Concert Review: A Superfluity of Musical Intelligence

The MET Chamber Ensemble at Zankel Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

James Levine on the podium at the Metropolitan Opera House.
Photo by Jonathan Tichler © 2014 The Metropolitan Opera.

Within the constraints of his position as Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, conductor James Levine can pretty much do as he pleases. On Sunday afternoon, he led the MET Chamber Ensemble and a group of young singers in a diverse program at Zankel Hall. Its focus: the development of modern music in the 20th and 21st century, from the early experiments of Charles Ives to the neoclassicism of Stravinsky, all the way up to modern experiments by John Cage, Elliot Carter and Charles Wuorinen.

Concert Review: Getting Carter

The American Symphony Orchestra pays tribute to Elliott Carter.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The composer Elliott Carter in his New York apartment in 1983.
Photo by Nancy Crampton courtesy Boosey & Hawkes.

New York's own Elliott Carter was the dean of modern music in this country, an artist whose vast output spanned orchestral works, songs and even opera. His music always looked relentlessly forward, breaking new ground even in his last works. On Sunday afternoon at Carnegie Hall Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra celebrated the memory of this great composer, who died on November 5 of last year at the age of 103. The carefully curated program offered six of Carter's pieces, spanning eight decades of his output and giving a glimpse at the wide variety of styles and music created over a long compositional career.

Obituary: Elliott Carter (1908-2012)

Elliott Carter: 1908-2012.

The American composer was 103. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Elliott Carter died peacefully today.

His death comes a little more than a month before his birthday, December 11. A report on NPR.org stated that according to his assistant, the composer died at home, of natural causes.

Mr. Carter was at the cutting edge of composition and new music creation in a career that spanned from the 20th century into the new millenium. An iconoclast even in his later years,, he wa considered the dean of American composers, working out of his W. 12th St. apartment in the heart of Manhattan's Greenwich Village.

His early exposure to music came when he was 15, at a Boston Symphony Orchestra performance of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring--still a relatively new work. (Pierre Monteux conducted.)

Concert Review: When the Flutes Exploded

The New York Philharmonic makes CONTACT!
by Paul Pelkonen

Conductor David Robertson.

At New York Philharmonic subscription concerts, the performance of new music or works by still-living composers can be an afterthought, wedged between familiar slabs of Brahms and Beethoven. The CONTACT! concerts are different. They take place away from Avery Fisher Hall, and offer nothing but modern music. Saturday night's concert was at Symphony Space.

This spring's CONTACT! program, curated by Philharmonic composer-in-residence Magnus Lindberg and led by conductor David Robertson, featured two premieres. opened with a Philharmonic commission from New York's own Elliott Carter: Two Controversies and a Confrontation. Mr. Carter is one of this city's most celebrated composers, and at 103 years old, the dean of modern American music.