Best wishes to Elliott Carter, dean of American composers, on this auspicious day, and may he have a good number more happy, healthy, years of composing masterworks.
Playlist: why, the Pacifica Quartet's new disk of 1 and 5, of course. I'll get my account of this past weekend's festivities posted some time today.
Dean of American composers?? In some minds, maybe, but certainly not all (plus, the very idea of having a "dean" is pretty questionable, anyway). I don't hate his music, and some of the ideas are interesting to listen to, but a lot of it is weighed down by such massive doses of pretentiousness and self-importance that it becomes a kind of self-parodying kitsch. A comment Charles Rosen made about Busoni has become fixed in my mind as being apt for Carter - something about being a genius as a composer, but without musical talent.
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