Composers Datebook

The American composer Elliott Carter has a reputation for writing some of the thorniest, most abstract and most technically difficult orchestral scores of the 20th century. But for a few moments at least, during the opening of Carter’s “Symphony of Three Orchestras,” which had its premiere performance on today’s date in 1977 at a New York Philharmonic concert conducted by Pierre Boulez, audiences must have been surprised by an impressionistic, almost Romantic tone. In notes for the new piece, Carter admitted the opening of the new work was inspired by the poetry of Hart Crane, specifically Crane’s description of the New York harbor and the Brooklyn Bridge. Both those New York landmarks were a short walk away from Carter’s lower Manhattan apartment in 1977. Carter’s 15-minute “Symphony of Three Orchestras” quickly shifts into his more recognizably dense style, however, and, as the title indicates, employs three orchestras on one stage, playing with and against each other at various points. As the New York Times reviewer wrote: “Mr. Carter has never made concessions to his listeners. The dissonances are Ivesian, with everything coming together in the end in smashing volleys of shrieking sound. It will take many hearings for the relationships of the score to assert themselves, though one can be confident that Mr. Carter, one of the most accomplished constructionists of the age, has assembled everything with pin-point logic.”