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Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint and compression we are simply objecting to the classicism of classic art. A violent emphasis or a sudden acceleration of rhythmic movement would have destroyed those qualities of balance and completeness through which it retained until the present century its position of authority in the restricted repertoire of visual images."^[1] Classicism, as Clark noted, implies a canon of widely accepted ideal forms, whether in the Western canon that he was examining in The Nude (1956), or the Chinese classics.

Classicism is a force which is often present in post-medieval European and European influenced traditions; however, some periods felt themselves more connected to the classical ideals than others, particularly the Age of Enlightenment, and some classicizing movements in Modernism.^{[citation needed]}

General term[link]

Not all heroic nudes are classical: Fountain of the Four Rivers, Bernini, 1651.

Classicist door in Olomouc, The Czech Republic.

Classicism is a specific genre of philosophy, expressing itself in literature, architecture, art, and music, which has Ancient Greek and Roman sources and an emphasis on society. It was particularly expressed in the Neoclassicism of the Age of Enlightenment.

Classicism was a recurrent tendency in the Late Antique period, and had a major revival in Carolingian and Ottonian art. There was another, more durable revival in the Italian renaissance when the fall of Byzantium and rising trade with the Islamic cultures brought a flood of knowledge about, and from, the antiquity of Europe. Until that time the identification with antiquity had been seen as a continuous history of Christendom from the conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine I. Renaissance classicism introduced a host of elements into European culture, including the application of mathematics and empiricism into art, humanism, literary and depictive realism, and formalism. Importantly it also introduced Polytheism, or "paganism", and the juxtaposition of ancient and modern.

The classicism of the Renaissance led to, and gave way to, a different sense of what was "classical" in the 16th and 17th centuries. In this period classicism took on more overtly structural overtones of orderliness, predictability, the use of geometry and grids, the importance of rigorous discipline and pedagogy, as well as the formation of schools of art and music. The court of Louis XIV was seen as the center of this form of classicism, with its references to the gods of Olympus as a symbolic prop for absolutism, its adherence to axiomatic and deductive reasoning, and its love of order and predictability.

This period sought the revival of classical art forms, including Greek drama and music. Opera, in its modern European form, had its roots in attempts to recreate the combination of singing and dancing with theatre thought to be the Greek norm. Examples of this appeal to classicism included Dante, Petrarch, and Shakespeare in poetry and theatre. Tudor drama, in particular, modeled itself after classical ideals and divided works into Tragedy and Comedy. Studying Ancient Greek became regarded as essential for a well-rounded education in the liberal arts.

The Renaissance also explicitly returned to architectural models and techniques associated with Greek and Roman antiquity, including the golden rectangle as a key proportion for buildings, the classical orders of columns, as well as a host of ornament and detail associated with Greek and Roman architecture. They also began reviving plastic arts such as bronze casting for sculpture, and used the classical naturalism as the foundation of drawing, painting and sculpture.

The Age of Enlightenment identified itself with a vision of antiquity which, while continuous with the classicism of the previous century, was shaken by the physics of Sir Isaac Newton, the improvements in machinery and measurement, and a sense of liberation which they saw as being present in the Greek civilization, particularly in its struggles against the Persian Empire. The ornate, organic, and complexly integrated forms of the baroque were to give way to a series of movements that regarded themselves expressly as "classical" or "neo-classical", or would rapidly be labelled as such. For example the painting of Jacques-Louis David which was seen as an attempt to return to formal balance, clarity, manliness, and vigor in art.

The 19th century saw the classical age as being the precursor of academicism, including such movements as uniformitarianism in the sciences, and the creation of rigorous categories in artistic fields. Various movements of the romantic period saw themselves as classical revolts against a prevailing trend of emotionalism and irregularity, for example the Pre-Raphaelites. By this point classicism was old enough that previous classical movements received revivals; for example, the Renaissance was seen as a means to combine the organic medieval with the orderly classical. The 19th century continued or extended many classical programs in the sciences, most notably the Newtonian program to account for the movement of energy between bodies by means of exchange of mechanical and thermal energy.

The 20th century saw a number of changes in the arts and sciences. Classicism was used both by those who rejected, or saw as temporary, transfigurations in the political, scientific, and social world and by those who embraced the changes as a means to overthrow the perceived weight of the 19th century. Thus, both pre-20th century disciplines were labelled "classical" and modern movements in art which saw themselves as aligned with light, space, sparseness of texture, and formal coherence.

In the present day philosophy classicism is used as a term particularly in relation to Apollonian over Dionysian impulses in society and art; that is a preference for rationality, or at least rationally guided catharsis, over emotionalism.

In the theatre[link]

Molière in classical dress, by Nicolas Mignard, 1658.

Classicism in the theatre was developed by 17th century French playwrights from what they judged to be the rules of Greek classical theatre, including the "Classical unities" of time, place and action, found in the Poetics of Aristotle.

• Unity of time referred to the need for the entire action of the play to take place in a fictional 24-hour period
• Unity of place meant that the action should unfold in a single location
• Unity of action meant that the play should be constructed around a single 'plot-line', such as a tragic love affair or a conflict between honour and duty.

Examples of classicist playwrights are Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine and Moliere. In the period of Romanticism, Shakespeare, who conformed to none of the classical rules, became the focus of French argument over them, in which the Romantics eventually triumphed; Victor Hugo was among the first French playwrights to break these conventions.

The influence of these French rules on playwrights in other nations is debatable. In the English theatre, Restoration playwrights such as William Wycherly and William Congreve would have been familiar with them. William Shakespeare and his contemporaries did not follow this Classicist philosophy, in particular since they were not French and also because they wrote several decades prior to their establishment. Those of Shakespeare's plays that seem to display the unities, such as The Tempest, probably indicate a familiarity with actual models from classical antiquity.

