Product Description
With the publication of this remarkable tome, students of Elliott Carter's music and theorists with an interest in contemporary music, have a detailed guide to understanding the music of a great composer. In addition, Harmony Book is a valuable study of the post-tonal harmonic possibilities within the twelve-note chromatic scale and will be an invaluable resource to serious composers of every style interested in expanding their own harmonic practice. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Excellent
not for the faint hearted, this is an excellent source of chords. "the Schillinger System of Musical Composition" and "the Structure of Atonal Music" will help a newcomer make sense of the twelve tone system and Carter's Harmony Book.Alternatively, if you are a mathematically challenged like myself, get a degree in math and you'll be all over this book

A Giant's Tool
A Giant's Tool:Elliott Carter's Harmony Book
Edited by Nicholas Hopkins and John F. Link

Review by John de Clef Piñeiro

With the publication by Carl Fischer of Elliott Carter's Harmony Book, another remarkable document is now available for students and scholars of America's most continuously prolific composer.As one who has long been enthralled by the voluptuous complexity of Elliot Carter's aesthetic, it was with some trepidation that I undertook to examine an analytical tome that purports to be, in the words of one of its editors, "essentially a massive encyclopedia devoted to exploring harmonic relationships . . . . not truly a `harmony' book . . . . [that] was planned and developed to serve only as a tool for [Carter's] compositional work, rather than as a resource for public usage."

Assembled by Carter himself over a period of more than 20 years, the chordalmaterial contained in the Harmony Book represents one creative mind's mapping of the harmonic musical universe for practical application, which, in turn, has been supplemented and expanded over time by the procedures developed in practical application.In a project lasting two-and-one-half years, editors Nicholas Hopkins and John F. Link have made numerous refinements and clarifications in nomenclature, taxonomy and organization to Carter's manuscript of the Harmony Book, which the editors note was never intended by Carter for publication.

It should also be noted that although this painstaking compilation and analysis of harmonic relationships can satisfy a Carter student's technical interest on one level, it certainly does not, and is clearly not intended to, readily sate the desire of a diverse music-listening public to comprehend the complicated creative process that has employed and continues to employ this comprehensive collection of harmonic materials as a tool.Indeed, after examining this truly scholarly achievement, one can conclude that it is possible to be fascinated by, and even love,Carter's music, without the benefit of this volume.

Nevertheless, it is without question that Messrs. Hopkins and Link have performed an invaluable editorial feat by providing reader-friendly levels of organization and illuminating essays and original interview material that will assure the enduring academic significance and landmark status of this work for years to come.As has already been the case with other scholars who have consulted and relied upon earlier manuscript versions of the Harmony Book for their own commentaries, both musicologists and musical theorists alike will find in this volume essential materia prima in formulating their own understanding and conclusions about the oeuvre of this towering American master of post-tonal chromaticism in musical composition.

Why bother?
If you are a listener of music, this book will not help you 'hear' the music of Carter.It will help you understand it.In effect, harmony in Carter's music, exploiting the full chromatic spectrum as it does, frees his poly-rhythmic structures and intricate counterpoint to function independently of harmony.In my opinion, the harmony in Carter's music is its weakest aspect.I don't really hear it in his music.What I found interesting in this book was seeing how Carter's use of harmony enables his long term poly-rhythmic structures to work, which in themselves are quite fascinating.But the lack of the sense of 'vertical' in his music makes the actual study of his harmony a moot point for this listener.

Not your grandmother's harmony book
This is not a "harmony book" in the traditional sense - apart from a page of explication of one of Carter's guitar pieces, there is nothing here about how to write music. It is, however, an incredibly useful resource for composers working in a certain style.

As Carter began to be interested in the combinatorial relations of groups of pitches, he compiled this catalogue and cross-reference for his own use so that he would not have to figure it all out again with each piece. So if you are using two 6-note sets and you need to know which 4-note sets they have in common, or, if you have a 4-note set and want to know all the different 6-note sets that can be formed by adding each different interval, this is the book for you. In that sense there is nothing like it.

