A great composer you rarely hear on WFCR
Date:
11/06/2012 Contributor:
A giant of American classical composition died yesterday, at the gigantic age of 103. Not only did Elliott Carter enjoy tremendous longevity, his keen mind and good health allowed him to compose well into his last year, each new work further burnishing his sterling reputation among musicians, critics and a coterie of fans. Carter's sonatas, concertos, symphonic and vocal works and especially string quartets constitute extremely significant additions to their genres, like all great works speaking for their time, place and creator as well as honoring their great tradition. Here, clearly, was a composer to include on any list of America's most important.
Yet despite all of the above, you will rarely encounter any of Carter's music on WFCR. Not to make it "all about us," but I thought this would be a good time to explain why this is, and why it indicates no disrespect for Carter or his work.
Listeners come to WFCR's classical music from many angles and for many reasons. Our audience includes a small (but vocal!) percentage of trained musicians, a few utter neophytes and, mostly, folks who really like classical music, wouldn't claim expertise, enjoy hearing their favorites, and are also fairly open to new sounds and new information. For most, the music accompanies some other activity, such as working, driving or even talking, though the music is also there for concentrated listening when something catches their ear.
This affects how we decide what music to play and what music, despite its quality, we don't play as much or at all. A reasonably degree of accessibility, while not sufficient, is a necessary quality for a piece of music to make it onto the playlist. Music that demands close listening and repeated hearings is going to get neither from most listeners (a fact of life and radio, not a criticism), so is not going to be shown at its best even if played. This goes for the old masters, which is why Beethoven's otherworldly late sonatas and quartets, or brainy Bach anthologies like "The Art of Fugue" make only rare appearances. And it certainly goes for contemporary works, where we make no bones about choosing for airplay those of both high quality and potential immediate reach-out-and-grab-you appeal.
When it comes to Elliott Carter's music, or at least that following his remarkable stylistic shift in the late-1940s (read the obits in the NY Times or Washington Post for a description of his music), there is little question about its quality. The craft, the scope, the creativity, the originality, the personality, the seriousness, the playfulness, the stamp of genius — all there in great abundance. What are not there are any of the normal signposts that allow a listener to understand where he or she is upon first entering Carter's dense and confusing aural landscape. Recognizable melody? The emotionally satisfying interplay of consonance and dissonance? A sense of harmonic direction, of departure and return? Moments of rest and repose? Well, it's not as if they're not there. But they're there the way they are if one was attempting to read "Finnegans Wake" translated into Tamil. These are not works made for chance encounters on the radio, between Mozart and Chopin. One selects Carter's works for oneself, knowing full well what one is in for and what is demanded. The rewards can be many, which is why musicians will continue to explore his music for years to come. But Carter is not and likely never will be accessible enough for radio programming, at least on this station. Like other subcategories of the wide, wonderful world of classical music, Elliott Carter is going to have to be one that those with the desire to explore will have to do so on their own.
So, some recommendations, each with a link to the CD as available at ArkivMusic.com:
Symphony No. 1, Holiday Overture, Piano Concerto. Mark Wait, piano, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Kenneth Schermerhorn, conductor. Two splendid works from Carter's early neo-classical period, along with one of his densest from the 1960s.
The Complete Piano Music. Ursula Oppens, piano. Along with several short works from Carter's last decades, this superb album features the 1946 Piano Sonata, a brilliant transitional work of gripping power, and the 1980 "Night Fantasies," one of his best-known and oft-recorded later works.
String Quartets Nos. 1 & 5. Pacifica Quartet. The Quartet No. 1 of 1951 is the work in which Carter found his unique voice — a worthy successor the the Second Quartet of Charles Ives.
Cello Concertos by Carter and Elgar. Alisa Weilerstein, cello. Staatskaplle Berlin, Daniel Barenboim, conductor. An amazing example of Carter's creativity at the end of his ninth decade, with a highly expressive account of the Elgar Concerto coming along for the ride.