In architecture[link]

Villa Rotonda, Palladio, 1591

Classicism in architecture developed during the Italian Renaissance, notably in the writings and designs of Leon Battista Alberti and the work of Filippo Brunelleschi. It places emphasis on symmetry, proportion, geometry and the regularity of parts as they are demonstrated in the architecture of Classical antiquity and in particular, the architecture of Ancient Rome, of which many examples remained.

Orderly arrangements of columns, pilasters and lintels, as well as the use of semicircular arches, hemispherical domes, niches and aedicules replaced the more complex proportional systems and irregular profiles of medieval buildings. This style quickly spread to other Italian cities and then to France, Germany, England, Russia and elsewhere.

In the 16th century, Sebastiano Serlio helped codify the classical orders and Palladio's legacy evolved into the long tradition of Palladian architecture. Building off of these influences, the 17th-century architects Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren firmly established classicism in England.

For the development of classicism from the mid-18th-century onwards, see Neoclassical architecture.

In the fine arts[link]

• For Greek art of the 5th century B.C.E., see Classical art in ancient Greece and the Severe style

Italian Renaissance painting and sculpture are marked by their renewal of classical forms, motifs and subjects. In the 15th century Leon Battista Alberti was important in theorizing many of the ideas for painting that came to a fully realised product with Raphael's School of Athens during the High Renaissance. The themes continued largely unbroken into the 17th century, when artists such as Nicolas Poussin and Charles Le Brun represented of the more rigid classicism. Like Italian classicizing ideas in the 15th and 16th centuries, it spread through Europe in the mid to late 17th century.

Later classicism in painting and sculpture from the mid-18th and 19th centuries is generally referred to a Neoclassicism.

Political philosophy[link]

See also[link]

Further reading[link]

• Kallendorf, Craig W., editor. A Companion to the Classical Tradition. Blackwell Publishing, 2007. Essays by various authors on topics related to historical periods, places, and themes. Limited preview online.^[2]

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Classicist art

External links[link]

• Renaissance & Classicism from encyclopedia

Lloyd Cole
Lloyd Cole in Münster, Germany, September 2010
Background information
Born	(1961-01-31) 31 January 1961 (age 51)
Origin	Buxton, Derbyshire, England
Genres	Rock, pop, indie pop
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1984–present
Labels	Polydor
Associated acts	Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
Website	http://www.lloydcole.com

Lloyd Cole (born 31 January 1961) is an English singer and songwriter, known for his role as lead singer of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions from 1984 to 1989, and for his subsequent solo work.

Early life[link]

Cole was born in Buxton, Derbyshire.^[1] He grew up in nearby Chapel en le Frith and went to New Mills Grammar School and later attended Runshaw College in Leyland, Lancashire. After failing in Law at University College London, he later attended (but did not graduate from) the University of Glasgow, where he studied Philosophy and English and met the other members of The Commotions.

Career[link]

The Commotions' 1984 debut, Rattlesnakes, contained literary and pop culture references to such figures as Arthur Lee, Norman Mailer, Grace Kelly, Eva Marie Saint, Simone de Beauvoir, Truman Capote, and Joan Didion. The group produced two more albums, Easy Pieces and Mainstream, before disbanding in 1989, when Cole relocated to New York to record with various artists, including Fred Maher, Robert Quine and Matthew Sweet.^[2]

This solo setting produced two acclaimed albums, Lloyd Cole in 1990 and 1991's Don't Get Weird on Me Babe. The latter was recorded in two parts: one side continued the New York rock mastered on his first solo album, while the other side featured a session orchestra, much in the style of Burt Bacharach or Scott Walker. Although some reviewers have claimed Don't Get Weird on Me Babe (the title being a quotation from the American minimalist writer Raymond Carver) to be a creative peak, it produced significantly fewer record sales. While he remained with Polydor as his record label, the US distribution contract with Capitol Records ended. (US rights were immediately picked up by Rykodisc).

Cole continued redefining his sound with Bad Vibes (1993), a collaboration with producer/remixer Adam Peters, using a harder and psychedelia-inspired sound. Love Story (1995) established stripped-down, largely acoustic sound landscapes with the help of Stephen Street (famous for his work with Blur and The Smiths) and former Commotions Neil Clark and Blair Cowan; the album produced a minor hit, affording Cole a mid-90s appearance on Top of the Pops, with the song "Like Lovers Do". However, following a massive purge of the artist roster that came with Universal Music's takeover of Polygram and Cole's disappointment with the label, his contract was terminated despite at least two full-length recordings being locked in its vaults (later released in 2002 by One Little Indian).

In 2000, after being a solo artist for more than a decade (and a couple of years without a contract), Cole teamed with a younger generation of New York musicians under the name The Negatives. The group consisted of Jill Sobule, Dave Derby of the Dambuilders, Mike Kotch and Rafa Maciejak, who recorded an eponymous CD, released mainly in France. He has since released solo albums on smaller independent labels. Sanctuary Records, the company responsible for the revival of Morrissey, released Music in a Foreign Language (2003) in the UK. Recorded largely by Cole himself (including tracks recorded directly onto a Mac), the songs had a stark, folk-inspired singer-songwriter style. One Little Indian, home of Björk, released Music in a Foreign Language in the U.S.; they also collected a number of outtakes (recorded from 1996 to 2000) on 2002's Etc. and released an instrumental ambient electronica album, Plastic Wood, the same year.

