Elliott Carter

Carter’s rhythmic explorations stem, I believe, from many sources: from deep perceptions of the phenomenon of musical time, from a conviction that the expressive possibilities of 20th-century music in the field of rhythm had not yet been developed as boldly as they could be – and in this respect Charles Yves’ complex polyrhythm was a stimulating influence – and from literary analogies.
As a man of broad culture, passionately interested in all aspects of modern thought since his student days, he was probably as deeply influenced by other arts, especially literature, as he was by contemporary music.
He found the temporal aspect that interested him most in the novels of Proust, in which the present always appears in connection with the past; the past is almost superimposed on the present. And in trying to find a musical parallel to Proust, Carter began to develop the principle of a musical texture in which layers of different ideas are combined. The question was how to keep these layers separate and how to present them so that the listener could recognise them and see how they interacted. In a sense, however, he has gone further than Proust; he has translated Proust’s concepts into a medium in which they could be reached with immediate accessibility.