What we really need is a software version of this material - anybody listening?

not for everyone, yet illuminating sometimes,perhaps not!!
It was Foucault who in a onetime interview with Pierre Boulez had remarked how music has kept pace with the innovations in technology;Spectral harmonics at IRCAM,Just Intonation in the USA and I'd imagine not only innovation but subversion of concept would be great spots to transcend Foucault.For I find this(for Foucault it is our loss that music was not a realm he ever pursued,only as a spot of culture,the radical aesthetic and the end of man, where is he/she) a double entendre/ side here to this for technology does create obscurity as well The most exciting composers have been those who have continually challenged the traditions of reigning ideologies(the 18th and 19th Centuries) or the circumventing the magnetic attractions of the cash box(our own age)after the eclipse of modernity.Those who simply conspire to write serious music masquerading as film music(minimalism included) will be forgotten. All the John Williams's,countless permutations now by 2002,Phil Glass Clones out there will join the 747s in the Mojave Desert standing baking in the sun, bleached for Road Warrior to one day find.
I suppose Lacan would have or Zizek would find now something fascinating to say with the indulgences in today's new music,what is it, what does it represent, what incomplete dimension of your unconscious does it reside in.
Perhaps music creativity existing within the realms of the modernist language,post-Ferneyhough is harboring an aesthetic in exile,afraid to come out of its embattled neglected shell, like the intimacy of a Dutch lens grinder,a forgotten art.
Today it is actually more interesting, at least with new music, to discover the creative pathways of a work than the actual work itself,like an elaborate dinner setting where the food never comes(John Tilbury,pianist said that on radio) a new work for much of the time under-rehearsed,and played once,perhaps twice never to be heard again, and never recorded for consumption. And then there are primary new workswhich the citizens of a free democracy never get to hear at all. This the cause of cultural marginalization, we simply never hear some aspects of the creative spirit,even though the Silicon Valley has fashioned a saturation point of image,icon,aesthetic and place. Someone, some human body politically does decide who will get a Pulitzer,or what new premiere work the Chicago Symphony will play this year. In fact we seldom remember the Pulitzer winner's actual prize music,Can you name the work or even remember a moment from it??we listen more to the opaque cultural power a Prize represents, who cares about the music.Well Habermas said opacity"Undurchsichtlichkeit" is what this age is all about, New Age complaisance.

Carter has received numerous prizes but for his body of work the prizes seem to be arbitrary and marginal, we forget them because he has so many of them,like Oscars,who ever has more than one we forget about. We go(should go) directly toward the creative vigours structural or otherwise to the music, its incessant shapes, and convoluted designs,its virtuosic displays and its long range topologies of poly rhythms and other global durational frames.

The Harmony Book here, (actually Two Volumes sewed into one here)began as a fairly modest endeavor, a practical accounting means, a way to remember certain configurations of tones, or intervallic transformations. No one can remember everything, so Carter began making these large 14 inch long sheets of these tones. All of this creative odyssey is retold within the interview with scholar John F. Link, who has devoted his analytic work to Carter's polyrhythms,and also this Harmony Book.A wonderful interview here with Carter. Volume One is a Catalogue/Synthesis of three note, four note, five note etc chords, and their tranpostions. It seems easier to contemplate these chords here as 1+2=3, or 3+2=5, for one isolated tone then followed by 2 more tones can powerfully direct the best,evocative,crisis moments in music, anyones.. This becomes especially relevant when one needs to account for 55 six note chords distribute graciously over the durations of a work,or controlling the succession of 80 or 90 tones followed, staggered, accelerated as the work's discourse unfolds. Volume 2 then is Analysis, a means of looking more deeply into the relationships of all this stuff, the tones, the intervals, the chords. There are moments of pure illumination as in the discussion on Carter's provocative/evocative Night Fantasies or when for instance one learns as in Carter's Third String Quartet, a work shaped by the Duets,One Violin with Viola, One Violin then with Cello, One group more stationary reduced to Five tones, the other Duet ensemble is free to explore all interval rows. I can't help thinking this is how international capital functions,in Argentina, in South Korea in today's neo-liberal mileau.

There are also elaborate yet functional means of simple symbols, as a four note chord represented with a box, four point, then five note pentagon, and six, then what is referred to as the Sigla controlling and defining the entire array of tones,220 intervals and chords with all their additions.... There is a Glossary to help one wade through this fascinating Naming of the Father- game.

