Well, this is certainly inspiring. The composer Elliot Carter celebrated his 100th birthday yesterday at Carnegie Hall with James Levine conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Barenboim performing on piano. On the program was Carter’s Interventions for piano and orchestra, a piece commissioned by Carnegie Hall, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Staatskapelle Berlin, the German orchestra led by Mr. Barenboim.
The piece was a New York City premiere and was written two years ago when Mr. Carter was just 98. I find it inspiring that someone so late in life is more prolific than ever, and not allowing himself to slow down and rest on his laurels.
As the Times article writes:
Mr. Carter wrote the 17-minute piece, for piano and orchestra, just last year, at 98. In fact, since he turned 90, Mr. Carter has poured out more than 40 published works, an extraordinary burst of creativity at a stage when most people would be making peace with mortality.
His first opera had its premiere in 1999. He produced 10 works in 2007 and six more this year. “I don’t know how I did it,” Mr. Carter said on Tuesday in the cluttered but homey Greenwich Village apartment where he has lived since 1945. “The earlier part of my life I felt I was more or less exploring what I would like to write. Now I’ve found it out, and I don’t have to think so much about it.”
I’ve always felt that a great many of history’s colorful personalities have had their greatest success early on in life, giving them the burden of a lifetime to look back on perhaps their greatest and most inspired bursts of creativity and success. Einstein was just 36 when he published the last of his monumental papers, the general theory of relativity, Napoleon was crowned Emperor at the age of 35, the Beatles broke up in their late 20s to early 30s and Noah was a mere 600 when he piled a bunch of animals into the ark during the Great Flood. Okay, I’m pulling your leg on that last one, but the list goes on and on. Such achievements tend to overshadow later accomplishments, or perhaps it is just that most people want to remember only the earliest and most successful moments of a individual’s career.
To see Carter still hard at work at 100 is certainly inspiring. Perhaps his earlier work will stand the test of time more than his later works. Nevertheless, Carter’s continued composition in his second century is amazing and sets an example for those content to rest on their laurels later in life.
I used to think that the best introductions to Mr. Carter’s music are early pieces like the cello and harpsichord sonata, but I suspect that attitude has become an anachronism. Mr. Carter has written the majority of his work since 1990, and the best way to get into his music now may now be to start with the late music and work backward. I refer the middle period masterpieces like the Piano Concerto and the Concerto for Orchestra, too, but more recent, smaller works like the Enchanted Preludes or the little piano pieces are quite lovely, more easily digestible, and really more representative of his style as a whole.
I have to say, that even as a former professional musician (violin & viola) such as myself, I have found Carter’s music quite dense and a lot to take in. Even though I absolutely love modern music as a whole (as broad of a concept that is), I have never been quite “ready” to take on his brand of music. I have certainly appreciated it, and I certainly understand the extreme amount of difficulty his music is for performers to take on. That being said, I will definitely take your advice about his music and start from there. I’m always ready for a new aural challenge!