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Comments
RE: A great composer you rarely hear on WFCR
What a thrill to turn on my car radio for a trip back to the Berkshires over the top of the world (well, Massachusetts: on a lightly traveled Rte. 9) and hear Elliott Carter's Cello Concerto on WFCR, almost from the beginning!
And I could tell this was not the familiar (still first-class) Fred Sherry recording but a new interpretation, played to the hilt. An even greater thrill was the announcement at the end telling me that the performers were major mainstream classical artists recording for a mainstream label--and finding later that the same CD contains two standard, well-loved cello and orchestra works. Classical music lives!
I understood, of course, that daytime WFCR wouldn't be having this miniature Carter-fest if the composer's death hadn't just been big news. And I can sympathize with John Montanari's reasons why our excellent modern repertoire is rarely selected for daytime radio, although I think the difference in concentration a listener gives to Carter or Babbitt as opposed to Chopin or Mozart is a difference of degree, not of kind.
Why not find a time slot on the weekend for a program devoted to modern classical music? I'm thinking of a program I used to hear when I lived in Cincinnati ages ago hosted by Myron Bennett, a man of both knowledge and opinions who often seemed to march to a different drummer but still went a long way toward filling in the gaps. I'm sure WFCR can do it!
Thanks for the kudos! Credit
Thanks for the kudos! Credit goes to Walter Carroll, who scheduled the Cello Concerto. And heck, we might just play it again some day soon. Your desire for a weekend modern music show is one that I have also long harbored. This is just one of the many things NEPR could do if we could add a full-time classical station to the roster, one that does for classical what WNNZ does for news and information. Given the utter paucity of available radio frequencies, it's probably a pipe dream. but we keep looking and trying.
Accessibility for radio
As the jazz host at WFCR, I could apply your thoughts about the appropriateness of Carter's music for radio to any number of jazz artists, including major figures like Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, much of whose music lacks the "reasonable degree of accessibility" that makes for the best use of music on the radio.
Doug Ramsey's jazz blog Rifftides noted Carter's passing this week, and elicited letters from several readers about connections between his music and jazz. One reader provides a link to an interview in which Carter says that Duke Ellington told him he heard the influence of jazz in his Symphony No. 1.
Here's an excerpt from a letter by William Osborne to which I found myself nodding in agreement:
"[Carter] turned away from populism and very consciously cultivated an ironic kind of populism among a very powerful musical elite.
Another irony is that composers like Barber, Menotti, Hanson, and Copland, whose music was more approachable, were not accepted by that elite. Their isolation among the established forces in the new music world hindered their development and output as artists – especially in their later years.
The meaning and history of populism has also radically changed in the jazz world over the last 100 years. Jazz too has evolved toward a rarefied and elitist art form that eschews populism, which is very ironic given the genre’s history. This might also connect jazz to contemporary classical composers like Carter."
Yes, the style wars of
Yes, the style wars of late-20th-century classical music could get pretty rough, much like they had in jazz, rock, etc. I'm not aware that Carter, unlike Boulez and Babbitt, for instance, was much of a participant, though more knowledgeable readers may correct me. From the interviews I've read, Carter was aware of his music's difficulty though thought it had been overstated, and seemed genuinely content to write the way he did for his own and his performers' enjoyment. And whatever else one can or cannot easily hear in Carter's music, I think a degree of playfulness is readily apparent.
your comments
yes, your comments seem fairly accurate.
his Piano Concerto is quite the sound trip, but just not a good fit for m-f 9-4.
anonumass
Mr. Carter on the radio
Your comments seem to make my little squib about Wagner seem all the more pertinent:
http://liberateddissonance.blogspot.com/2010/07/wagner-sees-light.html
Indeed. And if we had
Indeed. And if we had extensive nighttime and locally-programmed overnight classical programming, it might be different. But in the meantime: Do you think Tuesday afternoon at 2:30 would be a good time for the Double Concerto? I'd also say that if you think that WFCR's programming is researched and focus-grouped to death, you should listen to it, research the playlists, and then make your case.