There are also nice excerpts from Carter's music that helps embellish a point,much like conceptual menus for creativity. Then there is the dimension as to who or what controls whom. Does one need this Harmony Book to decepher the structural complexity within Carter's oeuvre. Does Carter need his own Book? And the answer is sometimes! for Carter said that he did break the tyranny of these alloted configurations simply to make the music more interesting. I guess that is the last horizon, the music must be interesting, how one got there is also interesting,perhaps more so or less so, it may become part of what we may now think of musical philosophy and the creativity, the last bastion known. ... Read more

Product Description
Elliott Carter (b.1908) is now generally acknowledged as America's most eminent living composer. This definitive volume of his essays and lectures - many previously unpublished or uncollected -shows his thinking and writing on music and associated issues developing in parallel with his career as a composer; his reputation became established in the 1950s, and the material in this book offers an important and knowledgeable commentary on the course of American and European music in the succeeding decades.Carter's articles on his own music have become classic texts for students of his oeuvre; he also writes on the state of new music in Europe and the United States and the relations between music and the other arts. Other pieces range from a consideration of aspects of music to the work of individual composers. As a whole, the collection is the expression of Carter's musical philosophy, and a valuable record for historians of modern music. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

reflections of a great contemporary composer
For anyone interested in modern music, by whatever name (contemporary classical composition, "new music"), this book is invaluable.Elliott Carter, in my view one of the two bestcomposers of the late 20th century, along with Gyorgy Ligeti, has written fairly extensively over the years about his music.He was actually employed as a critic for Modern Music in the late 1930s, one source of these essays.Presented here are trenchant analyses of the difficulty of being a composer of advanced works in a commercial society, including the problems of orchestras and rehearsals ("the orchestral brontosaur"), reflections on American and European music, reminiscences of his studies with Boulanger in Paris, explanations of various compositions including the First and Second string quartets and the Concerto for Orchestra, and fascinating comments on other composers, including of course Charles Ives, along with Stravinsky, Varese, the Second Vienna School, Debussy and Mozart.Carter expresses the utmost respect for Webern's exquisite miniatures, while making clear his rejection of serialism, which he never adopted.

Elliott Carter enjoys a much higher level of recognition in Europe than in the U.S., where composers of schlocky film scores are vastly more popular (ie, "Star Wars").While noticed by only a few today, these writings will play a part in establishing Carter's future reputation as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century -- an American composer whether he was recognized by his contemporaries at home or not. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Carter and the flow of time in music
Elliott Carter, in these interviews from 1968-1970, offers his view of modern music.He talks about the methods of his teacher in Paris in the 1930s, Nadia Boulanger, and his early influences -- Ives, Varese, Scriabin, Stravinsky and the Second Vienna School.He critiques serialism and technique without communication at length.Central to Carter's music is its flow:

"I must say that the one issue that I am, and have been, very concerned with, unlike most of my colleagues since the war, is making the flow of music be the most important thing; the 'now' of any given point to me is only as significant as how it came to be 'now' and what happens afterward ... Music is the only world in which you can really manipulate the flow of time in a rather free way ... [T]he only concern of most composers today...is with block-like, terribly simplified structures of time... We had so much of that with 'The Rite of Spring.'"(pp. 37-38)

This is indeed key and central to Carter's music, and it stands in polar opposition to Harrison Birtwistle, another great composer of the second half of the 20th century, whose key inspiration was precisely that cubist, block-like collage structure of Stravinsky, particularly of "Symphonies of Wind Instruments."

A key innovation often attributed to Carter, or to Charles Ives, is "metric modulation," writing multiple lines in different tempos for different instrumental groups simultaneously.Carter says that this technique is by no means original on his part (or Ives by implication -- p. 91), but has been used in many different musics, Western and non-Western.The fact remains that it is employed to powerful and unique effect in Carter's compositions.

There is some interesting personal background in these 122 pages -- Carter says, for instance, that "my father used to make frequent business trips to Europe, often taking my mother and me along" (p. 43).He attended Harvard and studied literature and music.He is steeped in the ancient Greeks.All of these, along with his studying with Boulanger in Paris speak to his upper-class upbringing.I was particularly impressed by Carter's knowledge and appreciation of the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead.Though he does not address the connection, it must have been a key influence on Carter's music.

The composer offers fascinating insights into his working methods in discussing the construction of works including the "Double Concerto" and the "Concerto for Orchestra."

Well worth seeking out for those interested in the music of Elliott Carter in particular and modern music in general.

