"The significance of Elliott carter s longevity is more fundamental than the mere
numbering of his years. Any work that has to do with performance enters a
space-perception of real time. Music, simply through the minutiae of its language,
intensifies real time. In Carter s music, to speak simply of real time would be
not only reductive, but also deceptive. His work engages perception of time on
planes of complexity, and alters that perception. It interacts, unravels, finds its
existential episteme in time and with time. The way in which the language of
Carter, and the specificity of its syntax and process, developed through many
years, brings another stratum of experience of time."
From the Preface by Marc Ponthus