Carter's 'Boston Concerto'

Synopsis

On today’s date in 2003, a new orchestral work by American composer Elliott Carter had its premiere in Boston. Carter was then 94 — he would live to be a month shy of 104, and, even more remarkable, he was composing new works almost to the end of his days.

When you live that long, you experience a lot of changes. Carter had studied English and Greek at Harvard, and recalled a time when at Boston Symphony concerts conservative members of the audience would joke that the emergency exits signs should read “Exit — in case of Brahms.” Apparently, even in the 1920s, for some Boston Brahmins, Brahms was still “difficult music.”

For his part, Carter felt the complexity of his own music reflected the complex world into which he was born — the world of Proust, Picasso and Stravinsky. His music was technically very, very difficult, but Carter always insisted it was all in service of the greater freedom and fantasy of his imagination, not difficult for difficulty’s sake.

Carter’s Boston Concerto was dedicated to the memory of his wife, Helen, who died shortly before its premiere. He prefaced his score with the opening lines from the poem “Rain” by William Carlos Williams:

“As the rain falls

So does

your love

bathe every

open

Object of the world—“

Music Played in Today's Program

Elliott Carter (1908-2012): Boston Concerto; BBC Symphony; Oliver Knussen, conductor; Bridge 9184

On This Day

Births

• 1889 - Rumanian composer and violinist Grigoras Dinicu, in Bucharest. He is best known for his virtuoso violin showpiece Hora Staccato (1906).

• 1895 - Italian-born American composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, in Florence

Deaths

• 1850 - Bohemian composer Jan Václav Tomá ek (Johann Wenzel Tomaschek), 75, in Prague

• 1868 - Swedish composer Frans Berwald, 71, in Stockholm

• 1897 - German composer Johannes Brahms, 63, in Vienna

• 1950 - German-born American composer Kurt Weill, 50, in New York City

• 1972 - American composer and arranger Ferde Grofé, 80, in Santa Monica, California

Premieres

• 1748 - Handel: oratorio Alexander Balus (Julian date: March 23)

• 1786 - Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24, at the Burgtheater in Vienna, with the composer as soloist

• 1869 - Grieg: Piano Concerto, in Copenhagen, by the Danish Royal Theater Orchestra conducted by Holger Simon Paulli, and Edmund Neupert the soloist

• 1911 - Sibelius: Symphony No. 4, in Helsinki, with the composer conducting

• 1923 - Roussel: ballet Le Festin de L’Araignée (The Spider’s Feast), in Paris

• 1925 - Holst: opera At the Boar’s Head, in Manchester

• 1931 - Hindemith: Concert Music, by the Boston Symphony (commissioned for the orchestra's 50 th anniversary), with Serge Koussevitzky conducting

• 1998 - Tan Dun: Concerto for Six Players in Durham, N.C., by the Bang On A Can All-Stars

• 2003 - Elliott Carter: Boston Concerto, by the Boston Symphony, Ingo Metzmacher conducting

Others

• 1834 - The Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal of Music) begins publication, with Robert Schumann as contributing editor

• 1843 - The Leipzig Conservatory opens, with Felix Mendelssohn as its director

• 1871 - American premiere of Wagner’s opera Lohengrin, at the Stadt Theater in New York City

• 1926 - American premiere of Sibelius’ Symphony No. 7, by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting