The Music of Elliott Carter

When David Schiff finished his overview of Elliott Carter's music in 1983, Carter was already 75 years old. No one could have predicted the flood of marvelous new pieces (including three large-scale concertos and two string quartets) the composer would produce in the intervening years. This second edition is current through April 1998 and arrives in time for the composer's 90th birthday. Schiff is the ideal guide for this repertoire: a composer himself who studied with Carter, he has also conducted the Triple Duo. His writing is stylish--in the String Quartet No. 4, he writes, the second movement "seems to begin over the first violin's repeated objections." Schiff is lucid without ever being superficial. Instead of the strictly chronological organization of the first edition, he now groups the music by genre. (This system is especially helpful in understanding the five string quartets.) Each chapter has a brief general introduction--the first few paragraphs of the vocal music chapter in particular are a model of practical musical thought. There is a technical glossary, an eight-page bibliography (which might have mentioned Andrew Porter's enthusiastic New Yorker reviews of the pieces), and an 18-page discography. Although there are a few dozen musical examples, readers will need scores to follow some of the discussion. Of necessity, Schiff describes some of the most recent music instead of analyzing it. Anyone who wishes to gain a foothold in Carter's endlessly rewarding world might listen to the excellent Chicago Symphony recording of Variations for Orchestra and follow Schiff's elegant commentary. --William R. Braun