Quicksilver Elegy

I’ve always felt a sense of connection with the great American composer Elliott Carter, who died in 2012 just a few weeks short of his 104th birthday. Although I met him (very briefly) only once, his music has been a constant source of inspiration and challenge, particularly in the way it combines precise structural control with narrative drama and gestural spontaneity.
Although this piece is a memorial for Carter, there is far more cause for celebration than regret at the conclusion of a life so long, full of vigour and accomplishment – hence my paradoxical title. One of the challenges I set myself in writing the piece was to achieve as wide a rhythmic variety as possible without the use of a single triplet, quintuplet or other irregular grouping: in addition, apparent contrasts of speed are effected purely through different beat lengths at the same notated tempo. The temporal structure is based on the number 104, arranged as a Carterian structural polyrhythm of 13 x 8, while the pitch materials are derived from a cipher of Carter’s name. All the possible subsets (solos, duos, trios) of the unusual instrumental quartet are explored in the work, which charts a whimsical course from energetic opening to reflective close, the periodic intrusion of silence is perhaps the most directly elegiac aspect of the music.