Overview

Elliott Carter (1908-2012) was the foremost composer of classical music in America during the second half of the 20th century. Over the course of a career that spanned seven decades, he consistently produced works that critics hailed as creatively daring, intellectually demanding, and emotionally complex. Distancing himself from the various ""schools"" and movements that grew and waned in popularity during the postwar era, Carter cultivated a deeply personal musical style that he developed and refined up until the very end of his life. This book of the composer springs from author David Schiff's life-long interest in Elliott Carter's music and his close personal connection with the composer which spanned over forty years. This critical overview of Carter's life and work explores aspects of the composer's life about which he was usually reticent--and occasionally misleading--such as his complicated relationships with Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, Nicolas Nabokov, and his own parents. Schiff's study of Carter's complete oeuvre--from his politically charged Depression-era ballets to the deeply personal and reflective late works--is based on extensive study of the composer's personal sketches and letters. Featuring an in-depth look at the legacy project of Carter's final decade, seven settings of American modernist poetry by E.E. Cummings, T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams, this newest addition to the Master Musicians Series paints with a fine brush the story of America's foremost composer of the second half of the twentieth century.

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9780190259181

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Reviews

Like a photographer returning to the same image over time and capturing changes both subtle and large-scale, David Schiff has interpreted the revered yet enigmatic composer Elliott Carter over the course of 35 years, viewing his work from ever-shifting perspectives. In Carter, his first major exploration of Carter since the composer's death, Schiff offers a whole new book that brims with unexpected insights. Alternately admiring and ambivalent yet continuously revelatory, Schiff searches for the essence of Carter's voice, delivering a trenchant critique in gorgeously shaped prose. - Carol Oja, William Powell Mason Professor of Music, Harvard University David Schiff has written a book that combines extensive research with thoughtful speculation, sure to increase every reader's understanding of Elliott Carter's remarkable life in music. Elliott's continuity and consistency are revealed even though the musical challenges were forever changing. In reading about his early life (he was a chain-smoking stutterer), I was struck by the challenges he faced in gaining professional acceptance (and performances). In the detailed description of his compositions we learn however that challenges were also very often self-imposed. I like Schiff's suggestion that Elliott's 'life-long impulse was to shape musical stories out of the life in each note', thus giving us tales galore to ponder and delight in. - Lucy Shelton, Soprano

"""Like a photographer returning to the same image over time and capturing changes both subtle and large-scale, David Schiff has interpreted the revered yet enigmatic composer Elliott Carter over the course of 35 years, viewing his work from ever-shifting perspectives. In Carter, his first major exploration of Carter since the composer's death, Schiff offers a whole new book that brims with unexpected insights. Alternately admiring and ambivalent yet continuously revelatory, Schiff searches for the essence of Carter's voice, delivering a trenchant critique in gorgeously shaped prose."" - Carol Oja, William Powell Mason Professor of Music, Harvard University ""David Schiff has written a book that combines extensive research with thoughtful speculation, sure to increase every reader's understanding of Elliott Carter's remarkable life in music. Elliott's continuity and consistency are revealed even though the musical challenges were forever changing. In reading about his early life (he was a chain-smoking stutterer), I was struck by the challenges he faced in gaining professional acceptance (and performances). In the detailed description of his compositions we learn however that challenges were also very often self-imposed. I like Schiff's suggestion that Elliott's 'life-long impulse was to shape musical stories out of the life in each note', thus giving us tales galore to ponder and delight in."" - Lucy Shelton, Soprano"

Author Information

David Schiff is a composer, conductor, and writer. He was educated at Columbia and Cambridge Universities, at the Manhattan School of Music and at the Juilliard School where he studied with Elliott Carter for three years. In addition to the two editions of his Music of Elliott Carter, he has written books about the music of George Gershwin and Duke Ellington, and numerous articles about music for The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, the Times Literary Supplement, and The Nation.

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