Steven Schwartz wrote:

>Dave Hardman:
>
>>I cannot understand why Americans don't boast loudly about Elliott Carter.
>
>Well, for one thing, he's hard.  For another, most Americans don't know
>who the hell he is, including Americans supposedly interested in the arts.
>Fortunately, Carter, with family money from children's clothes, doesn't
>have to care.

I thought he was part of the Carter family that made the "Little Liver
Pills." The fortune isn't in question.

>That all said, I must admit my reservations about a lot of Carter, chief of
>which is that he's never vulgar; everything is in great taste.  It bothers
>me, for example, that Ives inspires him, but the culture that inspired Ives
>does not.

An interesting observation.  I would counter (as devils advocate) that
perhaps the culture inspired him in less overt ways than it did Ives.  In
his own way he pursued the course of individualism as Ives did.  I think
he's definitely an American composer.

Chris Bonds