Elliott Carter Now

Anyone writing about Elliott Carter today must deal with the lack of a critical biography and the reticence and occasional inaccuracies of his own biographical statements, and the lack of a consensus about his music as evidenced in particular by the respect his work finds in Europe as opposed to a decline in critical reputation and performances in the USA. Unique qualities in the music become clearer if attention is paid to its opposition of dark and light themes, and to the role played by quasi-mathematical calculations in Carter’s compositional process. A better understanding of his entire career will arise only as the extraordinary output of his last decades becomes more familiar.