(verified library loan)

expositions of an American structural thinker
This is the early Carter, we hear about his early days with Mlle.Boulanger,her perceptive clarvoyance for her illuminations of a work,her deep concern for her students,including the selctions of gifts for travel back to the United States,well New York. Stravinsky was the genius of the age, the Twenties, Carter had heard at a soiree, Persephone, with Mr. Stravinsky at the piano. He always brought an impeccable sense of rhythm, of precision, of attack.Carter distinguishes the piano composer Ravel, Igor.

There are great issues discussed here as the future of the orchestra, how difficult it has become to give everyone in the modern orchestra something to play. These interviews traverse only to 1971, Carter was on the threshold of his monumental Third String Quartet. But we obtain quite well thought out reflections of the darkly brooding "Piano Concerto",a work completed during a stay in Berlin with students, Rzewski among them, and the "Concerto for Orchestra". The latter he had fragmented the modern orchestra into 'concertini', small ensembles of fascinating timbres.

Carter here is quite social in his reflections of tradition and the elitist endeavor of writing music. He reflects that we really cannot speak of a national consciousness for serious composers as Carter has so obviously becomein the past ten years. That perhaps writing music for the primary venues will be something for the past. And if we warp=speed to the present from 1971 we see the corporate agenda for orchestral commissions as Eisner's vacuous vision of "Mickey Mouse" giving music money to Alan Jay Kernis and Michael Torke for modern creations, creations quite obvious and predictable.Yet without points of interest.

Carter reflects quite profoundly on his working methods, the five and seven tone chordal structures, in the "Piano Concerto", and The powerfully wrought "Concerto for Orchestra", the latter written during the Vietnam Times, of street anti-establishment rebellion.

We learn the impetus of Carter's musical aesthetic as linear, the only aesthetic worth pursuing, and he makes a profoundly convincing arguments against contra the texture bound creations a la Stockhausen, where texture became boring after the first initial moments. Or he reflects deeply on the vacuity of serial thinking that never lets the EAR be the primary focus for music, rather the highly abstracted geometric sense of music not for the EAR but the self-indulgent mind.

Shame this is out-of print, I have an old tattered copy that I cherish deeply. ... Read more

Product Description
Arguably the most important American composer of the century, Elliott Carter often has been more highly regarded in Europe than in his native land. Interest in his work has grown rapidly in recent years, however, and the celebration of his ninetieth birthday in December, 1998, accompanied by numerous performances and new recordings, undoubtedly will increase the attention of his fellow citizens to this remarkable figure.

Authoritative and gracefully written, The Music of Elliott Carter engages composers, performers, and critics, and speaks to concert-goers, whether attuned to or alarmed by the formidable difficulty of Carter's music. David Schiff views the music from the perspective of the composer's development and relates his compositional techniques to those nonmusical arts--contemporary American poetry in particular--with which Carter has been deeply involved. The volume benefits from Schiff's extensive discussions of Carter's works with their most noted performers, including Heinz Holliger, Oliver Knussen, and Ursula Oppens, and from the generous cooperation of the composer himself.

