I didn't speak to a great number of people about Carter. Spahlinger has no use for him, and he shares with many a suspicion about very fundamental pitch organizational issues that are important to Carter. He'd likely dismiss it as a glass bead game, not much more. I'll just leave that standing without comment, except to acknowledge that it reveals a lot about Spahlinger.

Eötvös is extremely fond of Carter, almost to the point of reverence. I was at a conducting workshop where we did Triple Duo, and Eötvös upheld it as a true masterpiece.

Ensemble Recherche put on a Carter/Wuorinen concert back in the day, and Lucas Fels explained to me that they felt it was simply fantastic music. I don't know who "they" is in this case, since I'm sure everyone in (and formerly in) the group has their own opinion. I think he surely meant fantastic simply in terms of craftsmanship and the pleasure one gets from playing it, though I didn't ask him to elaborate.

On the whole, Carter is probably regarded as too conservative (!) in most of the circles I have frequented. Maybe I need to frequent other circles, but there is something to that... there are major aspects of music-making that Carter strives to keep intact whose integrity has been called into question by developments since the 1950s. That isn't to condemn him or underestimate his value and influence, but to say he isn't talked about much e.g., in Darmstadt.

I like that "glass bead game" analogy. I think this is related to one reason why Carter's independent means entered into the discussion, and indeed one reason why he's not among those composers whose work I feel particularly close to - there seems never to be any sense of struggle about it, of going beyond one's own limits: the craft is always consummate, the control always total, whatever boats have been pushed out are securely anchored, and so on. Sometimes I find that attractive (while wondering at the same time how it's possible to write music in such a way), sometimes not.

He may not be talked about much in Darmstadt (which doesn't really say anything for or against him, does it?), but in the UK, from what I gather, he seems to be regarded as "the acceptable face of modernism" - performers, commentators and other composers who generally don't have much time for music as intricate and "difficult" as that seem often to make an exception for Carter. I don't know if this is a mistaken impression.

Well, I am sure Carter himself thought at some points that he was taking risks, even very considerable risks; I can't imagine that the correlation between financial security and desire-for musical security has any logical basis. It seems the opposite is what I'd expect. This is why I regret bringing up the issue, since it will lead to a speculative back-and-forth.

I don't make any correlation between relevance and whether someone is discussed at Darmstadt. Ian just asked me my experience, and I brought up Darmstadt b/c I'm frequently there.

Not mistaken, and not just in the U.K. Videlicet Eötvös, Knussen, Barenboim, etc etc

I don't know what to tell you. I agree that his work often seems rather "harmless" in comparison to that of his European contemporaries, but that is not only because of his personal wealth, or his being an American. Charles Ives was wealthy and American and his music is certifiably outrageous.

As for his intentions, I do suggest you read his writings. I do believe he thought he was addressing 'the complexities of modern life', but felt there were lines that it wasn't necessary to cross in order to do so. This may be a bit disingenuous, and perhaps he was more strongly motivated by the desire for respectability (exactly that respectability that he enjoys today), but I am not sure that he wasn't, at the bottom of his heart, convinced that his work was the result of an essential process of questioning the human condition.

Are you certain that all the Europeans you mention are immune to the allegation that they fetishized technical sophistication? What about the ones you didn't mention?

As for whether Carter is or was as 'necessary' or vital as Nono etc., that's where the "back-and-forth" comes in. Except that I'm pretty much on your side. The folks like Aaron Cassidy, who is 'frightened' by Carter's 3rd Quartet, need to pipe in here.

At the risk of boring CD, who included this very question in my recent MM examination:

I wasn't alive in the late 1970s and early 1980s, so I don't know how Carter's music of that era was received upon first performance.  However, I'd put pieces like the Symphony of Three Orchestras, Night Fantasies, and Triple Duo in the absolute highest echelon of twentieth-century music.  On the other hand, if he totally mastered the twelve-note equal-tempered collection–and I think he did–then it's a double-edged critical sword:  His musical ambition is completely fulfilled, but finite, and (for me, at least) he's emblematic of an obsolete concept of music as "something that can be mastered."  I say "highest echelon of twentieth-century music" and not "twenty-first century music" because he's clearly a figure from a past era, even though he happens, somehow, to be alive.

His more recent music doesn't grab me as much as his older stuff, but it's still technically impeccable.  Unfortunately, Spahlinger's "glass bead game" comment–which I don't think is a fair description of those '70s and '80s pieces–hits uncomfortably close to home when considered in light of Symphonia, the ASKO Concerto, and 90+.  Personally, I plan to be dead long before I reach Carter's age, so I don't imagine I'll have to worry about that particular geriatric dysfunction.

Speaking of which, Carter's about fifteen years older than most of the aforementioned born-in-the-'20s composers, so I'm not sure it's fair to compare him with them.  Would we be having the same conversation about Mozart if he'd outlived Beethoven?  I think Carter's best work stacks up favorably with just about any other postwar composer's, but I don't think it's productive to compare him with someone like Lachenmann; EC is already history (in the "music textbook" sense as well as the "present-day relevance" sense).

Carter's "complexities of modern life" are complicated by the fact that he predates modern life in some pretty meaningful ways.  I remember AC pointing out once that there were no cars when Carter was born!  He may have lived a comfortable life, more or less, but keep in mind that he taught physics and Greek in Annapolis in addition to music–they don't raise kids like that in America anymore.  If you were to cut Elliott open, you'd probably lose count of the rings.

That said, I'll take Grido and Reigen seliger Geister over all of Carter's quartets any day (except maybe that excellent 3rd), but I'm not crazy about Gran Torso.

Edit:  It was very cool of you guys not to point out that I typed "80+" instead of "90+."  It has been fixed.

CD, it doesn't have to be about determining a 'league table' of string quartets, or composers, just that it can be interesting and informative to consider the essential attributes of a composer or piece by investigating how it differs from others which seem in some sense to stem from common roots, don't you think?

One other thought - though Carter's reputation in Europe is mixed, as already indicated, why do you think he has achieved a much wider following and profile there than Babbitt? One could attempt to make a case that on a surface level, Babbitt's music seems more 'radical', in the sense of less obvious connections with earlier gestural traditions.

If Elliott C is reading all of this (which I'm sure is not the case), I'd be seriously inclined to feel sorry for him were it not for the fact that he's surely capable in his own right of of rising above some of the comments made in this thread as he just gets on with what he wants to do. "Acceptable face of modernism"? What a load of ****s**t! If I can ever come to be recognised as having achieved status as "the acceptable face of" just myself, that'll be enough for me...

Best,

Alistair