Elliott Carter's New View

Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 6:53 pm From the Associated

Press NEW YORK

American composer Elliott Carter, an exemplar of the

atonalist style

of modernism and according to admirers the greatest

living

practitioner of his craft, apologized to music lovers

around the

world today for what he called "a half century of

wasted time."

"What was I thinking?" the venerable Mr. Carter, 99,

said at his home

in Manhattan. "Nobody likes this stuff. Why have I

wasted my life?"

Carter said he "went wrong" back in the 1940s and

spent the next 60

years pursuing the musical dead-end of atonality. In

the past seven

decades, he has produced five string quartets, a half

dozen song

cycles, works for orchestra, solo concertos and

innumerable chamber

works for various combinations of instruments --- all

in an advanced,

complex style he now dismisses as "noise."

Despite consistent encouragement of many mainstream

musicians such as

Boston Symphony Music Director James Levine, for

Chicago Symphony

conductor Daniel Barenboim, and the cellist Yo-Yo Ma,

Carter said his

many admirers were "delusional."

"The critics who said they were just congratulating

themselves for

being smarter than everybody else were right all

along," he said. "We

should all go back and get our heads on straight."

Carter said he

blamed his late wife, Helen, for turning him into an

unrepentant

modernist. "She liked this stuff, and I could never

say no to her,"

he said. Mrs. Carter died in 2003 at age 95.

Since then, Carter said, he has been reevaluating his

aesthetic. "I'd

like to write something pretty for a change --- maybe

something based

on an Irish folk tune," he said. He was uncertain

whether he would

withdraw his substantial catalogue from the

repertoire, though one

alternative would be to revise his works, ending each

with a tonic

triad, he said.

"I feel like an enormous weight has been lifted from

my shoulders,"

Carter said. "From now on, I promise to be good."

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Wow, that's awesome. I actually do enjoy atonal music from a physical perspective: It is fun to improvise on tone-rows on the piano. Physically fun. It's like touching a deliciously rough surface, or something. But...I'd say it comprises less than 1% of my creative time with music. I mean let's face it. Pure atonal music...strict serialist atonal music...sucks. It just sucks! My own atonal playing sucks. Doesn't change that it's fun to play though LOL.

I've been told that I think like a 75 year old. That at least must be true as I agree with a 99 year old. Haha

Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 6:53 pm From the Associated

Press NEW YORK

;)

though one

alternative would be to revise his works, ending each

with a tonic

triad, he said.

HAHAHAHA.

yes, it was an april fool's joke

Oh crap. I didn't see the date. And I thought sanity was returning to the world for a few brief moments. Oh well! haha

Too bad it was an April Fools joke. The music world could use a good cleaning.