In 2004, to mark the 20th anniversary of the release of Rattlesnakes, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions reformed to perform a one-off, sellout tour in the UK and Ireland which generated some media interest, mostly in UK broadsheets. The reformation was never intended to be permanent and Cole released another solo album in 2006, Antidepressant, using his usual home recording outfit by playing all the instruments himself with friends like Sobule, Derby and the guitar work of former Commotion Neil Clark on some tracks.^[3] The lyrics focus on the reality of a young American middle-class parent: leaving New York for a life in the suburbs, worrying about the stock market crash, fantasies of escaping marriage, or being "no longer young, no longer driven to distraction, not even by Scarlett Johansson." The follow-up, "Broken Record" released in September 2010, marked a departure from his solo recordings as it was performed by a band of longstanding friends and working partners including Fred Maher, Joan Wasser, Rainy Orteca, Dave Derby and Blair Cowan - as well as two musicians, Matt Cullen (guitar; banjo) and Mark Schwaber (guitar; mandolin), with whom Cole tours, billed as 'Lloyd Cole Small Ensemble'. The recording of the album was entirely financed by advance purchases by his fans, and later distributed by Tapete Records - who also oversaw and negotiated the rights to re-release a boxed set with his complete collection of b-sides and alternative takes and previously unreleased material under the title Cleaning Out the Ashtrays.

Live performances[link]

Cole is on tour frequently, playing small club venues in a one-man acoustic setting and presenting rock songs from his past career remodelled to simple folk songs. He interacts extensively with the audience and some songs are told rather than played as spoken word or stand-up comedy. Performances recorded in April 2008 at Whelan's in Dublin and in 2003 in Bremen (also broadcast by Radio Bremen) were used for two live albums called the Folksinger series.^[4] In 2010, he formed a small ensemble consisting of New England musicians, Mark Schwaber and Matt Cullen and, in October and November of that year, completed an extensive tour of Europe. Further tours of New Zealand and Australia and Europe followed in 2011. Later, in June of that year, http://www.lloydcole.com/weblog/index.php?p=3907&c=1 a tour of North America and Canada was planned.

Personal life[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2009)

Cole married his American wife, Elizabeth Lewis, in December 1989.^[5] They live in Easthampton, Massachusetts with their sons William and Frank.^[6]

Golf[link]

Cole's parents were golf club stewards and, as an avid golfer, he is known for playing concerts in towns suspiciously close to famous golf courses. Cole's 5.3 handicap tied 11th place on Golf Digest's top 100 list of musicians (tied with Cooper and Dan Tyminski). An article he wrote, about playing the famous golf courses of the Melbourne Sandbelt while being on tour, was awarded with the Best Feature of the Year Award by the Australian Golf Writers Association.^[7] He has also starred in a commercial for a local golf supply store located near his home.

Covers[link]

Cole has recorded and performed a number of songs by Marc Bolan: "Children of the Revolution", "The Slider", "Mystic Lady" and "Romany Soup". Cole has also covered "I'm Not Willing" by Moby Grape; "Famous Blue Raincoat", "Tower of Song" and "Chelsea Hotel" by Leonard Cohen; "People Ain't No Good" by Nick Cave; "Vicious" by Lou Reed; "I Don't Believe You", "She Belongs to Me", "You're a Big Girl Now", "I Threw it All Away" ", "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" (Black session live) and "Most of the Time" by Bob Dylan; "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" by The Beatles; "Waterloo Sunset" by The Kinks;^[8] "Human" by The Human League (with Stephin Merritt's 6ths); "Believe" by Cher (done as a lark); "Glory" by Television; "If I Were a Carpenter", "Lady Came From Baltimore", and "Reason To Believe" by Tim Hardin;, "Pocket Calculator" by Kraftwerk; "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" by Burt Bacharach; "These Days" by Jackson Browne (not to be confused with Cole's own song "These Days" on Mainstream); "Rock 'n' Roll Ain't Noise Pollution" by AC/DC; "Please Don't Tell Me How This Story Ends" by Kris Kristofferson; and "Chinese Translation" by M. Ward. His versions often differ significantly in arrangement to the originals.

Cole's "Rattlesnakes" has been covered by Tori Amos, while Sandie Shaw has recorded a version of "(Are You) Ready to Be Heartbroken?".^[9]

In 2006, Scottish band Camera Obscura released the song "Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken" as an answer song to Cole's 1984 hit "(Are You) Ready to Be Heartbroken?".

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lloyd Cole

• Official website
• Lloyd Cole on Myspace
• Lloyd Cole at Allmusic

Rhys Chatham
Background information
Born	(1952-09-19) September 19, 1952 (age 59)
Origin	New York City, New York, U.S.
Genres	Minimalism, No wave, experimental rock Cyber jazz
Occupations	Composer, guitarist, music theorist, trumpeter
Instruments	Electric guitar, trumpet
Years active	1971–present
Labels	Moers Musc Dossier Homestead New Tone (NTone)/ Ninja Tune Table of the Elements Wire
Associated acts	Tony Conrad La Monte Young Band of Susans Martin Wheeler
Website	www.rhyschatham.net, www.rhyschatham.com
Notable instruments
Electric guitar, drums/percussion, electric bass guitar, amplified trumpet

Rhys Chatham (born September 19, 1952, New York City) is an American composer, guitarist, and trumpet player, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions. He has lived in France since 1987.

Early years[link]

Chatham began his musical career as a piano tuner for avant-garde pioneer La Monte Young as well as harpsichord tuner for Gustav Leonhard, Rosalyn Turek and Glenn Gould. He soon studied under electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick and minimalist icon La Monte Young and was a member of Young's group, The Theater of Eternal Music, during the early seventies; Chatham also played with Tony Conrad in an early version of Conrad's group, The Dream Syndicate. In 1971, while still in his teens, Chatham became the first music director at the experimental art space The Kitchen in lower Manhattan. His early works, such as Two Gongs (1971) owed a significant debt to Young and other minimalists.

