<h1 class="entry-title"><font size="4"><span style="font-weight:normal">O mundo da arte fica mais triste hoje, pois perdemos um dos maiores compositores da atualidade... Abraço, Sonia</span></font><br></h1><h1 class="entry-title">
Elliott Carter: the obituaries</h1><p><a href="http://johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/elliott-carter-the-obituaries/">http://johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/elliott-carter-the-obituaries/</a><br></p>
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<p><img class="alignnone" title="Elliott Carter, 1964" alt="" src="http://blog.oregonlive.com/classicalmusic/2008/01/medium_carter_score_sm.jpg" height="317" width="239"></p>
<p>Yesterday, Elliott Carter’s publisher, Boosey and Hawkes, announced
the news that one of America’s greatest composers had passed away at
103. Carter’s centurion career was so enduring, his output so
age-defying, that new terms – ‘late maturity’, ‘post-maturity’ – had to
be invented to capture the work of his ninth, tenth and eleventh
decades. Some of us even began to wonder whether we would ever hear this
news, sad though it is. When I received the email from Boosey’s this
morning the headline seemed so improbable I passed over it at first.</p>
<p>Here are links to some of the best obituaries that are coming out:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.boosey.com/cr/news/Composer-Elliott-Carter-dies-at-age-103/100092">Boosey and Hawkes</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The great range and diversity of his music has, and will
continue to have, influence on countless composers and performers
worldwide. He will be missed by us all but remembered for his
brilliance, his wit and his great canon of work.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/nov/06/elliott-carter">Ivan Hewett, <em>Guardian</em></a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Urban and “machine-age” sounds and gestures did not
interest him; they were too much of the moment. He wanted a modernism
beyond fashion, rooted in a new kind of syntax, and to achieve that some
European sophistication would be necessary. All the things he had
absorbed would eventually find a place his modernist idiom: the idea of
dramatic personages found in Mozart operas, the independent layers of
English madrigals, the syntactic rigour of Arnold Schoenberg – and the
combination of strict and free rhythm in jazz pianists he admired, such
as Art Tatum.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/9657979/Elliott-Carter-appreciation.html">Hewett has also written an appreciation for the <em>Telegraph</em></a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>One felt more sure of things in his presence, as if his
own amazing single-mindedness created its own aura. He was able to be so
genially tolerant of music we all knew he must despise, like
minimalism, because he was so sure of his own path.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-me-elliott-carter-20121106,0,4929132.story">Mark Swed, <em>Los Angeles Times</em></a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The third of “the three Cs” of American music, Carter, like his contemporaries Aaron Copland and<a id="PECLB000796" title="John Cage" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/entertainment/music/john-cage-PECLB000796.topic">John Cage</a>,
did much to define the American sound in the 20th century. Restless,
inquiring and perpetually up to date, his music tended to be
ever-changeable, and his most important contribution was rhythmic
invention. He resisted a constricting regular pulse, seeking instead a
more organic way of thinking about time. [...]</p>
<p>Carter’s sense of rhythm and meter had its mathematical component as
well. He experimented with the effects of playing different melodies at
different speeds at the same time. But this technique, rather than
making everything sound at cross purposes, rewarded anyone willing to
concentrate hard enough with the experience of relativity without the
bother of space flight.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/arts/music/elliott-carter-avant-garde-composer-dies-at-103.html?pagewanted=all">Allan Kozinn, <em>New York Times</em></a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>“As a young man, I harbored the populist idea of writing
for the public,” he once explained to an interviewer who asked him why
he had chosen to write such difficult music. “I learned that the public
didn’t care. So I decided to write for myself. Since then, people have
gotten interested.”</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/elliott-carter-dies-pulitzer-prize-winning-american-composer-was-103/2012/11/05/7a9c4e8c-c5da-11df-94e1-c5afa35a9e59_story.html">Anne Midgette, <em>Washington Post</em></a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Mr. Carter’s career was like some of the towering
cathedrals of Europe: so long in the making that it reflected the
dramatic shifts in artistic style that take place over a century.</p></blockquote>