Although Elliott Carter often has been called America`s most eminent composer, it`s a narrow eminence.
For Carter never has, and probably never will, fit the mold of a Philip Glass or a William Bolcom or other composers who have consciously sought broadly based ”popular” acceptance and approval. Carter`s approval derives from an internationally active band of musicians and similarly committed advocates in the press and listening audience.
His music is not easy music, nor does he intend it to be. Much as the 84- year-old Carter might privately covet the image of the grandfatherish, genially accessible American composer once projected by the late Aaron Copland, he has maintained his crusty independence and, in so doing, rejected the idea that his music should necessarily be accessible to audiences on first, or even second, hearing.
”I`ve always thought it was a waste of time to think about being accessible. If I could write simple music that I thought was good, I would,” says the composer, whose recent work, ”Three Occasions for Orchestra,” will receive its first Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances at this week`s subscription concerts in Orchestra Hall, with Pierre Boulez conducting.
”The only real accessibility I am interested in is to interest performers and make them feel this (music) is important and valuable and will be rewarding to them as human beings. If they believe that, the piece eventually will find its public; if they don`t believe it, no matter how successful it is, it won`t be played much.”
That kind of fiercely committed belief does seem to be necessary for all who would master or experience Carter`s challenging music. A Carter score, concerned as it is not only with notes but with ideas and feelings and what it means to live in today`s turbulent world, makes extraordinary demands on performers and listeners alike. As critic David Hamilton has observed, ”It is there for those who agree with him that difficult things are worth making, that not every valuable idea can be expressed simply.”
Works like the ”Symphony of Three Orchestras” (which the Chicago Symphony performed in 1984) thus can appear on first hearing noisy, fractious, even chaotic. Carter`s music often suggests irreconcilable forces at war with one another, each asserting its voice over a field of ever-shifting meters, rhythms, textures and harmonies. Concentrated attention and repeated hearings are necessary before one can perceive the power, order and meaning behind his seemingly random eruptions of notes.
Of course there is no guarantee that many listeners are apt to understand Carter`s music, much less enjoy it. The composer has conceded he writes music for an ideal public rather than an existing public; he once said it often takes 20 years for his pieces to begin to sound the way he imagined them.
Yet there are signs that his ideal and existing publics are drawing closer together now that a younger generation of highly skilled musicians has helped to raise the overall level of performance. The Arditti, Juilliard and Kronos quartets widely perform the four Carter string quartets as part of their active repertories. Entire festivals are devoted to Carter`s music in London, San Francisco, Lisbon and Turin. Boulez, Ursula Oppens, Charles Rosen are among the prominent musicians regularly championing his works all over the world.
”Now there are pieces like my `Woodwind Quintet` (1947) and `Cello Sonata` (1948) that get played by students all over the world,” Carter reports, with evident satisfaction. ”At Tanglewood several seasons ago I heard (cellist) Joel Krosnick of the Juilliard Quartet teach some students to play my `Second String Quartet,` and they did very well. I was amazed.”
That`s quite a change from the years when even Carter`s relatively simple, neoclassical scores of the `40s were considered unplayable. The composer himself said as much of his ”String Quartet No. 1” soon after writing it in 1951; now it is considered one of the standard works of the American repertory.
The whole issue, Carter observes, depends a great deal on time-also the ear of the beholder.
”Serge Koussevitzky, the great conductor of the Boston Symphony, was a judge in a contest in which my `Holiday Overture` won a prize. He was supposed to play it in Boston but refused because the other judges voted for it and he found it too difficult, too hard to understand. Years later Copland conducted it at Tanglewood. Koussevitzky`s widow came up to me and said, `You see, it`s just as hard as Serge said it was.”`
CSO subscribers can rest assured Carter`s ”Three Occasions” are not hard to understand. The work (1986-1989) consists of three short orchestral pieces, each of which may be performed separately or together as a suite. The first, ”A Celebration of Some 100 X 150 Notes,” is a series of fanfares commissioned by the Houston Symphony in honor of the 150th anniversary of Texas` statehood. The second, ”Remembrance,” is a monologue for trombone and orchestra in honor of Paul Fromm, the late Chicago wine merchant and philanthropist. The third, ”Anniversary,” is a gift to Carter`s wife, Helen, on their 50th wedding anniversary.
The music world is gearing up for further tributes on the occasion of Carter`s 85th birthday celebration next season. More than eight years ago the Chicago Symphony commissioned a new orchestral work from him; the composer says the as-yet-untitled work is about three-quarters finished and he hopes to have it ready in time for the September, 1993, deadline; no performance date has been announced.
When you talk to Carter these days he doesn`t much sound like the high-minded composer who walked out of Orchestra Hall before the CSO`s 1984 performance of his ”Symphony of Three Orchestras” because he objected to the seemingly flippant tone of conductor Leonard Slatkin`s spoken introduction. Critics have detected a new lyricism in such recent works as his oboe and violin concertos (both of which await performance in Chicago), although Carter is quick to deny he has in any way mellowed.
”I like to do what I like to do, and that`s about it,” he observes, laconically.
Given the two Pulitzer Prizes and numerous other honors that have come Carter`s way, also given the fact that he is among the few major composers who have been able to live off their music and its performances, you would think that would make him reasonably content.
But no: ”People keep saying to me, `Now that you`re well known, you keep getting these performances.` Well, it`s really no different from when I didn`t get any performances. Maybe now I get a couple of hundred dollars more a year out of it. It`s very disturbing. It has nothing to do with recognition: I am fortunate to have received more recognition in Europe than here; over there it seems to have absolutely no relation to commercialism. That is something no one in our society could understand.”
And Carter is none too encouraged by the current state of serious composition in America.
”What is gradually happening is that composition is being assimilated into the field of entertainment. The composer in America is up against very highly advertised media of every kind. Take painting, for example; because it has a rather important commercial and investment value, it is constantly being pushed by different media. Music has none of this, so there is no reason to push it. That makes us (composers) lost souls. It means you have to be very devoted to what you are doing to stick with it at all.”
As one who lived through music`s great modernist revolution of the early part of the century-a revolution that brought such innovators as Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Bartok to the fore-Carter may be excused a certain pessimism as he surveys the present generation of composers, few of whom he believes are interested in advancing the language in any comparable way.
”There are more well-trained young composers around than ever before, but they are all in a kind of creative confusion because the society is itself in such confusion. When I was younger we all admired the extraordinary imaginative quality of Stravinsky and Schoenberg, and we believed one should try to write things that lived up to their skills, their originality. I don`t think young people think that way anymore.”
Despite his dour outlook, Carter says he is eagerly looking forward to attending the first Chicago Symphony performance of ”Three Occasions” on Thursday night.
”I like to come to various performances of my music because it sharpens my feeling about the scores. One gets to learn a lot of things about the possible performance problems of a piece. There are always an infinite number of little details you can improve by indicating who is louder or softer, how expressively they should play. You pick up things that can help the performers learn the piece more quickly and thus save time the next time around.”
Carter has, of course, an even more basic reason for interrupting his work to come to Chicago.
”You see, I believe in my music,” the composer explains, a sly smile creasing his venerable features. ”I guess a composer should, no matter how misguided he or she might be in that belief.”