His concert productions included experimenters Maryanne Amacher, Robert Ashley, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Pauline Oliveros, Steve Reich, and early alternative rockers such as Fred Frith, Robert Fripp, Arto Lindsay, and John Lurie. He has worked closely with visual artist/musician Robert Longo, particularly in the 1980s, and on an experimental opera called XS: The Opera Opus (1984-6) with the visual artist Joseph Nechvatal.

Compositions from the late 1970s and early 1980s[link]

By 1977, Chatham's music was heavily influenced by punk rock, having seen an early Ramones concert. He was particularly intrigued by and influential upon the group of artists music critics would label No Wave in 1978. That year, he began performing Guitar Trio around downtown Manhattan with an ensemble that included Glenn Branca, as well as Nina Canal of Ut. During this period, he wrote several works for large guitar ensembles, including Drastic Classicism, a collaboration with dancer Karole Armitage. Drastic Classicism was first released in 1982 on the compilation New Music from Antarctica, put together by Kit Fitzgerald, John Sanborn and Peter Laurence Gordon. It was also included on the 1987 album that also included his 1982 composition Die Donnergötter (German for "The Thundergods").

Members of the New York City noise rock band Band of Susans began their careers in Chatham's ensembles; they later performed a cover of Chatham's "Guitar Trio" on their 1991 album, The Word And The Flesh. (This parallels the way that members of fellow NYC noise rockers Sonic Youth began their careers in Branca's ensembles; Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth did play with Chatham as well.)

Chatham began playing trumpet in 1983, and his more recent works explore improvisatory trumpet solos; these are performed by Chatham himself, employing much of the same amplification and effects that he acquired with the guitar, over synthesized dance rhythms by the composer Martin Wheeler. His 1990s recordings in this style saw release on Ninja Tune Records as the compilation Neon.

Recent activity[link]

In 2002, he enjoyed a resurgence following the release of a limited-edition 3 CD retrospective box set on the record label Table of the Elements, An Angel Moves Too Fast To See: Selected Works 1971-1989, complete with 130-page booklet. The An Angel Moves Too Fast To See part of the title comes from Chatham's 1989 composition for 100 guitars. He has been since touring with his 100-guitar orchestra in Europe.

In 2005, he was commissioned by the city of Paris, in his adopted homeland, to write a composition for 400 electric guitars entitled A Crimson Grail, as part of the Nuit Blanche Festival. Approximately 10,000 people were present at the performance, and 100,000 more watched it on live television. A CD of excerpts from this concert was released in January 2007 by Table Of The Elements.

Rhys Chatham is currently touring the original 30 minute version of Guitar Trio in the USA and Europe, renamed G3 because the instrumentation has been increased to between six and ten electric guitars, electric bass and drums. In February 2007 he completed a twelve-city tour called the Guitar Trio (G3) Is My Life North America Tour, which was accompanied by the original film by Robert Longo that was projected behind the performance, entitled Pictures for Music (1979). The sets consisted of local musicians from each city of the performances, including members of Sonic Youth, Tortoise, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Hüsker Dü, Brokeback, 90 Day Men, Town & Country, Die Kreuzen, Bird Show and others. A three-CD box set of these performances was released by Table of the Elements in March 2008.

Chatham has continued to tour the original version of Guitar Trio in Europe throughout 2007 and 2008, including performances at:

• Festival Desgressions - 7 March 2007, Barcelona, Spain
• L'Ecole Régionale de Beaux Arts - 25, 26 April 2007, Valence, France
• Kosmische Club - 10 August 2007, Oslo, Norway
• ZXZW Independent Culture Festival - 22, 23 September 2007, Tilburg, the Netherlands
• Festival Soy - 29 October 2007, Nantes, France
• Galleria Toledo - 26 March 2008, Naples, Italy
• State-X Festival - 12 December 2008, The Hague, the Netherlands

Rhys Chatham made his first American presentation of a composition for a one-hundred guitar orchestra in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on May 23, 2008, with an orchestra composed of local students and teachers, as well as many professional guitarists. This performance was the premiere of a new composition entitled Les 100 Guitares: G100.

The American premiere of A Crimson Grail was on August 8, 2009. Two-hundred electric guitarists performed the piece at the Damrosch Park Bandshell in New York City. The performance was part of a free concert series, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, that was being commissioned by the Lincoln Center. Originally, the piece was supposed to be performed for 2008's Lincoln Center Out of Doors, but rain canceled the concert for safety reasons. For the 2009 premiere, precautions were taken so that the concert could go on even if it rained.

Concurrent with his work for guitar orchestras and smaller ensembles, Chatham's trumpet style has evolved from its characteristic distorted sound of the 90s to its present more dreamy and laid back approach to playing the instrument, influenced by players such as Don Cherry and Jon Hassell. An example of this style can be heard on Chatham's latest release, The Bern Project, released by Hinterzimmer Records in January 2010.

Discography[link]

• Factor X (LP), Moers Music 1983

  containing:

  • For Brass (1982)
  • Guitar Ring (1982)
  • The Out Of Tune Guitar (1982)
  • Cadenza (1981)

• Die Donnergötter (LP), Dossier Records (Europe)/Homestead Records (USA) 1987

  containing:

  • Die Donnergötter (1984–86)
  • Waterloo No. 2 (1986)
  • Guitar Trio (1977)
  • Drastic Classicism (1982)

• Neon (12", CDEP), Ntone 1997

  All compositions in collaboration with Martin Wheeler.

  containing:

  • Charm (1996)
  • Ramatek (1994)
  • Hornithology (1996)
  • Neon (1993)

• Septile (12", CD EP), Ntone 1997

  All compositions in collaboration with Jonathan Kane & DJ Elated System.

• Hardedge, The Wire Editions 1999

  Made in collaboration with Pat Thomas, Gary Smith, Gary Jeff, Lou Ciccotelli.

• A Rhys Chatham Compendium (CD), Table of the Elements 2002

  Limited-edition CD featuring selections and edits from the An Angel Moves Too Fast To See box-set.

  containing:

  • An Angel Moves Too Fast To See (1989) [edit]
  • Guitar Trio (1977) [edit]
  • Drastic Classicism (1982) [edit]
  • Two Gongs (1971) [edit]
  • Guitar Cetet (1977) [bonus track not contained in box set]
  • Waterloo, No. 2 (1986) [edit]
  • Die Donntergötter (1985) [complete version]

• An Angel Moves Too Fast To See (Selected Works 1971-1989) (3xCD box set), Table of the Elements 2002
  • disc 1:
    • Two Gongs (1971)
  • disc 2:
    • Die Donnergötter (1985)
    • Waterloo, No. 2 (1986)
    • Drastic Classicism (1982)
    • Guitar Trio (1977)
    • Massacre on MacDougal Street (1982)
  • disc 3:
    • An Angel Moves Too Fast To See (1989)

• Echo Solo (LP), Azoth Schallplatten Gesellschaft 2003

• Three Aspects Of The Name (12"), Table of the Elements 2003

• An Angel Moves Too Fast To See (For 100 Electric Guitars, Electric Bass, And Drums) (LP, CD), Table of the Elements/Radium 2006

• Die Donnergötter (LP, CD), Table of the Elements/Radium 2006

  containing:

  • Die Donnergötter (1985/86)
  • Waterloo, No. 2 (1986)
  • Drastic Classicism (1982)
  • Guitar Trio (1977)
  • Massacre on MacDougal Street (1982)

• A Crimson Grail (For 400 Electric Guitars) (CD), Paris Version / Indoor Version, Table of the Elements 2007

• The Bern Project (CD), Hinterzimmer Records 2010

  containing:

  • War In Heaven (2009)
  • A Rite for Samhain (2009)
  • Scrying in Smoke (2009)
  • My Lady of the Loire (2009)
  • Is there Life After Guitar Trio (2009)
  • Under the Petals of the Rose (2009)

• A Crimson Grail (For 200 Electric Guitars) (CD), New York Version / Outdoor Version, Nonesuch Records 2010

• Outdoor Spell (LP, CD), Northern-Spy 2011

  containing:

  • Outdoor Spell
  • Crossing the Sword Bridge
  • Corn Maiden's Rite
  • The Magician

• Rêve Parisien (LP), Primary Information 2011

External links[link]

• Rhys Chatham's Table of the Elements site
• The official "Guitar Trio Is My Life" USA 2007 tour site
• "Composer's Notebook" section of personal site
• Rhys Chatham on Myspace
• Rhys Chatham at Allmusic
• Rhys Chatham discography at MusicBrainz
• Rhys Chatham discography at Discogs
• Trouser Press entry ( not comprehensive)
• audio excerpt from XS: The Opera Opus published at Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine
• Reve Parisien excerpt from Primary Information
• Review of Guitar Trio Is My Life on Pitchfork Media
• NewMusicBox cover: Rhys Chatham in conversation with Frank J. Oteri, August 14, 2008 (includes video)
• New York Times article about the American premiere of A Crimson Grail, published on the New York Times website, July 22, 2009
• Golden, Barbara. “Conversation with Rhys Chatham.” eContact! 12.2 — Interviews (2) (April 2010). Montréal: CEC.
• Rhys Chatham and Joseph Nechvatal in discussion at the School of Visual Arts 2011 [1]

Elliott Cook Carter Jr.

Elliott Cook Carter Jr. (born December 11, 1908) is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music. His compositions, which have been performed all over the world, include orchestral and chamber music as well as solo instrumental and vocal works.

He has been extremely productive in his later years, publishing more than 40 works between the ages of 90 and 100,^[1] and over 14 more since he turned 100 in 2008.^[2]

Biography[link]

Carter's father, Elliott Carter Sr., was a businessman and his mother was the former Florence Chambers. The family was well-to-do. As a teenager, he developed an interest in music and was encouraged in this regard by the composer Charles Ives (who sold insurance to his family). In 1924, a galvanized 15-year-old Carter was in the audience when Pierre Monteux conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the New York première of The Rite of Spring, according to a 2008 report. Carter was again in attendance (see below) at Carnegie Hall, on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 2008, when the orchestra, now under the baton of James Levine, again performed the Stravinsky piece as part of its tribute to Carter.^[3] Although Carter majored in English at Harvard College, he also studied music there and at the nearby Longy School of Music. His professors included Walter Piston and Gustav Holst. He sang with the Harvard Glee Club. He did graduate work in music at Harvard, from which he received a Master's degree in music in 1932. He then went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger (as did many other American composers). Carter worked with Mlle Boulanger from 1932–35 and in 1935 he received a doctorate in music (D Mus) from the Ecole Normale in Paris. Later in 1935, he returned to the US where he wrote music for the Ballet Caravan.

