Elliott Carter Quotes

• When people listen to my music, I hope that they will notice that if you take a piece by a composer like Schubert, the major and the minor triad is an extermely important thing not merely as harmony, but in creating melodic lines. Schubert is always walking up and down with arpeggios on C, E, G and so forth. I am not doing anything different really, except using a different system of harmony.

  Elliott Carter

  Creating, People, Important

  Interview with Joel Bons, as quoted in notes for album "Elliott Carter: Homages and Dedications" (CD booklet, p. 17), 2003.

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• The first thing that struck me about contemporary music in general had been thatthere was not much interest in rhythm.

  Elliott Carter

  Firsts, Interest, Rhythm

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• That was one of the big problems when I was at Harvard studying music. We had to write choral pieces in the style of Brahms or Mendelssohn, which was distressing because in the end you realized how good Brahms is, and how bad you are.

  Elliott Carter

  Writing, Style, Pieces

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• My musical life started with hearing and being fascinated by contemporary music.

  Elliott Carter

  Musical Life, Hearing, Contemporary

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• Why write for the orchestra? For one thing it's a very challenging problem.

  Elliott Carter

  Writing, Challenges, Orchestra

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• Aaron Copland was a man that had a very specific point of view about what music should be which was that, he felt that new music should have the composer should show a personality in his music.

  Elliott Carter

  Men, Views, Should Have

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• My entire life has really revolved around music that was written about the time that I was born, 1908, to just before the First World War and shortly after it. This music I've always known, and it is that music that's most important to me.

  Elliott Carter

  War, Important, World

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• Right at the end of the war I wrote a piano sonata, which was written at a time when Sam Barber used to come down here and we used to have lunch together in a very nice old hotel that's now not there.

  Elliott Carter

  War, Nice, Lunch

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• The Third Quartet I made the instruments in pairs - Two different pairs - Violin and viola, and violin and cello. They played very different things from each other all through the whole piece.

  Elliott Carter

  Two, Different, Pieces

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• Almost every one of my various zero numbered birthdays has had a big concert in London and often in Paris.

  Elliott Carter

  Zero, Paris, London

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• Talking about a materialistic thing, I get about 13 times more royalties from Europe than I do from America.

  Elliott Carter

  Talking, Europe, America

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• Well when I was young, when I was very young, when I was a little boy I don't remember the music I heard, but there was an article in the Brooklyn Daily written by my Aunt about how I could choose phonograph records.

  Elliott Carter

  Aunt, Boys, Records

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• Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

  Elliott Carter

  War, Army, Europe

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• Yes, I get a report from BMI about the frequency of performances, and it is very surprising. They played one of my most advanced pieces, and one of my most unusual ones on the radio.

  Elliott Carter

  Pieces, Radio, Unusual

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• Silences between movements are employed only in order to bring the opposing duo to the fore.

  Elliott Carter

  Order, Silence, Movement

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• The Quartets have been a major part of my work.

  Elliott Carter

  Quartets, Has Beens, Majors

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• When I was in Paris, all of the German refugees began to flow in and it was a very sad time.

  Elliott Carter

  Paris, Flow, Very Sad

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