Jimi Michiel

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2007 6:53 pm From the Associated Press NEW
> >> YORK --- American composer Elliott Carter, an exemplar of the
> >> atonalist style of modernism and according to admirers the
> >> greatest living practitioner of his craft, apologized to music
> >> lovers around the world today for what he called "a half century
> >> of wasted time."
> >>
> >> "What was I thinking?" the venerable Mr. Carter, 99, said at
> >> his home in Manhattan. "Nobody likes this stuff. Why have I
> >> wasted my life?" Carter said he "went wrong" back in the 1940s
> >> and spent the next 60 years pursuing the musical dead-end of
> >> atonality. In the past seven decades, he has produced five string
> >> quartets, a half dozen song cycles, works for orchestra, solo
> >> concertos and innumerable chamber works for various combinations
> >> of instruments --- all in an advanced, complex style he now
> >> dismisses as "noise."
> >>
> >> Despite consistent encouragement of many mainstream musicians
> >> such as Boston Symphony Music Director James Levine, for Chicago
> >> Symphony conductor Daniel Barenboim, and the cellist Yo-Yo Ma,
> >> Carter said his many admirers were "delusional."
> >>
> >> "The critics who said they were just congratulating
> >> themselves for being smarter than everybody else were right all
> >> along," he said. "We should all go back and get our heads on
> >> straight." Carter said he blamed his late wife, Helen, for
> >> turning him into an unrepentant modernist. "She liked this stuff,
> >> and I could never say no to her," he said. Mrs. Carter died in
> >> 2003 at age 95.
> >>
> >> Since then, Carter said, he has been reevaluating his
> >> aesthetic. "I'd like to write something pretty for a change ---
> >> maybe something based on an Irish folk tune," he said. He was
> >> uncertain whether he would withdraw his substantial catalogue from
> >> the repertoire, though one alternative would be to revise his
> >> works, ending each with a tonic triad, he said.
> >>
> >> "I feel like an enormous weight has been lifted from my
> >> shoulders," Carter said. "From now on, I promise to be good."

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Tom Mac

It's to late to be April fools? Wow, I'm...... (no words come).

__________________
T. Mac

"Music is a funny thing when you really come to think about it." M. Davis

Manny Laureano

While I heartily agree with Carter, it's too bad he doesn't mean it. Harder to understand, difficult to play does not necessarily a genius make. I find George Crumb's and Takemitsu's stuff far more interesting. Cage is another phony.

Excuse me while I try to remove the pee from my Corn Flakes this morning.

ML

trpt2345

Thanks for the image, I am finding it hard to get it out of my mind. Is it all at once or are you removing it one flake at a time?

Michael McLaughlin

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Chicago MM

MahlerBrass

I'm really confused, is this a gag??

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Music isn't a career, it's a way of life.

Tom Mac

Regarding Carter, I guess he can look back and say, "It was a living."

Regarding Pee in the Cornflakes, Manny, Get a Grip!!

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T. Mac

"Music is a funny thing when you really come to think about it." M. Davis

Manny Laureano

...but they're so small....

ML

tpter1

His tone sounds very sarcastic... I can't help but wonder if he's thumbing his nose at critics.

__________________
-Glenn
"Roses have thorns; shining waters mud. Clouds and eclipses stain the moon and the sun; and history reeks of the wrongs we have done. After today, after today, consider me gone."- Sting

Vulgano Brother

Well, to quote John Cage: "













"

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www.letsbuildhope.org

Manny Laureano

Yes, Glenn, that's precisely it.

He's just saying what "the great unwashed" have said about his composing for years. Our ignorance keeps us from appreciating his message.

Whatever.

ML