From 1940 to 1944, Carter taught in the program, including music, at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. On July 6, 1939, Carter married Helen Frost-Jones. They had one child, a son, David Chambers Carter. During World War II, Carter worked for the Office of War Information. He later held teaching posts at the Peabody Conservatory (1946–1948), Columbia University, Queens College, New York (1955–56), Yale University (1960–62), Cornell University (from 1967) and the Juilliard School (from 1972). In 1967, he was appointed a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1981, he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, in 1985 the National Medal of Arts. Carter has lived in Greenwich Village since 1945.^[1]

On December 11, 2008, Carter celebrated his 100th birthday at Carnegie Hall in New York, where the Boston Symphony Orchestra and pianist Daniel Barenboim played his Interventions for Piano and Orchestra from 2008. Between the ages of 90 and 100, Carter published more than 40 works, and after his 100th birthday he has composed at least 14 more.^[1]

On February 7, 2009, Carter was given the Trustees Award (a lifetime achievement award given to non-performers) by the Grammy Awards.^[4]

Carter is on the faculty of the Tanglewood Music Center where he gives annual composition master classes.

Style and works[link]

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Carter's earlier works are influenced by Stravinsky, Harris, Copland, and Hindemith, and are mainly neoclassical in aesthetic. He had a strict and thorough training in counterpoint, from medieval polyphony through Stravinsky, and this shows in his earliest music, such as the ballet Pocahontas (1938–39). Some of his music during the Second World War is frankly diatonic, and includes a melodic lyricism reminiscent of Samuel Barber.

His music after 1950 is typically atonal and rhythmically complex, indicated by the invention of the term metric modulation to describe the frequent, precise tempo changes found in his work. While Carter's chromaticism and tonal vocabulary parallels serial composers of the period, Carter does not employ serial techniques in his music. Rather he independently developed and cataloged all possible collections of pitches (i.e., all possible three-note chords, five-note chords, etc.). Musical theorists like Allen Forte later systematized these data into musical set theory. A series of works in the 1960s and 1970s generates its tonal material by using all possible chords of a particular number of pitches.

The Piano Concerto (1964–65) uses the collection of three-note chords for its pitch material; the Third String Quartet (1971) uses all four-note chords; the Concerto for Orchestra (1969) all five-note chords; and the Symphony of Three Orchestras uses the collection of six-note chords. Carter also makes frequent use of "tonic" 12-note chords. Of particular interest are "all-interval" 12-tone chords where every interval is represented within adjacent notes of the chord. His 1980 solo piano work Night Fantasies uses the entire collection of the 88 symmetrical-inverted all-interval 12 note chords. Typically, the pitch material is segmented between instruments, with a unique set of chords or sets assigned to each instrument or orchestral section. This stratification of material, with individual voices assigned not only their own unique pitch material, but texture and rhythm as well, is a key component of Carter's musical style. Carter's music after Night Fantasies has been termed his late period and his tonal language has become less systematized and more intuitive, but retains the basic characteristics of his earlier works.

Carter's use of rhythm can best be understood within the concept of stratification. Each instrumental voice is typically assigned its own set of tempos. A structural polyrhythm, where a very slow polyrhythm is used as a formal device, is present in many of Carter's works. Night Fantasies, for example, uses a 216:175 tempo relation that coincides at only two points in the entire 20+ minute composition. This use of rhythm is part of his goal to expand the notion of counterpoint to encompass simultaneous different characters, even entire movements, rather than just individual lines.

Carter developed his technique to further his artistic goals. His use of rhythm allows his music a structured fluidity and sense of time perhaps unique in classical music. The music also is overtly expressive and dramatic. He has said that "I regard my scores as scenarios, auditory scenarios, for performers to act out with their instruments, dramatizing the players as individuals and participants in the ensemble."^{[cite this quote]} He has also talked about his desire to portray a "different form of motion," in which players are not locked in step with the downbeat of every measure.

He has said that such steady pulses remind him of soldiers marching or horses trotting, sounds that are not heard anymore in the late 20th century, and he wants his music to capture the sort of continuous acceleration or deceleration experienced in an automobile or an airplane. While Carter's atonal music shows little trace of American popular music or jazz, his vocal music has demonstrated strong ties to contemporary American poetry. He has set works of Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery, Robert Lowell, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, and Marianne Moore. Several of his large instrumental works such as the Concerto for Orchestra or Symphony of Three Orchestras are inspired by twentieth-century poets as well.

Among his better known works are the Variations for Orchestra (1954–5); the Double Concerto for harpsichord, piano and two chamber orchestras (1959–61); the Piano Concerto (1964–65), written as an 85th birthday present for Igor Stravinsky; the Concerto for Orchestra (1969), loosely based on a poem by Saint-John Perse; and the Symphony of Three Orchestras (1976). He has also written five string quartets,^[5] of which the second and third won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1960 and 1973 respectively. Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei (1993–1996) is his largest orchestral work, complex in structure and featuring contrasting layers of instrumental textures, from delicate wind solos to crashing brass and percussion outbursts.

In spite of a usually rigorous derivation of all pitch content of a piece from a source chord, or series of chords, Carter never abandons lyricism, and ensures that a text is sung intelligibly, sometimes even simply. In A Mirror on Which to Dwell (1975) (based on poems by Elizabeth Bishop) Carter writes colorful, subtle, transparently clear music; yet almost every pitch in the piece is derived from the content of a single sonority. Most of Carter's music is published by either G. Schirmer/Associated Music Publishers (works up to 1981) or Boosey & Hawkes (works since 1981).

