In Portrait: Elliott Carter

The London Sinfonietta present a selection of works from Pulitzer Prize winning composer, Elliott Carter, in the first of three composer portrait concerts presented as part of the Kings Place Festival.

Of course, music might also want to keep track of (or keep pace with) the present. One way of doing this is through the marking of birthdays and anniversaries, and in his prolific 70s and 80s Elliott Carter wrote numerous short tributes to colleagues which did just that, while also often intensively exploring the qualities of just one or two instruments – as in the whimsical Gra for solo clarinet, written for the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski’s 80th birthday.

In esprit rude/esprit doux , for flute and clarinet, the title contains a complex but playful pun, referring to the ‘rough breathing’ and ‘smooth breathing’ marks which can be seen on the initial letters of the ancient Greek words for ‘sixtieth year’, and thus encapsulating a typically Carterian mix of learning and playfulness in this birthday tribute to Pierre Boulez. ‘Seventieth year’ in Greek has the same initials, and so 10 years later Carter revisited the title, no doubt little expecting that not only Boulez but also he himself, 17 years Boulez’s senior and now a sprightly 102 years old, would still be composing a decade and a half later!

Half a lifetime ago, the Eight Pieces for Four Timpani were among Carter’s earliest explorations of how the kinds of simultaneity that usually arise between two separate strands of instrumental activity can be made to exist in music for a single player.