looking into this.
And I see that you also are a Finnish speaker! I do also speak the beautiful language, although probably not as well as you as I live in Britain


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

norman bates said:


> I'm laughing at the idea of someone who doesn't know what to expect, and he reads a comment like this and goes "ok, let's try these quartets because those are more accessible" and then the third quartet in all its accessibility begins


Ha! You may be right but I'm not so sure. The 3rd quartet starts off in quite a stormy way but seems to me to be easily related to music from, say, Schoenberg and Webern and (old man though I am) I have always found it communicative. There are many Carter pieces I found more difficult.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

starthrower said:


> Just get the EMI CD with the painted desert photo on the cover. That's a great place to start.


Yes! This was my starting point.










GREAT performances of the Concerto for Orchestra and Violin Concerto.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ Yes, it is a good record. But we are a little spoiled for choice when it comes to the Concerto for Orchestra (and for interesting couplings for it). Gielen is pretty good and the piano concerto is a major work.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Janspe said:


> PS. On a more personal note: writing this post with my slightly tired (but at the same time excited by the topic!) brain was bloody awful, I mean I had to fix like a trillion little mistakes. There are probably some still here and there but I decided that I'm done checking and re-checking! I don't often moan about this, but writing in English can be dreadful sometimes, and I say that lovingly since it's an amazing and expressive language that I enjoy using a lot.  It's just that sometimes jotting down posts like this in my native Finnish would be so much more effortless! Rant over...


And yet your post was far more articulate in expressing the (your) experience of listening to Carter (or any other music, come to that) than I could ever manage!


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## Janspe (Nov 10, 2012)

Enthusiast said:


> And yet your post was far more articulate in expressing the (your) experience of listening to Carter (or any other music, come to that) than I could ever manage!


You make me blush! :lol:

Talking about the Concerto for Orchestra, I'm very partial to the Gielen recording, though there are other excellent ones too. Bernstein's has historical importance - I still refuse to believe that he has indeed conducted both Carter _and_ Boulez - but definitely people started understanding the score much better later on. It really is a monster, I tried listening to it with the score (which even _looks_ scary) and just to keep up was a nightmare. Love the piece to bits tough!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^ Yes, I think I like the Gielen the most. I do have the Bernstein and am pleased he did it. He was "big" and open. I am not sure I know his Boulez. 

Knussen also did it well and made at least one other excellent Carter CD. I have just listened to it - probably for the first time while actually in the mood for a new (to me) piece - and am now inclined to suggest that the Clarinet Concerto is the best introduction to Carter. I'm sure it will work even for people who don't like Carter!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

soni said:


> I've read some positive things about the music of Elliott Carter, but I'm not sure where to start in exploring his music. What pieces do you recommend? And what should I also listen out for in his music? With modern composers I often find it helpful to read a non-technical explanation of what to look out for before listening.
> 
> Thanks!


_A piece of music by Carter presents us with the greatest confusion which has yet the most perfect order as its foundation: with the most vehement conflict which is transformed sometimes into the most beautiful peace. It is rerum concordia discors, the discordant conflict of the world, a true and complete picture of the world, which rolls on in boundless confusion of innumerable forms , and maintains itself by constant destruction. _

(Compare Schopenhauer on Beethoven -- _The World as Will and Representation_, the Dover translation, Vol 2 p 450)


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Ned Rorem. I can't even pretend to be interested in his music.

My gateway drug for Elliott Carter was his Variations for Orchestra, my favorite recording of which is Levine/CSO. Recommended as a great place to start. Among his later pieces, I dearly love his Horn Concerto, which is mind-blowingly inventive and emotional. 

I know, I know. Levine. But his career is over: no need to punish all the other musicians. That recording and the playing within is tremendous.


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## Lilijana (Dec 17, 2019)

i just tried to listen to some ned rorem again after not having heard his music for quite a while. just woke up from it.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> In some of the pieces you hear lots of different instruments sounding like they're doing their own thing -- it's chaotic like people talking with their own agenda, not listening to each other very well. Then sometimes in the music there are these brief moments of concord, of harmony, where the music doesn't sound so conflicted.


