Elliott Carter: Collected Essays and Lectures, 1937-1995 - (Eastman Studies in Music) by Elliott Carter & Jonathan W Bernard (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Elliott Carter [b.1908] is now generally acknowledged as America's most eminent living composer. This definitive volume of his essays and lectures -- many previously unpublished or uncollected -- shows his thinking and writing onmusic and associated issues developing in parallel with his career as a composer; his reputation became established in the 1950s, and the material in this book offers an important and knowledgeable commentary on the course of American and European music in the succeeding decades.
Carter's articles on his own music have become classic texts for students of his oeuvre; he also writes on the state of new music in Europe and the United States and the relations between music and the other arts. Other pieces range from a consideration of aspects of music to the work of individual composers. As a whole, the collection is the expression of Carter's musical philosophy, and a valuablerecord for historians of modern music.

Review Quotes

Elliot Carter is a major figure who, from all evidence, has satisfied his desire to make durable music. That is his primary legacy, but these writings should prove hardly less lasting. This is a well-produced book, and Carter's chosen editor, Jonathan Bernard, was ideally suited for the task of assembling it.-- "THEORY AND PRACTICE"

Jonathan Bernard's collection. . . includes several highly characteristic pieces. . . he emphasizes the more substantial and elaborate materials of the essays and lectures. Bernard's selection contains plenty of incisively articulated views, and makes a strong case for taking seriously the writings of Elliott Carter. The volume leaves the reader with as vivid an impression of the man behind the music as could be hoped for.-- "MUSIC & LETTERS"

Provides a renewed incentive to engage Carter's music through critical, historical, and analytical terms. . . will stimulate further scholarly and critical attention.-- "ISAM NEWSLETTER"