Musical Gestures and Aural Imagery in Songs of Elliott Carter

Through performance, lecture, and reflection, this recital examines musical imagery created in some of Elliott Carter’s songs. Carter’s interest in composing “recognizable identities” in each piece allows a listener to group musical gestures and sound-shapes together, establishing aural “norms” and “deviants.” Within this framework, the audience is presented with several aural landscapes of an American modernist composer, and offered a method of informed listening of post-tonal music. We will explore pieces that span over 60 years of Carter’s output, including Three Poems of Robert Frost (1942), Voyage (1945), “Am Klavier” from Of Challenge and of Love (1994), Retrouvailles (2000), and La Musique (2007).