Composer
Biography:
Elliott Carter, born on 11 December 1908 in New York, developed an interest in avant-garde music while at high school, where he was encouraged by Charles Ives. He studied at Harvard University under Walter Piston and Gustav Holst, and in Paris under Nadia Boulanger. Since then, he has lived as a composer and teacher in New York and Waccabuc (NY). He has won the Pulitzer Prize twice and is the recipient of numerous awards.
Carter's early compositions can be classified as “neoclassical”. Increasingly dissatisfied with his own musical language, he travelled to the Sonora Desert near Tucson, Arizona, in 1950, where he wrote his First String Quartet. This 40-minute work marks a turning point in Carter's oeuvre. It is more rugged, dissonant and complex than his earlier works. Over the past two decades, his creativity has reached a peak, resulting in countless important works for orchestra, solo concertos, works for smaller ensembles and chamber music formations.
In 1999, at the age of 90, Carter wrote his first opera, What Next, which premiered in Berlin at the Staatsoper unter den Linden. With advancing age, his music became more transparent, subtle and humorous, with a fascinating and surprising richness of form, elegant even in the densest counterpoint. These recordings by the Swiss Chamber Soloists are a resounding testimony to the congenial late work of one of the most important composers of the turn of the millennium.
Albums:
Isao Nakamura plays Works for Solo Percussion:
Happy Birthday, Elliott Carter! – New Chamber Works:
