Elliot Carter Contribution

Elliott Carter is among the most celebrated American composers of the 20th century. Until his death in 2012, Carter was a renowned ace in composing contemporary classical music. His success during his career spanning eight decades can well be manifested by the numerous accolades he gained including the most coveted Pulitzer Prize. Elliot Cook Carter, Jr. was born in New York City in 1908 and died in 2012. His interest in music began while he was in high school. Carter’s music career was instigated by Charles Ives, who had relations with Carter’s family by virtue of business. Being a late bloomer unlike his predecessors did not diminish his influence as he soon established himself as among the most sort after composers. Carter studied music
at Harvard College and the Longy School of Music. At Harvard, he pursued graduate work in music therein receiving his master’s degree. In the 1930’s Carter took to Paris at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris to advance his study in music from where he received a doctorate in Music (Mus. D.) Soon after returning to the United States, Carter began by writing criticism for a music journal, Modern Music, before writing music for the Ballet Caravan. Besides writing music for the Ballet Caravan, he was also the music director. It was here that he wrote the ballet “Pocahontas” and work that features echoes of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” (nytimes.com). His earlier works, mainly neoclassical, were influenced by Stravinsky, Copland, Harris, and Hindemith. His earliest music such as the ballet Pocahontas (1938-39) features such kinds of influences. Carter’s style of composing music was defined by his compositions during the late 40’s through the independent polyphony of the Piano Sonata (1946) and Cello Sonata (1948).
These two compositions formed a platform that would later define his distinctive style. His individual voice was to be later established with his composition of the First String Quartet (1951). In this composition, the use of “metric modulation” that is where two distinct tempi are related by a regular complex division of the beat is evident. Although he did not come up with this term himself, he is often associated with this rhythmic technique. The Second String Quartet (1959) is an advancement of the metric modulation since each of the four instrumental parts are markedly independent of one another. The Third String Quartet (1971) is made up of two contrasting duos all having the same ten unequally divided movements. Also composed during the same period were the Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano (1961) and the Concerto for Orchestra (1969). Three significant vocal works mark his career. These were composed between the years of 1975 and 1981. They include A Mirror on Which to Dwell for Soprano (1975), Syringa for Mezzo (1978), and In Sleep, In Thunder for tenor (1981). Ten years prior to his death, he never slowed down in his compositions of music, but released several other compositions including A Fourth String Quartet (1986), Violin Concerto (1990) and Partita (1993) in addition to other
virtuosic pieces for small ensembles (classical.net). Elliott Carter is respected as being the recipient of the highest honors any composer can receive. For his contribution in music, his successes are expressed by his awards: the Gold Medal for Music awarded by the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the National Medal of Arts, membership into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as honorary degrees from various universities. In addition to these, he is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prizes (musicsalesclassical.com). Therefore, his death at the prime age of 103 years saw him already accomplished in the world of classical compositions, and he will always be remembered for his influences in the music scene (danielbarenboim.com).
Review of Carter’s First String Quartet The First String Quartet was composed in 1951 in the Arizona desert. This piece is said to be his first important piece that signified his breakthrough into the music scene. In this piece, he uses the principle of metric modulation or the temporal modulation. This particular quartet consists of four movements in three sections. These movements are all enclosed between two solo cadenzas acting as bookends at each ending of the quartet. These two cadenzas, the first for the cello and the concluding one for the first violin, outline the piece. In his own words, Carter compares this piece with the desert horizons. He claims that while writing the piece, he often looked at the desert horizons for inspiration, and, thus, the First Quartet presents a continuous unfolding and alternating of expressive characters, one merged into the other or rising from it. Carter also claims that this piece ingrains an interrupted continuity starting with a cadenza for cello alone that is carried on by the first violin alone at the extreme end. The four movements that make up the Quartet are not differentiated by pauses, but blended into another for an integration that would not be effected had there been pauses. The four movements are Fantasia, Allegro Scorrevole, Adagio, and Variations. All the movements are played attacca with the pauses appearing in the middle of the Allegro scorrevole and near the start of the Variations. Thus, there exist only two pauses that divide the piece into three sections. According to Carter, the reason for the division of the movements in such a manner is to effect a tempo and character change which usually occur between movements. Breaking off the logical concession of movements at its high point would destroy this effect. Thus, at the pause before the movement marked Variations, the Variations have actually been going on for some time. In the First String Quartet, the vertical pitch space falls relatively early within Carter’s development of a harmonic process involving sets of pitch classes.
In this case, Carter was influenced by an all-interval tetrachord. In all his works, he used specific chords as unifying factors in his musical rhetoric, that is, as frequent central sounds from which the differing pitch material of the pieces was obtained and the First String Quartet is no different. In this piece, he uses an “all-interval” four-note chord. The basis of this is as a motive to integrate all the intervals of the work into a distinctive sound whose presence can be felt through at all the differing kinds of intervallic writing. In addition, this chord acts as a harmonic frame for the work by talking about all the events and details of a piece of music feel as if they fit in together and make up a persuasive and unified musical
continuity. The horizontal element of time also stands out in Carter’s First String Quartet. The horizontal element basically means his action of maintaining motion while at the same time varying that motion, a technique defined as metric modulation. In this process, the music continuously changes its meters in a way that either the subdivision of the beat or the beat itself does not change, but stays the same. This action allows the piece to move smoothly between asynchronicity and synchronicity of the voices.