Fields of Sound

Fields of Sound

A photo of Cage and Carter together should serve as a reminder that in the final analysis the various, seemingly irreconcilable strands of 20th-century American new music can, in fact, be reconciled.

Written By

Frank J. Oteri

Frank J. Oteri is an ASCAP-award winning composer and music journalist. Among his compositions are Already Yesterday or Still Tomorrow for orchestra, the "performance oratorio" MACHUNAS, the 1/4-tone sax quartet Fair and Balanced?, and the 1/6-tone rock band suite Imagined Overtures. His compositions are represented by Black Tea Music. Oteri is the Vice President of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) and is Composer Advocate at New Music USA where he has been the Editor of its web magazine, NewMusicBox.org, since its founding in 1999.


John Cage and Elliott Carter in Holland, 1987. Photograph by Geek Zwetsloot, courtesy Elliott Carter.

Most contemporary music aficionados already know that it’s all Elliott Carter at this summer’s Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, which started bright and early at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning and continues through Thursday night. I trekked up here late Saturday afternoon so as not to miss the Sunday 10 a.m. gig, which included the U.S. premiere of Refléxions, a work chock full of visceral sonorities ranging from clacking rocks to super-low contrabass clarinet utterances—already definitely worth the trip. And I’m sticking around through tonight’s concert which includes the world premiere of Mad Regales, Carter’s first unaccompanied vocal ensemble composition in more than sixty years!

But so far, for me, the highlight of this early 100th birthday celebration was another brand new piece: Sound Fields, a brief string orchestra piece played without vibrato and maintaining a constant dynamic level throughout. Carter has stated that it was inspired by the paintings of Helen Frankenthaler, but to my ears it was bizarrely reminiscent of Morton Feldman or the late number pieces of John Cage. In a small exhibition of Carter photos and manuscript pages in Tanglewood’s Highwood Manor, there’s even a photo of Cage and Carter together, which perhaps should serve as a reminder that in the final analysis the various, seemingly irreconcilable strands of 20th-century American new music can, in fact, be reconciled.


Elliott Carter and Leonard Bernstein in Tucson, Arizona, 1950. Photograph by Sedley-Hopkins, courtesy Elliott Carter.

Once I got to Tanglewood, I learned that many of these performances are going to be made available for streaming on a special “Carter TV” portal on the BSO/Tanglewood website. The staged performance of Carter’s opera What Next?, which I journeyed here to see two years ago, is already up there. I’ll try not to think about the fact that I could have stayed home and still would have been able to see and hear all of this when I head to the Albany airport at 5 a.m. tomorrow to get the next event on my schedule. Still nothing beats being here and interacting with all the Carter groupies, some of whom have traveled from even further away than me to get here.

There’s something extraordinary about being in an audience hearing really challenging music and having it end with a unanimous cheer. Luckily Carter—yesterday wearing shorts and sandals—is still around to witness this, too.