Well, Cage was the man who said 'If my work is accepted, I must move on to the point where it isn't' (can't remember the source of that quote). Certainly he's more accepted than in previous times (and must be one of the most, if not the most, recorded of all composers who established their reputations after 1945). But not widely accepted enough to gain the epithet sometimes associated with Carter.

This shows very clearly how right we are to define the seventh-rater as "he who composes with the intention of annoying his audience."

In fact the mere mention of the name of this fool suffices to annoy us, who have no truck with trivia.

"Irony"? We see no irony. We quite enjoy old Mr. Carter's music, especially his Piano Concerto, what. It is we think a most suitable introduction to serious music for youths. We regard him as the acceptable face of North American music.

But we have nothing particularly new to add to received opinion of Carter; perhaps though we might at least list his advantages:

1) He learned to speak French before he could speak American English - his first language was a Latin one! He knew, then, how to order his ideas.

2) He was exposed to Scryabine at quite an early age - in 1924 to be precise. To Varèse too!

3) Back in Paris in the 1930's he devoted himself for three years almost exclusively to the study of strict counterpoint. Would that to-day's posturing - sorry "gesturing" - ultra-modernists would do the same!

4) He himself cites his study and performance of Bach's Cantatas as the most decisive influence upon his musical life - and how it shows!

5) Again, he has stated that the most radical work a North American composer could write would be one like Brahms's Fourth Symphony, which assumed the most highly-developed musical culture in its auditors. He is clearly a man after our own heart!

6) Finally we find no record of his ever having got married; in that eschewal (if it is true) he resembles the majority of North American composers. It may be one of the secret reasons of his long life and successful life-work. Compare him with Schönberg here in 1912 who hardly had time to finish anything properly:


Later note: we thank Mr. Sudden for having found out that old Mr. Carter was in fact married and for a very long time. It was to a lady herself an artist - perhaps it was that that made the difference.

Yes, she was a sculptor, one of the wittiest women of Greenwich Village and she was married to Carter for many years.

Perhaps Member Grew should watch Frank Scheffer's excellent film A Labyrinth of Time:

http://www.amazon.com/Labyrinth-Time-Region-Elliott-Carter/dp/B000H4VZH6

For many years, indeed. Please watch that film.      

I realise that you've accepted the correction since but wonder why you stepped in so unequivocally with so glaring an error. Not only did he marry the scultor Helen Frost Jones (born on the Fourth of July 1907) on 6 July 1939 (she died of cancer in May 2003) but she was arguably one of the most vociferous and persistent in encouraging Elliott to concentrate more on pursuing his aspirations as a composer and less on writing about others' music.

Best,

Alistair

We are reminded, are we not, of the wise words of Mr Cyril "Fatty" Connolly, the North London lemur lover, who famously opined "There is no more sombre enemy of art than the pram in the hall".

We can only fear, judging from your daguerreotype, that poor bald Mr Schoenberg had to clamber past a bi-cycle as well as several perambulators and scowling children before he could pursue his solitary art. It is no wonder that, with all these family fripperies and diversions to waylay his pursuit of the Sublime he found himself obliged to rely on crude mechanistic 'systems' as a substitute for reaching out, as greater men do, to pure spiritual beauty and harmony!