The Moon and the Insomniac: Musical Personae in Elliott Carter's ";Insomnia";

Abstract

Elliott Carter's system of setting a text is examined by means of an analysis of the song 'Insomnia' from A Mirror on Which to Dwell. The close relationship between the poetry and the music is seen in the way that Carter relates his music to the details of the poem, both in form and content. Linear continuities in the music, defined in terms of textural streams with specific musical characteristics, signify personae in the poem through their extra-musical connotations, while stream interaction and textural processes within individual streams relay Carter's interpretation of the text. The formal structure of the poem generates the large-scale tripartite form of the song and plays a role in determining smaller-scale musical subsections. The analytical method presented in this paper, with its focus on linear texture, is appropriate for the analysis of other recent compositions by Carter.


(SA J Musicology: 1999/2000 19/20: 57-70)