Carter continues composing. Interventions for Piano and Orchestra received its premiere on December 5, 2008, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine featuring pianist Daniel Barenboim at Symphony Hall in Boston. The pianist reprised the work again with the BSO at Carnegie Hall in New York in the presence of the composer on his 100th birthday.^[1] Carter was also present at the 2009 Aldeburgh Festival to hear the world premiere of his song-cycle On Conversing with Paradise, based on Ezra Pound's Canto 95 (from the section Rock-Drill) and one of Pound's 'Notes' intended for later Cantos, and usually published at the end of the Cantos. ^[6] The premiere was given on June 20, 2009 by baritone Leigh Melrose and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group conducted by Oliver Knussen.^[7]

Figment V for marimba with Simon Boyar was premiered in New York on 2 May 2009 and Poems of Louis Zukofsky for soprano and clarinet had its first performance by Lucy Shelton and Stanley Drucker at the Tanglewood Festival on August 9, 2009. The US premiere of the Flute Concerto took place on February 4, 2010, with soloist Elizabeth Rowe and the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine.

Partial list of works[link]

Ballet[link]

• Pocahontas (1938–39)
• The Minotaur (1947)

Chamber[link]

• Canonic Suite for saxophone quartet (AAAA) (1939)
• Elegy for viola and piano (1943)
• Piano Sonata (1945–46)
• Cello Sonata (1948)
• Woodwind Quintet (1948)
• Eight Etudes and a Fantasy for wind quartet (1949) [2]
• String Quartet No. 1 (1951)
• Sonata for flute, oboe, cello, and harpsichord (1952)
• String Quartet No. 2 (1959)
• Canon for 3 (1971)
• String Quartet No. 3 (1971)
• Brass Quintet (1974)
• Duo for violin and piano (1974)
• Birthday Fanfare for three trumpets, vibraphone, and glockenspiel (1978)
• Triple Duo (1983)
• Esprit rude/esprit doux for flute and clarinet (1984)
• Canon for 4 (1984)
• String Quartet No. 4 (1986)
• Enchanted Prelude for flute and cello (1988)
• Con leggerezza pensosa for clarinet, violin, and cello (1990)
• Quintet for piano and winds (1991)
• Trilogy for oboe and harp (1992)

1. Bariolage for harp
2. Inner Song for oboe
3. Immer Neu for oboe and harp

• Esprit rude/esprit doux II for flute, clarinet, and marimba (1994)
• Fragment I for string quartet (1994)
• String Quartet No.5 (1995)
• Luimen for ensemble (1997)
• Quintet for piano and string quartet (1997)
• Fragment II for string quartet (1999)
• Oboe Quartet, for oboe, violin, viola, and cello (2001)
• Hiyoku for two clarinets (2001)
• Au Quai for bassoon and viola (2002)
• Call for two trumpets and horn (2003)
• Clarinet Quintet (2007)
• Tintinnabulation for percussion sextet (2008)
• Tre Duetti for violin and cello (2008, 2009)

1. Duettone
2. Adagio
3. Duettino

• Trije glasbeniki for flute, bass clarinet, and harp (2011)
• String Trio (2011)
• Double Trio for trumpet, trombone, percussion, piano, violin and cello (2011)

Choral[link]

• Tarantella for men's chorus and two pianos (1937)
• Let's Be Gay for women's chorus and two pianos (1937)
• Harvest Home for a capella choir (1937)
• To Music for a capella choir (1937)
• Heart Not So Heavy for a capella choir (1939)
• The Defense of Corinth for speaker, men's chorus and piano four hands (1941)
• The Harmony of Morning for women's chorus and chamber orchestra (1944)
• Musicians Wrestle Everywhere for a capella choir (1945)
• Emblems for men's chorus and piano (1947)

Concertante[link]

• Double Concerto for piano, harpsichord and 2 chamber orchestras (1959–61)
• Piano Concerto (1964)
• Concerto for Orchestra (1969)
• Oboe Concerto (1986–1987)
• Violin Concerto (1989)
• Clarinet Concerto (1996)
• Cello Concerto (2001)
• Boston Concerto (2002)
• Dialogues for piano and chamber orchestra (2003)
• Mosaic for harp and ensemble (2004)
• Horn Concerto (2007)
• Flute Concerto (2008)
• Concertino for bass clarinet and chamber orchestra (2009)
• Conversations for piano, percussion, and chamber/full orchestra (2010)
• Two Controversies and a Conversation for piano, percussion, and chamber/full orchestra (2011)

Large ensemble[link]

• Penthode for ensemble (1985)
• ASKO Concerto for sixteen players (2000)
• Réflexions for ensemble (2004)
• Wind Rose for wind ensemble (2008)

Opera[link]

• What Next? (opera in one act) (1997)

Orchestra[link]

• Symphony No. 1 (1942, revised 1954)
• Holiday Overture (1944, revised 1961)
• Variations for orchestra (1954–1955)
• A Symphony of Three Orchestras (1976)
• Three Occasions for orchestra (1986–89)

1. A Celebration of Some 150x100 Notes
2. Remembrance
3. Anniversary

• Symphonia: Sum fluxae pretium spei (1993–96)

1. Partita
2. Adagio Tenebroso
3. Allegro Scorrevole

• Three Illusions for orchestra (2002–04)

1. Micomicón
2. Fons Juventatis
3. More's Utopia

• Soundings for piano and orchestra (2005)
• Interventions for piano and orchestra (2007)
• Sound Fields for string orchestra (2007)

Solo instrumental[link]

• Piano Sonata (1945–46)
• Eight Pieces for Four Timpani (1949/66)
• Night Fantasies for piano (1980)
• Changes for guitar (1983)
• Scrivo in Vento for flute (1991)
• Gra for clarinet (1994)
• 90+ for piano (1994)
• Figment for cello (1994)
• A 6-letter Letter for English horn (1996)
• Shard for guitar (1997)
• Two Diversions for piano (1999)
• Four Lauds for solo violin (1999, 1984, 2000, 1999)

