A WHOLLY DISINTERESTED ART?
Carter's next major work after the First Quartet was Variations for Orchestra, composed between 1953 and 1955 on commission from the Louisville Orchestra. It took the quartet's tempo modulation technique a step further, applying it not only to discrete proportional relationships (comparable to gear shifts), but to gradually executed accelerandos and ritardandos as well. This technical refinement, and a great many others, went into the Second Quartet (1959), the style of which was much influenced by Carter's European success and the respect he now enjoyed among the younger composers there (as well as his generational peers, like Luigi Dallapiccola and Goffredo Petrassi, the senior Italian serialists, who heard the First Quartet at its Rome premiere). Carter now had a new peer group with which to compare himself, and a new source of approbation. It led him, in particular, to look for ways of replacing the traditional thematic basis on which his music, even in the Quartet, had always proceeded.
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 6 Standoff (II)." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-006006.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 6 Standoff (II). In Oxford University Press, Music in the Late Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 15 Mar. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-006006.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 6 Standoff (II)." In Music in the Late Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 15 Mar. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-006006.xml
