Mental Distortion

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.