Elliott Carter, Composer Who Decisively Snapped Tradition, Dies at 103

[BeyondGeography]

Source: NYT

Elliott Carter, the American composer whose kaleidoscopic, rigorously organized works established him as one of the most important and enduring voices in contemporary music, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was 103 and had continued to compose into his 11th decade, completing his last piece in August.

His death was announced by Virgil Blackwell, his personal assistant. Mr. Carter died in his Greenwich Village apartment, which he and his wife bought in 1945 and where he had lived ever since.

Mr. Carter’s music, which brought him dozens of awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes, could seem harmonically brash and melodically sharp-edged on the first hearing, but it often yielded drama and lyricism on better acquaintance. And though complexity and structural logic were hallmarks of his works, the music he composed in the decade leading up to his widely celebrated centenary, in 2008, was often more lyrical, if not necessarily softer at the edges...

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/arts/music/elliott-carter-avant-garde-composer-dies-at-103.html?pagewanted=all

[Anthony McCarthy]

1. What a great composer

what an inspiration, composing right up to the end and brilliantly. No other composer I'm aware of was really composing into their 100s. And pieces of major length, not the epigrams that Stravinsky wrote in his last years. I look forward to hearing the last ones and looking at them when they are published. His "Complete Piano Music" played wonderfully by Charles Rosen will need an addendum.

[johnfunk]

2. Brilliant, complex, often exuberant music

A few years ago, I attended a performance of Carter's sole opera, the dadaist comedy "What Next?", seated next to superpianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, for whom Carter wrote one of his final works. I was able to chat up Carter a couple of times, and he was one erudite, no-nonsense guy.

[bbgrunt]

3. a truly inspired and dedicated soul.

[AngryAmish]

4. too soon, too soon...

[sdfernando]

5. The day the music died....

RIP Mr. Carter. Yours was a gift the you so freely shared with all of us.

[murielm99]

6. I saw him at my brother's graduation from Peabody Conservatory.

He was given an honorary degree.