Charles Rosen and Elliot Carter

I have nearly finished reading Charles Rosen's very interesting book 'Piano Notes - The Hidden World of the Pianist' but he does go on rather about Elliot Carter. I don't have the book to hand, but as an example he might be talking about the difficulty of a certain kind of passage work, and will typically cite Beethoven, Prokoviev, Mozart, Brahms (all top of the line composers, you must agree) and will then nearly always throw Elliot Carter into the mix. For my shame, I have no idea who EC is, nor have I ever knowingly encountered his oeuvre. Does he deserve to live in such exalted company, or is he there just because he's a chum of the writer, or the writer is known for performing EC's work?

Horowitz liked him enough to premier at least one of his works. Rubinstein liked his work too.

He's one of the most highly-regarded composers of the 20th Century. Won two Pulitzer Prizes, and many, many other plaudits. Of course, honors themselves don't necessarily mean a great deal. But a Google search will give you the facts about him, and recordings of his works are widely available, so you can judge for yourself what company he belongs in. I personally think highly of him, and there's not much 20th Century music (in a classical vein) that I like.....

I'd be very curious to know your sources for this information. Perhaps you are thinking of Samuel Barber?

Marvin Wolfthal

Elliott Carter is 95 years old and still turning out a couple of masterpieces a year. David Schiff has written an extremely good introduction to his music, and there is a collection of his writings.

If you are interested in getting to know his music, I recommend listening to the following pieces, in this order: Piano Sonata Cello Sonata String Quartet #1 Variations for Orchestra Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord Double Concerto for Piano and Harpsichord with Two Chamber Orchestras

This is just a start. There are lots of other great pieces - the Piano Concerto is a very dramatic piece in which the soloist fights for his survival against a monolithic and hostile orchestra.

Marvin Wolfthal

Oh bum, I am thinking of Barber for the premier, but I am pretty sure Horowitz played his stuff. I'll need to thumb through my references again.

There is a note in 'Conversations with Arrau' that Arrau ws impressed by Carter's Piano Concerto.

He didn't take my word for it.

I was a student of Arrau. One day many years ago I took the train out to Douglaston with the record and the score. I sat with Arrau while he listened to the piece. He was astonished by it. He said he regretted that at his age he would never be able to take off a year to learn it. He was also concerned that it would be impossible to learn from memory - playing from the score was inconceivable for Arrau. I pointed out that it was really a piece of chamber music because the piano is surrounded by a concertino of seven instruments, so it was OK to use the score. That made him feel better. Subsequently he spoke about the piece on several occasions, including the book you mention. I can only wonder what his performance might have been like.

Marvin Wolfthal

Seems that has been answered already-but NO, it was not Horowitz.He certainly didn't play any of it publically, and I never recall in any of the bks.etc. on him, ever making any reference to Carter. ( I hardly know much of Carter's music but when I have heard some over the yrs. I was impressed by it)

Horowitz was quite a supporter of contemporary piano music of his era-when he was younger-including Barber, Prokofiev, and , of course, introduced most of us to Scriabin.

'A couple' of masterpieces a year seems to be something of an understatement; Elliott Carter's mastery of his means has long since arrived at a point at which he seems unable to write below his already exalted best - on top of which he is perhaps even more industrious nowadays than ever, his considerable age notwithstanding. Arguably the finest work from him in the last ten years is his Symphonia. Not too much should be thought of the fact of what he can and does do at his great age, per se - for most of what he is now doing would be remarkable from a composer of any age at all.

I was fascinated to read of Arrau's view of his Piano Concerto; I had no idea about this previously - as may be the case with many other people!

Alistair Hinton Curator / Director The Sorabji Archive