Volume 31, Number 9 · May 31, 1984
Fascinatin' Modulation
By Bayan Northcott
The Music of Elliott Carter
by David Schiff
Da Capo, 371 pp., $39.50
During a recent public discussion at a British festival of contemporary music, someone told Elliott Carter that his new Triple Duo sounded relatively 'free' compared with the elaborate constructions of his previous works. 'Oh, no!' he replied. 'It has just as strict an underlying scheme…only, at a certain point, this began to get boring, so I curtailed it.' Instantly the faces of his predominantly student audience brightened: 'If even the great Carter can break his own rules, then perhaps we needn't feel so inhibited,' was evidently the unvoiced collective thought. It implied much, not only about Carter's reputation but about several notions of composition and musical analysis widely assumed today.
Review, 2847 words
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