Composers Datebook

On today’s date in 1994, at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, the Chicago Symphony and conductor Daniel Barenboim gave the world premiere performance of “Partita” by the American composer Elliott Carter, specially commissioned in honor of the composer’s 85th birthday. It was a major work, and a major occasion – but, as the Chicago Tribune’s music critic John von Rheim put it, that date “will forever be known as the Night the Lights Went Out on Elliott Carter.” Just as the orchestra was playing the final pages of Carter’s complex score, the house lights went out. The audience gasped. The orchestra stopped playing. Not sure what to do, the audience started applauding. Then, after a moment or two the lights came back on. After breathing a sigh of relief, Barenboim and the orchestra prepared to pick up where they had left off – and then the lights went out again! Turning to the audience, Barenboim quipped, "It’s a good thing we and Mr. Carter are not superstitious." Well, eventually the lights came back on – and stayed on, enabling the Orchestra to finish the premiere of Carter’s “Partita.” But, perhaps as a kind of insurance policy – later on Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony also made a live recording of the new work.