The music of Elliott Carter

WOULD RECOGNIZE ELLIOTT CARTER IN TUIS DESCRIPTION, yet it defines the core of his style. From the date of his first acknowledged composition, incidental music for Sophocles' Philoctetes (1933), to his first fully characteristic one, the Piano Sonata (1945-46), 15 out of 21 works are vocal. Of the eight instrumental works, three are descriptive of things outside of music, and almost all have strong vocal qualities. By stressing song and choral music in his early years, Carter allied himself to the American musical past which is steeped in this tradition. It would be difficult to find many American composers of the twentieth century who began their career with so generous a concentration on vocal music. Does this preoccupation have an effect on his later, almost purely instrumental works? Very definitely. It anticipates recurrent characteristics of his mature .art: (1) Lyricism, not in the tradition of song, but in the manner of the madrigal, an extended, supple contour. It is always present, although very subtly, in the works from the second string quartet on; (2) A texture of differently and irregularly scanned lines. Perhaps the most important developments in the composer's style will occur here; (^Extramusical inspiration. Carter has said many times that this is a springboard for his compositions. To the above must be added his deep concern for the essential characteristics structural, acoustical, expressive of the medium for which he is composing. Thus in writing incidental music for a Greek play, the composer studied Greek music and incorporated elements of it into the composition. In the Piano Sonata he exploited the peculiar sonorous capabilities of the instrument; and in the First String Quartet he seems to have been acutely conscious of the treatment of this genre as a conversation among four equals. To understand Carter's development up to the Second String Quartet (1959), his first completely individual work, we must be aware of three