Elliott Carter (pictured below) came to the string quartet medium with a narrow set of interests, but explored each thoroughly. He wasn’t interested in colours or effects, and there are few extended ...

String Quartet No. 1 Pacifica Quartet Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer String Quartet No. 5 Pacifica Quartet Elliott (Cook) Carter, Composer In No 1 (1951), the Pacifica find a near-perfect balance ...

A composer of famously thorny music had two failed forays into ballet, given fresh reconsideration on a new album. By Joshua Barone A head-spinning performance of Carter’s five string quartets was one ...

In “Kafka and his Precursors,” Jorge Luis Borges explains that revolutionary writers such as Kafka can fundamentally alter the way we interpret everything that preceded them in the literary canon.

The four men worked in shirtsleeves, practicing alone on the barren stage, rigid on their chairs, laboring in total concentration to draw from their instruments the warm, expressive voices that ...

"I don't think it means anything to be popular," Carter said. Classical composer Elliott Carter, whose challenging, rhythmically complex works earned him widespread admiration and two Pulitzer Prizes, ...