1. I. Statement – Remembering Aaron
2. II. Riconoscenza per Goffredo Petrassi
3. III. Rhapsodic Musings
4. IV. Fantasy – Remembering Roger

• Retrouvailles for piano (2000)
• Figment II for cello (2001)
• Steep Steps for bass clarinet (2001)
• Retracing for bassoon (2002)
• Intermittences for piano (2005)
• Caténaires for piano (2006)
• HBHH for oboe (2007)
• Figment III for contrabass (2007)
• Figment IV for viola (2007)
• Tri-Tribute for piano (2007, 2008)

1. "Matribute"
2. "Fratribute"
3. "Sistribute"

• Figment V for marimba (2009)
• Retracing II for horn (2009)
• Retracing III for trumpet (2009)

Voice[link]

• My Love Is in a Light Attire for voice and piano (1928)
• Tell Me Where Is Fancy Bred for voice and guitar (1938)
• A Mirror on Which to Dwell for soprano and ensemble (1975)
• Syringa for mezzo-soprano, bass-baritone, guitar, and ensemble (1978)
• Three Poems of Robert Frost for baritone and ensemble (1942, orchestrated 1980)
• In Sleep, in Thunder for tenor and ensemble (1981)
• Of Challenge and of Love for soprano and piano (1994)
• Tempo e Tempi for soprano, oboe, clarinet, violin, and cello (1998–99)
• Of Rewaking for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (2002)
• In the Distances of Sleep for mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra (2006)
• Mad Regales for six solo voices (2007)
• La Musique for solo voice (2007)
• Poems of Louis Zukofsky (2008) for mezzo-soprano and clarinet
• On Conversing with Paradise (2008) for baritone and chamber orchestra
• What Are Years (2009) for soprano and chamber orchestra
• A Sunbeam's Architecture (2010) for tenor and chamber orchestra
• Three Explorations (2011) for bass-baritone, winds, and brass

Partial discography[link]

• Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord; Sonata for Cello and Piano; Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano With Two Chamber Orchestras. Paul Jacobs, hpschd; Joel Krosnick, cello; Gilbert Kalish, piano; The Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Arthur Weisberg, cond. Elektra/Nonesuch 9 79183-2.
• String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2. The Composers Quartet. Elektra/Nonesuch 9 71249-2
• Piano Concerto; Variations for Orchestra. Ursula Oppens, piano; Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Michael Gielen, cond. New World Records, NW 347–2.
• Triple Duo; Clarinet Concerto; short pieces. Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Lorraine Vaillancourt, cond. ATMA Classique, ACD2 2280.
• Complete Music for Piano. Charles Rosen, Piano. Bridge 9090.
• Vocal Works (1975–81): A Mirror on Which to Dwell; In Sleep, In Thunder; Syringa; Three Poems of Robert Frost. Speculum Musicae with Katherine Ciesinki, mezzo; Jon Garrison, tenor; Jan Opalach, bass; Christine Schadeberg, soprano. Bridge, BCD 9014.
• Dialogues; Boston Concerto; Cello Concerto; ASKO Concerto. Nicolas Hodges, piano; Fred Sherry, cello; London Sinfonietta, BBC Symphony Orchestra, ASKO Ensemble, Oliver Knussen, cond. Bridge 9184.

Notable students[link]

• Ronald Caltabiano
• Joel Chadabe
• Alvin Curran
• Joel Hoffman
• Tod Machover
• Jeffrey Mumford
• Tobias Picker
• David Schiff
• William Schimmel
• Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

References[link]

Doering, William T. Elliott Carter: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood Press, 1993.

Interviews[link]

• Elliott Carter interview by Bruce Duffie, June 1986
• American Gothic: An Interview with Elliott Carter, by Andy Carvin, 1992
• A January 1994 interview with Elliott Carter by Phil Lesh
• NewMusicBox: Elliott Carter in conversation with Frank J. Oteri, 2000
• MusicMavericks.PublicRadio.org: An interview with Elliot Carter by Alan Baker, Minnesota Public Radio, July 2002
• Radical Connections on Counterstream Radio: Elliott Carter and Phil Lesh in Conversation, December 2007]
• Elliott Carter Centenary Podcast, an interview with Frank J. Oteri, November 27, 2007
• TV Interview (with Daniel Barenboim and James Levine) by Charlie Rose, December 10, 2008

Listening[link]

• Elliott Carter: A Life In Music, a documentary (1983)
• Art of the States: Elliott Carter four works by the composer
• Elliott Carter interview from American Mavericks site
• Excerpts from sound archives of Carter's works

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Elliott Carter

• Yale University Library: Research Guide to Elliott Carter's Life and Music
• Elliott Carter by photographer Philippe Gontier
• Elliott Carter: A Centennial Portrait in Letters and Documents by Felix Meyer & Anne C. Shreffler published by the Boydell Press in association with the Paul Sacher Foundation.
• Elliott Carter at G. Schirmer/AMP
• Elliott Carter at Boosey and Hawkes
• The String Quartets of Elliott Carter Booklet note for recording by the Arditti Quartet of Quartets 1–4 and Elegy (1988 ETCETERA KTC 1065/1066), by David Harvey
• CompositionToday – Elliot Carter article and review of works
• http://web.archive.org/web/20080201015213/http://www.carter100.com/ Elliott Carter Centenary 2008]
• John Link's Analysis of Night Fantasies
• Joshua B. Mailman's "Imagined Drama of Competitive Opposition in Carter's Scrivo in Vento (with Notes on Narrative, Symmetry, Quantitative Flux and Heraclitus)"
• (French) A biography of Elliott Carter, from IRCAM's website.
• Lifetime Honors - National Medal of Arts