Everybody Can Hear It
Q. Armando Bayolo asked: What about John Adams recent cry of “the emperor has no clothes” towards Eliot Carter on his blog? Is that okay because they’re two grand old men of contemporary American music?
A. No. It’s okay because Elliott Cook Carter Jr. clearly and self-evidently lacks even the most rudimentary scintilla of musical talent. Everyone knows it. Everyone can hear it. It’s long past time someone just said it.
Comment #54 via mclaren at Rude Question of the Week–Is Nico Overrated? at Sequenza21.com
sometimes the commentary about the commentary is much more interesting. in the future if i were a musicologist i would spend my time reading the blog comments
"Obama has four of his concertos on his Ipod"
famous orchestrator (and our 2nd vice president) John Adams “celebrates” the “130th” birthday of Elliot Carter:
The composer, long a New York resident, was born in that city in 1908. According to Wikipedia, Mr. Carter’s family was “well to do.” He recalls how, as a young boy, he witnessed his irate father throw out an itinerant salesman who came to the door of the family’s brownstone pedaling life insurance policies. That salesman turned out to be a part-time composer, Mr. Charles Ives, of the firm Ives & Myrick.
[snip]
Elliott Carter only sets poetry by WASPS: John Ashbury, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, Robert Lowell, Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. (He is suspicious of Williams’ middle name and suspects it’s just a fancy addition by the poet to sound left wing.)
From the start Carter’s music has been rapidly absorbed into the cultural mainstream of the USA. President Barack Obama claims to have no fewer than four Carter concertos on his iPod. The President is quoted as saying “I’ve been a big Carter fan since my days as a community organizer in Chicago. I only wish I understood Italian better.”
check out the rest of the fun at john adam’s appropriately titled blog, hell mouth