I think Mandryka is on the right track here, Carter's music will have areas where there are two separate rhythms and tempos going on independently. Also, he will compose for instruments as if they were different characters in a play.
My favorite has always been the_ Variations for Orchestra,_ from this CD which I still have on vinyl:


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

The first symphony is a brilliant and surprising work that shows his mastery in a more conventional style.


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## Calipso (May 10, 2020)

Intelligent charlatan.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

The most accessible entry point into Carter's music, IMHO, is the _Elegy_ for viola and piano (also arranged for string orchestra). This is Carter before he went avant-garde. I would also say that the _Piano Sonata_ is an exquisite work and a personal favorite of mine. His later works are certainly challenging, but I think there are many rewards to them for those willing to 'stick it out'. Someone mentioned _Occasions for Orchestra_ and that's actually a fantastic work that, to me, reminds of an extension of Berg's _Three Pieces for Orchestra_. But perhaps the best thing to do is just dive in and see what sticks.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

'charlatan' /'you only pretend to like it' is probably one of the most toxic things you can say about music people like, and I imagine it's a big part of bad tempers with 20th century music discussion. like it's OK not to like music others like, man


i like Rorem and i generally don't get bothered by things artists say, because artists are frequently weirdos and/or love dumping on the work of other artists, but that was inexcusable.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Calipso said:


> Intelligent charlatan.


Forget what that Phil guy said earlier in the thread, especially about Ned Rorem. I think I actually like Carter now. And to me, he's no charlatan. I won't judge the intentions of his fans like Ned Rorem did (who knows maybe he's right about some of them). Carter doesn't pretend to be doing anything more than what he does.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

At one time Ned Rorem admired the music of Elliott Carter:

*Ned Rorem*
Tributes

(October, 1978)

Elliott Carter's music at first sounds sparse, every note seeming irreversible; then each tight bar reveals a chain reaction of meanings, and though the whole satisfies, no single solution prevails. Or doesn't art deal in solutions?

Literal repetition he shunned like the plague. It would make a neat balance to say that his art is hypertypically American, like - like whose? like the Wallace Stevens he so often quotes? - by embodying certain traits; but I too am American, so find it harder to objectify such traits. Surely Carter's music is intellectual as well as intelligent. Yet if words like sensual and nostalgic don't quickly come to mind, neither do verbatim versions of mankind or angels or the songs of the wild. His music doesn't purport to represent anything beyond itself, his narrative translates only as metaphor - as events happening to instruments, not to humans. Carter projects necessity. Not the diffuse necessity of didactic wisdom but the clean-cut urgency of an epileptic fit. Art is never random, and Carter's glory dwells in the knack for inscribing productive tantrums with such accuracy that after the third or the nineteenth hearing the notes fall as logically as the arrangement of animals in The Peaceable Kingdom.

Physically, this forbidding master housed a marvelously mannered little boy with the vast cultural scope one usually finds in only continental thoroughbreds. Although his was incapable of small talk, humor nonetheless lay behind that sly Burgess Meredith glance. By extension humor must be tangled somewhere within the Gordian knot of his tones, though I've never located it - assuming that such a thing can be pinned down in music. (Elliott Carter Website)

But later in his career he spoke harshly against composers whose music was unlike his own. From an article in 1987:



> Mr. Rorem's hostility to dense, modern music is relentless. ''The great composers of the 20th century,'' he says, ''do not include Schoenberg. One good thing is that we are out of the 12-tone mess. The music was so complicated you couldn't know what was going on. Elliott Carter has been a pernicious influence for too long. Some of his early music has flavor but no charm. His last piece, the fourth quartet, is actually hostile. It is so filled with information that nothing is able to come through.'' Mr. Rorem does not restrict his anger only to the ''intellectual'' composers. He also lashes out at Philip Glass: ''While Carter presents what is a maze, Glass gives too little unless you are zonked out on drugs. I am not against Glass's premise, that we need an antidote to what has gone on. But a C major chord played hundreds of times does not seem to me to be the right solution.'' NYT


I don't put much importance on what one composer says about the work of another composer.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

^ I don't agree to his music being "intellectual" (but people may hear his music differently). That is what threw me off in the first place. There is really nothing to get. To me he's like a Debussy on a bad day.


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