This new edition, a thoroughly reorganized, revised, and updated version of the book published in 1983, accounts for the many new works written by Carter since 1980 and accommodates the burgeoning critical literature on his music. Its features include many musical examples and a selected discography. In addition to the new foreword, the composer has provided his listing of three-to-six note chords and a note on "Voyage."Amazon.com Review
When David Schiff finished his overview of Elliott Carter'smusic in 1983, Carter was already 75 years old. No one could havepredicted the flood of marvelous new pieces (including threelarge-scale concertos and two string quartets) the composer wouldproduce in the intervening years. This second edition is currentthrough April 1998 and arrives in time for the composer's 90thbirthday. Schiff is the ideal guide for this repertoire: a composerhimself who studied with Carter, he has also conducted the TripleDuo. His writing is stylish--in the String Quartet No. 4,he writes, the second movement "seems to begin over the first violin'srepeated objections." Schiff is lucid without ever beingsuperficial. Instead of the strictly chronological organization of thefirst edition, he now groups the music by genre. (This system isespecially helpful in understanding the five string quartets.) Eachchapter has a brief general introduction--the first few paragraphs ofthe vocal music chapter in particular are a model of practical musicalthought. There is a technical glossary, an eight-page bibliography(which might have mentioned Andrew Porter's enthusiastic NewYorker reviews of the pieces), and an 18-pagediscography. Although there are a few dozen musical examples, readerswill need scores to follow some of the discussion. Of necessity,Schiff describes some of the most recent music instead of analyzingit. Anyone who wishes to gain a foothold in Carter's endlesslyrewarding world might listen to the excellent Chicago Symphonyrecording of Variationsfor Orchestra and follow Schiff's elegantcommentary. --William R. Braun ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Incredibly readable on greatstructural innovator
Schiff has done a lucid job here for the readers,he writes quite well, not slipping into piles of set theory or analytical jargoneze,that speaks to a diminishing elite. Many have labeled Carter an elite creator,but that's amatter of reference(well Carter did walk out on a performance in Chicagodue to Leonard Slatkin's pre-concert remarks). Schiff remarkably covers allthe great Carter works, the turbulent works of the Sixties and Seventies,the darkly brooding Piano Concerto(written in West Berlin) and the Concertofor Orchestra,a Sixties work of violence, a reflection on the Anti-WarTimes. The latter unaccompanied solos are all here as well, all workswritten,for the most part after the First Edition. Schiff frequentlyreflects upon what works in a piece, a purely function premise thatexplains much, and is food for thought to any youngster hoping to somedaywrite just like Elliot Carter. I miss the photographs from the FirstEdition, those with Stravinsky and Boulez, and the Carter manuscriptreproductions included there. Schiff seems quite lucid in speaking aboutall this complexity whether rhythmic,structural or pitchbound. I didn'tknow for instance that Carter has kept a harmony book, sort of a creativeOracle to refer to over ones life. The chapters divide things again quiteclearly, The Chamber Music, The Vocal Music, The Piano Music andOrchestral, with a nice Appendix of Carter's Listing of Three to Six NoteChords, also a Chronological Catalogue of Works, a select Bibliography andDiscography, a List of Charts. A shame however is, although the winner ofnumerous Pulitzers, Carter until quite recent times has been neglected herein this country fighting in his home territory, the Eastern MusicalEstablishment and the Bernstein Clique of the Sixties and Seventies. Boulezdid much to repair this damage with The New York Philharmonic and nowBarenboim has in Chicago, as well as premiere ensembles,Arditti andsoloists,Chas Rosen and Ms Oppens. Schiff also always points to Carter'sextracurricular interests in literature, where he frequently finds animpetus for a work, as well as the Italian language for a conceptualworking premise. The Glossary at the beginning also is a wonderfulclarifier, of forms we frequently hear about but seldom understand withinthe context of the subsequent work these terms refer to. ... Read more

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String Quartet No. 3 (1971) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

extemely intense music after a long gestation
a long arduous gestation period some 20 years, separates the evocative, relatively gentle Second Quartet of brevity and classic shape to the more intensely extreme dimensions of the Third Quartet of 1971, I cannot help but think that the uncertainty of world events had been an integral formative part of this period,and fines its way into the strings herein/the deeply stated penumbral "Piano Concerto" was behind Carter's creativity now,I always like to think that pieces, a composer's oeuvre influences the burden of future works, that things, the working out of the music becomes more arduous, and filled with irresolution as time passes, what will come, and in this light this Third Quartet has that dimension. Of course you can also say that this work is an intense celebration, a fullfillment of strong brutal ideas for their own sake, not for anyone,unadorned,unencumbered by any narrative,relishing in deeply virtuosic timbres, revealing a content of extroversion,one not afraid(within the aesthetic) of anything anymore. This Quartets dimensions it seems knows no boundary markers with its duel forces pitted against each other, like a palace rebellion strictly of aristocrats had occurred without the outside populace knowing about it. So here the DUO I is Violin and Cello,cloistered together where pitches and tone configuration seem to be boundless,more rhapsodic in playing (as Carter advises in his notes "quasi rubato") to the more imprisoned DUO II, Violin and Viola,(stricter rhythm(s) throughout) taking on here more an accompanimental role,equally with Carter's affinity for the sustained string sound, this un-freedom functions nonetheless and makes the music stop,halts the flow of itself and/or create a magnificent tension so the work wants to proceed,but cannot, wants to fulfill itself it does so with a large array of durational indication, expanding and contracted in surface in register,very liberal utilizations of double stops as well, as if one single voice along never quite fits the emotive agenda here there is also a :dialectic:( a bad word) of emotive content at work with often times contradictory indications between the two DUO, as the opening exhibits simultaneously "Maestoso" in DUO II, and "Furioso" (quasi rubato,)in DUO I,this suggested hostility continues quite to the end.
The modern British painter Francis Bacon had said that longevity within this language, (meaning expressionisms of sorts,equal to Carter's musical substance)that tension remains forever in art where it may exist,as even the private pastoral tensions in the continuous tonal movements of trees and mountain surfaces in Poussin's massive landscapes,geometrically pure,but unknown at dirst So to Carter I beleive in some array of poly-rhythmic durational scheme takes this work's strength from under its rhythmic surface passive perhaps on the surface, but look closer for the tension. Here passive acceptance in Carter is by degrees,and within his affinity for establishing characters within the genres,resolution simply goes away forgotten as unimportant.
In Carter's introductory notes, he advises that the :sustained sound:, and the fast tones will tend to get "covered by notes of medium speed", so an interpretive problem exists in the clarity of this duel of virtuosity, of dodecaphonic remorse. The work has a dryness to me, never seductive, or in a way suggestive of Lucien Freud's work, equally dry yet not devoid of emotion, below the surface. Here the surface brutality usually foments, throws our listening into the work, deeply engaging without an agenda.The work has no resolution,or it implodes upon itself really and as it progresses it deeply exposes its content, what it has been about,that the violence sought after in the beginning becomes tamer to a degree in its totality beaming,projecting itself in fragements,like incomplete thoughts, "fugitives"(as Pierre Aimard might say) where it becomes like a flame-furioso, given less oxygen for its existence snuffed out, stepped on for a time. ... Read more

