String Quartet No. 3 (Carter)
Encyclopedia
The Third String Quartet
by American
composer Elliott Carter
(1908-) was completed in 1971. Like his previous quartet
, it is dedicated to the Juilliard String Quartet
, and it was premiered in 1973. This quartet earned Carter his second Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1973.
s and dissonances.
Each duo uses a distinct interval class
, dynamic range, phrasing, and bowing techniques per movement. The movements are (Mead 1983–84, 32):
Duo I:
Duo II:
Carter intended to achieve the effect of two distinct ensemble groups playing two pieces at once, clashing in sound. However, he stressed the importance of observing the combinations of sound between the two sound sources.
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
composer Elliott Carter
Elliott Carter
Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. 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...
(1908-) was completed in 1971. Like his previous quartet
String Quartet No. 2 (Carter)
The Second String Quartet by American composer Elliott Carter was completed in 1959. It was commissioned by the Stanley String Quartet, and received its first performance in 1960 by the Juilliard String Quartet....
, it is dedicated to the Juilliard String Quartet
Juilliard String Quartet
The Juilliard String Quartet is a classical music string quartet founded in 1946 at the Juilliard School in New York. The original members were violinists Robert Mann and Robert Koff, violist Raphael Hillyer, and cellist Arthur Winograd; Current members are Joseph Lin and Ronald Copes violinists,...
, and it was premiered in 1973. This quartet earned Carter his second Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1973.
Construction
The quartet is divided into a pair of duos, Duo I made up of the first violin and the cello, and Duo II made up of the second violin and viola. The two duos play in their own overlapping movements: distinct tempos, articulation, and material, neither coinciding with the other. The first duo is instructed to play rubato throughout its four movements, while the second plays in strict time in six movements. In addition, each movement is assigned a characteristic interval. The ten movements are not played continuously, but rather are fragmented and recombined, producing a total of 24 possible pairings of movements between the duos, as well as a solo statement of each movement. An additional coda brings the total number of sections to 35 (Mead 1983–84, 31–32). The duos rarely synchronize and frequently clash in complex polyrhythmPolyrhythm
Polyrhythm is the simultaneous sounding of two or more independent rhythms.Polyrhythm in general is a nonspecific term for the simultaneous occurrence of two or more conflicting rhythms, of which cross-rhythm is a specific and definable subset.—Novotney Polyrhythms can be distinguished from...
s and dissonances.
Each duo uses a distinct interval class
Interval class
In musical set theory, an interval class , also known as unordered pitch-class interval, interval distance, undirected interval, or interval mod...
, dynamic range, phrasing, and bowing techniques per movement. The movements are (Mead 1983–84, 32):
Duo I:
- A Furioso (major seventh)
- B Leggerissimo (perfect fourth)
- C Andande espressivo (minor sixth)
- D Pizzicato giocoso (minor third)
Duo II:
- 1 Maestoso (perfect fifth)
- 2 Grazioso (minor seventh)
- 3 Pizzicato giusto, mechanico (tritone)
- 4 Scorrevole (minor second)
- 5 Largo tranquillo (major third)
- 6 Appassionato (major 6th)
Carter intended to achieve the effect of two distinct ensemble groups playing two pieces at once, clashing in sound. However, he stressed the importance of observing the combinations of sound between the two sound sources.
Further reading
- Bernard, Jonathan W. 1983. "Spatial Sets in Recent Music of Elliott Carter". Music Analysis 2, no. 1 (March): 5–34.
- Godfrey, Daniel. 1987. "A Unique Vision of Musical Time: Carter's String Quartet no. 3". Sonus: A Journal of Investigations into Global Musical Possibilities 8, no. 1 (Fall): 40–59.
- Mead, Andrew W. 1995. "Twelve-Tone Composition and the Music of Elliott Carter". In Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz Since 1945: Essays and Analytical Studies, edited by Elizabeth West Marvin and Richard Hermann, 67–102. Rochester: University of Rochester Press. ISBN 1-878822-42-X.
- Schiff, David. 1998. The Music of Elliott Carter, second edition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801436125.
- Schiff, David. 2001. "Carter, Elliott (Cook)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley SadieStanley SadieStanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
and John TyrrellJohn Tyrrell (professor of music)John Tyrrell was born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia in 1942. He studied at the universities of Cape Town, Oxford and Brno. In 2000 he was appointed Research Professor at Cardiff University....
. London: Macmillan Publishers.