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Tag: Composers Quartet

2011

Saturday, 12/17/11

Happy (Belated) 103rd Birthday, Elliott!

Elliott Carter, composer, December 11, 1908-

The other night I put this on, thinking I’d do something else while it played; but, as it turned out, “something else” had to wait.

String Quartet No. 2 (1959), Composers Quartet

More? Here. And here.

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lagniappe

Juilliard String Quartet with Elliott Carter, 2008
Rehearsing String Quartet No. 5

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musical thoughts

Mr. Carter has written 15 new works since his 100th birthday.

—Allan Kozinn, New York Times, 12/13/11

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Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Webern, Bartok, Shostakovich, Carter, et al.: you could spend the rest of your life listening to nothing but string quartets without ever feeling deprived.

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2011

Thursday, 2/3/11

Music, like people, comes in all kinds. Some is easy to embrace, some thorny. I wouldn’t want to live without either.

Milton Babbitt, May 10, 1916-January 29, 2011

About Time, Alan Feinberg, piano

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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String Quartet No. 2, Composers Quartet

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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lagniappe

His music can be playful, too.

Semi-Simple Variations, The Bad Plus

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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If you know anybody who knows more popular music of the ’20s or ’30s than I do, I want to know who it is. I grew up playing every kind of music in the world, and I know more pop music from the ’20s and ’30s, it’s because of where I grew up. We had to imitate Jan Garber one night; we had to imitate Jean Goldkette the next night. We heard everything from the radio; we had to do it all by ear. We took down their arrangements; we stole their arrangements; we transcribed them, approximately. We played them for a country club dance one night and for a high school dance the next.

—Milton Babbitt

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