Product Description
Born in New York in December 1908, the venerable but still active American composer Elliott Carter is one of the most highly regarded figures in the music of our time. His works span more than seven decades and have been the subject of many analyses, and most of his writings have appeared in carefully edited collections. In contrast, few of the documents on his life and music, largely preserved at the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, are known to the public. This body of material forms the main source of the present volume, which offers a richly annotated selection of Carter's correspondence and other documents, including unpublished writings, facsimiles of music manuscripts, and photographs. The book traces the biographical, intellectual, and artistic evolution of a composer who, building on American modernism and interacting with the latest developments in Europe, has forged a distinctive, highly sophisticated musical language, and captures his friendships with fellow musicians and friends such as Charles Ives, Nadia Boulanger, John Kirkpatrick, Aaron Copland, Nicolas Nabokov, and more recently, Pierre Boulez, Oliver Knussen, Heinz Holliger, Daniel Barenboim, and James Levine. Published in association with the Paul Sacher Foundation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Crucial insights to Carter's music, including the Stravinsky influence
This little book, containing two essays by pianist Charles Rosen and an interview with composer Elliott Carter, was produced in conjunction with a performance of Carter's "Piano Sonata" (1946) for the Library of Congress on the occasion of Carter's 70th birthday in 1978.It was published in 1984.Rosen gave a lecture on the sonata prior to the performance.The other Rosen essay is on the "Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano with Two Chamber Orchestras" of 1961, which he has also performed many times, including its premiere.These are both quite insightful pieces, and well worth reading if you are interested in Carter's music.

But I want to share with you a passage from the interview that I believe is crucial to understanding Carter's music overall:

"Metrical modulation is not very complicated; it is simply an overlapping of of one speed with another, and the piece becomes a series of overlappings all the way through ... What I try to do is to give not only the impression of constant motion, but also the sense of the different ways that we experience motion...In a way, all the composers of the twentieth century, up to the time when I began, had been looking for a way to do this.Stravinsky, by writing music that constantly changed its pattern of rather fast, regular notes with irregular accents achieved a kind of stylized rubato. Schoenberg, on the other hand, wrote music that was like prose -- it had no common, basic beat.I was going to write music that combined these two ideas in one, and actually the opening of the Cello Sonata does exactly that."

Rosen refers to this combining of Stravinsky and Schoenberg in the recent documentaryElliott Carter - A Labyrinth of Time.

I recently began an investigation into the influence of Stravinsky, and this is part of my findings.Unusual orchestral textures is one obvious influence, chiefly from "The Rite of Spring," and rhythmic dynamism is another, the one that influenced Carter.

(verified library loan) ... Read more

Product Description
Three-movement symphony inspired by an English Jacobean poem about a bubble. 48 minutes. Composer Elliott Carter's 100th birthday was celebrated in December of 2008. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

Former CIA officer/special agent right on target
Carter Elliott brings to life the dialect and the folkways of one West Virginia community in this debut crime novel that snakes up snow-covered Sad Mother Mountain and skids down Dumb John's Mountain with page-turning prose skating by faster than a car hitting ice on a hairpin curve.

