Ned Rorem in Rome - early , month unknown, 1954

from Lies: A Diary 1986-1999, page 183:

In Rome, early 1954, when Elliott Carter's First String Quartet was played, I'd never heard anything like it before, and told him it sounded like the end of the world. To this day is incised on my brain the device, in the Adagio, of two impassioned muted violins juxtaposed with the savage viola and cello - a device devised by Ives in The Unanswered Question (disparate simultaneity), and, before that, in Nuages, where Debussy's Cor Anglais rends the cloudily indifferent strings. 

cite as

Ned Rorem, Lies: A Diary 1986-1999 (New York, 2002), p. 183. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1437561453818 accessed: 5 December, 2024

location of experience: Rome

Listeners

Ned Rorem
Critic, essayist, Composer, Diarist […]
1923-

Listening to

hide composers
First String Quartet
written by Elliott Carter

Experience Information

Date/Time early , month unknown, 1954
Medium live
Listening Environment in the company of others, indoors, in public

Originally submitted by pashworth on Wed, 22 Jul 2015 11:37:34 +0100
Approved on Tue, 02 Feb 2016 14:28:31 +0000