Macro Carter / Micro Carter (1983–1999)

In the 1980s Carter began to produce two distinct streams of music: large-scale works extending the techniques of the previous decade, and miniatures that forecast the style of his later compositions, big and small. Expanding on the two voice substructure of Night Fantasies, the large scale works of this decade systematically explore contrapuntal designs with three, four, or five components. While the early short works present similar designs in miniature, later ones take on a more informal, improvisatory character. With a change from an American to a British publisher, most commissions now came from the UK or Europe, and in 1988 Carter sold his papers to the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel.