Stirling Newberry recently wonder why no one had discussed the string
quartets of Elliott Carter in any detail during the recent thread on 20th
century quartets. Here's a preliminary stab, in hopes of generating a
discussion.
For me, Carter's body of works constitute a document of a narrative whose
subject is the living of life in the Modern and, now, Post-Modern world.
The five string quartets constitute a private diary of this struggle.
In 1950 and 51, the composer, frustrated by years of writing music he
felt was accessible, in the Neo-classical style of the times, only to be
rejected by the public, and the subject of a negative campaign by Aaron
Copland, went to the desert to write the kind of music he wanted to write,
whether it could be played or not. The result was the First Quartet--an
expansive, wind-blown piece that the composer himself wasn't sure could be
played.
Carter entered the Quartet in a competition in Liege. After the
performance a musician was telling his coal miner friend why it was a bad
piece. The coal miner threatened to punch the musician out, say, "This
'Chronometros' [Carter's nom de concours] knows what it is to struggle
every day in the coal mines. This is music for the struggling man."
(Paraphrasing)
In this Quartet, in many respects Carter's first mature work, we hear a
number of his trademark stylistic characteristics--textural stratification,
cinematic cross-cutting, characterization of instruments by musical
elements, and circular forms. The First Quartet is a good introduction to
Carter because of its expansiveness and its insistence on clear melodic
statement.
The Second Quartet (1959) finds the composer refining the techniques of
the First, and producing a concentrated, intense study in quartet (and
personal) dynamics. All of the musical parameters are strictly partitioned
between the instruments, creating a set of distinct characters to act out
the composer's "auditory-scenario", a drama of confrontation and
cooperation.
(cont.)
Steve Hicken
|