Elliott Carter
at the Boston Symphony, December 4-5, 2008

“Elliott Carter was born in New York” begins the program note for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The BSO musical directors have advocated contemporary music over many years, and the orchestra has commissioned many outstanding new works. Under musical director James Levine, the BSO has focused on a living musical legend of our time, Elliott Carter. Certainly the best-known American composer today, his commissions have been played by the BSO in 2006, 2007, and 2008, including a five-day Tanglewood festival of Carter's music in 2008. Not only is Carter's music revered by musical professionals, but it also has the reputation to be extraordinarily difficult to perform—especially when one wishes to emulate the style and rhythms conceived by the composer.

Four BSO concerts (on December 4 and 5, 2008 with one program, and on December 6 and 9, 2008 with a second one) celebrated the week of Carter's 100th birthday. The first two concerts included a new piano concerto dedicated by Carter to Daniel Barenboim and James Levine. (It sounded like the work of a vigorous young man out on the town, not the work composed by a cenntarian.) The second concerts featured a repeat of Carter's horn concerto, composed a year earlier for James Somerville, the fabulous BSO horn soloist.

It is a rare occasion that one can celebrate the centennary of a composer with him present. But it is even more unusual that the composer is still writing music at the age of 100, and that the music is of the calibre that the Boston Symphony as well as many other musicians around the world want to play! Here are a few photographs of Mr. Carter in Boston in December 2008:


Back to “Experiences”