Review of Elliott Carter Speaks: Unpublished Lectures, Edited and with an introduction by Laura Emmery (University of Illinois Press, 2021)

Abstract

Conversation with Elliott Carter (1971) is well known as a key document in Carter's reception history. But the book's format initially raised a few eyebrows. Carlton Gamer, unconvinced that such a carefully edited text should be called a "conversation," responded by interviewing himself in his review (1973). When "C. G." is asked by "MYSELF" why the conversational format is "problematic," he recalls the precedent of Carter's interview with Benjamin Boretz, which was "radically re-written" prior to its publication in Perspectives of New Music "in such a way as to convey an impression of polish and erudition that was lacking in the original" (Gamer 1973, 148). (1) This tradition of editorial rewriting has been revived in different circumstances in a new book from the University of Illinois Press, Elliott Carter Speaks: Unpublished Lectures, edited and with an introduction by Laura Emmery. The book presents a trove of primary source material from Carter's lectures at the University of Minnesota (1967) that is largely unknown to Carter enthusiasts, but it does so in a way that raises fundamental questions about how that material has been altered on its way to publication. (2) [2] Understanding these questions requires some background. Carter gave the lectures that form the basis of Elliott Carter Speaks at the University of Minnesota in July 1967 as part of the university's "Summer Music at Minnesota" program (Summer Session Bulletin, 1967). (3) His visit culminated with a performance of his Piano Concerto by Jacob Lateiner and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Stanisław Skrowaczewski on Friday, July 7. (4) Recordings of most of Carter's lectures are preserved on a series of reelto-reel tapes, which were in Carter's possession when he sold his physical manuscripts and other career-related materials in 1987 to the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, Switzerland. (5) There, the contents were transferred to ten CDs. (6) Notes that accompany the recordings indicate that Carter gave only one lecture on Monday July 3, and two lectures each on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, July 4-6, for a total of seven lectures. The recordings of all the lectures, except the one on Wednesday afternoon, are missing their beginnings, and all but three (Monday, Wednesday afternoon, and Thursday morning) are cut off when the tape runs out or the tape machine is stopped while Carter is still speaking (see Example 1). ( 7) A newspaper article published in the Minneapolis Tribune the week before Carter's arrival says that, in addition to "three open rehearsals of the 98-100 and Link 2022, 82-83 Return to text