"Riding a Blue Horse" is the story of 14-year-old (and over the hill) Molly Small -- who's making her way to a West Virginia remote mountain county that headquarters a ring of kiddie-porn operators -- and Molly's unlikely protector, a lumbering, simpleminded 18-year-old the locals have nicknamed "Stupe."

Molly's unexpected appearance in Shawnee turns out to be but the first in a series of unusual events facing God-fearing state trooper Roscoe Bragg and young postal inspector Rens Vandermeer. The day after she arrives, a small private plane crashes into Dumb John's Mountain, leaving the pilot dead, and -- huddled in the snowy wreckage, a terrified, helpless, illegally adopted six-year-old boy. There's more surprises in store when, much to his astonishment, Stupe discovers the heavy leaf bag doesn't contain the dead fawn his daddy said he'd hit and wanted Stupe to bury.

The author knows his stuff: Elliott used to work for the CIA and had a second career in federal law enforcement. The former special agent also holds a Masters degree in clinical psychology, and he puts it all to good use in a poignant, richly layered story that resonates both in the heart and mind.

A very impressive debut
In the backwoods of West Virginia lies the heart of a kiddie porn operation. Into the lazy town of Shawnee drifts fourteen year old Molly Small, a prostitute- spunky, brash and old way beyond her years. She is looking for Turk, the man she wants to live with the rest of her life. She finds instead Stupe, a mentally impaired young man with strong religious convictions at odds with his belief to honor his mother and father. He learns that his father, Shug, runs a kiddie porn network that has harmed and occasionally killed young children. Stupe knows he must eventually stop his father- the question is how to do it and still remain true not only to the Ten Commandments but his new friend Molly. The result leads to an explosive confrontation that rings both tragic and true.
Very very impressive characterizations make this debut effort stand out. No less impressive is the great sense of locale. The remote Appalachian backwoods literally comes alive. There are slight problems with the flow and pacing of the story which appears to run out of steam about thirty pages too early. However, this is a remarkable achievement and well worth the reader's time.

Ready for book II
It's been two weeks since completing the book and I still find myself thinking about each character. Chapter after chapter left me feeling outraged or heartbroken, and brought more than a few chuckles as little Molly's ,less than polished, personality unfolded. The author writes with a vivid and decriptive quailty that brought the good, bad, and ugly events in the mountains of a small town in West Virginia to my nightstand. Molly and Stupe have a long future, and I look forward to a sequel.

Would make a good movie!
Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Very different and well-developed characters, especially Stupe and Molly. I felt like I knew them personally by the end of the book and kind of wanted to know what might become of them.
I loved the descriptions of the locales; they left very vivid pictures in my mind of what this rural area of West Virginia might be like.
I read lots of mystery novels and rank this one pretty high up there, in part because it was a different kind of story line, with unusual main characters. The fact that I can remember characters and the plot several months after reading it is something I can't say for many of the mysteries I read! ... Read more

Product Description
This collection of essays, discussions, pictures, and music honors one of America's finest composers on his 100th birthday. It contains articles and reminiscences by Pierre Boulez, Fred Lerdahl, Paul Griffith, Alvin Curran, Louis Karchin, Charles Rosen, Frederic Rzewski, Richard Wilson, John Ashbery, and Walter Zimmerman.

"The significance of Elliott carter s longevity is more fundamental than the mere
numbering of his years. Any work that has to do with performance enters a
space-perception of real time. Music, simply through the minutiae of its language,
intensifies real time. In Carter s music, to speak simply of real time would be
not only reductive, but also deceptive. His work engages perception of time on
planes of complexity, and alters that perception. It interacts, unravels, finds its
existential episteme in time and with time. The way in which the language of
Carter, and the specificity of its syntax and process, developed through many
years, brings another stratum of experience of time."

From the Preface by Marc Ponthus ... Read more

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This latest work in the Meredith Music master class series presents a comprehensive, interpretive analysis and performance guide of three legendary compositions for timpani and percussion. Together, Morris Lang, Charles Dowd, and Anthony J. Cirone have put a lifetime of performance and study experience into an extensive volume featuring Eight Pieces for Four Timpani by Elliott Carter, Concertino for Percussion and Small Orchestra by Darius Milhaud and l'Histoire du Soldat by Igor Stravinsky. This in-depth, one-of-a-kind publication includes: corrections of wrong notes, rhythms, phrasings, and dynamics; far-reaching suggestions on interpretation; revised notation when original music was difficult to read; suggested muffling to enhance interpretation; additional articulations when appropriate; suggested sticking to increase musical phrasing; historical references. ... Read more

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This is a comprehensive guide to research on the American composer Elliott Carter (b. 1908), widely acknowledged as one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century. It contains a chronology, complete list of works, detailed discography, and fully annotated bibliography of over 1,000 books, articles, interviews, video recordings, and Carter's own writings. This essential reference book covers the most significant works in English, French, German, and Italian, from the 1940s-when Carter's music first began to attract attention-to the 1990s. ... Read more

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Info from the author
I've set up a page on my web site with errata and addenda for Elliott Carter: A Guide to Research. If you spot any errors or have an Elliott Carter source you'd like to add, please drop by www.wpunj.edu/coac/music/link/ecgrerrata.html. Thanks! ... Read more

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Internationally recognized American composer Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. has composed over three dozen substantial pieces, ranging from stage and choral works to ballets, symphonies, and chamber music. Even at age 85, he continues to pioneer trails into new territory in modern American music. Carter has been the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships, two Pulitzer Prizes for Music, and numerous other awards and honors. This book contains a listing of all compositions by Carter with detailed information on premiere performances, a complete discography, and annotated citations of Carter's writings and writings about Carter and his music. ... Read more

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First performed by the Julliard String Quartet in 1960. Awarded the 1960 Pulitzer Prize, the 1960 New York Music Critics Circle Award, and the 1961 International Rostrum of Composers Award (UNESCO). Duration ca. 20 minutes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

more classic inshape water mark
with the Second Quartet 1959, you sense a greater undulating freedom of choice of materials,more compact,yet expansive for solo moments, texture is not as vigorusly pursued, of timbre, greater blends together, as if a common language has been now discovered/ / /the rhythmic conception is somewhat more static in nature,although you have incessant ties to identical tones over the barlines,something you might be torn asunder at a composition lesson as suggesting a course in music without meaning;at least Ralph Shapey would have told you so/ / / and you only see these dimensions within the maze of study of the First Quartet. There is greater diversity of everyone contributing toward an emotive center,more soloist lines exposed, the brilliant cello returns again , as in the First Quartet each part leading into the next player,interruptions only occur when new materials are needed to prod things along, like electric charges, or a new light added to the rhythmic maze pursued herein' each player entering fully conscious of the purpose of the phrase and direction of the proceedings herein, even if the materials are purely accompanimental and marginal to the quartets agenda. When characters emerge, they have longer declamations and come to dominate larger swabs of durational frames, as the First Violin attibuting a modest cadenza toward the latter parts of the third movement 'Andante espressivo'. Overall there seems to be greater assertiveness of purpose here, shorter time length half the time of the 40 minute First Quartet. This Second Quartet, seems to relish in the relative brevity of its existence,with cleaner threadbare lines, keeping less independence, yet not entirely so. The emotive thorny questioning state(from the First Quartet) is pulled in as well, there is far less ground to tread here, and the beauty comes through all the more. There are also a larger pallette(s) of extended sounds, three different pizz items with,Left-hand pizz, arco-pizz-arco, and the violent Bartok pizz, snapped against the fingerboard, and a fair amount of glissandi/ / / Carter advises in his introductory notes that tempi and polyrhythmic textures must be adhered to faithfully so to clearly experience the complexity sought after.This work won all sorts of prizes including the Pulitzer,but don't let that skew your view,music should be examined as it stands, and as it was written not what it has won, unless it is a race horse, and I imagine many composers today would like their music to take on such thorough-bred 'Seebisket"dimensions. ... Read more

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Carter-Ruck on Libel and Slander is an essential purchase for every practitioner involved with the law of defamation or the law of contempt. Consisting of an account of the law of defamation in over 50 different countries, it includes coverage of three additional jurisdictions: Eastern Europe, Malaysia and Singapore. It takes account of the Defamation Act 1996 and will be of value to all those whose activities take them into the international field. ... Read more

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For flute, oboe, cello and harpsichord. ... Read more