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carter's lost years Elliott Cook Carter, Jr., St. John's College Tutor, 1940-1942: A Musicological Find Right in My Backyard By Hollis Thoms O n Nov. 5, 2012, American composer Elliott Carter died at his home in New York City at the age of 103, about a month short of his 104th birthday. He was one of the great composers of the 20th century, having won two Pulitzer Prizes in musical composition, in 1960 for his String Quartet No. 2 and in 1973 for his String Quartet No. 3. In 2006, as part of a sabbatical year, taking off from school administration duties, I completed a master of liberal arts degree at St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland, with a Great Books curriculum. Somehow during that time, I heard rumored that Elliott Carter had taught at St. John's College way back in the 1940s but no one knew anything about it. I didn't think any more about it until about a year ago when a series of talks on music was held at St. John's College in historic Annapolis, which encompassed Colonial America, the 19th-century, and the 20th-century, including the development of The Annapolis Symphony and the music at St. John's College. There was no mention whatsoever about Elliott Carter. I was surprised nothing was said about him since he was a famous American composer and when I commented about that at the lecture but no one seemed to know very much about it. I found a book of essays by Elliott Carter in the St. John's College Library and he talked quite extensively about teaching music in a liberal arts college, specifically mentioning his teaching tenure at St. John's College in two wonderful essays he wrote in 1944 and 1952. As a composer and educator, I decided to investigate this mystery about this famous composer's connection with St. John's College. The first thing I did was to read all the recent literature I could about Elliott Carter life and works, and spent some time listening again to his complex, challenging and exciting music. I went to the Library of Congress and looked at some of his scores and manuscripts. I attempted to become familiar with his early life before he St. John's College Library Archives Elliott Carter, Tutor, 1940-1942 arrived at St. John's College in 1940 at the age of 31. I wanted to find out why he came to St. John's College and what his teaching legacy was, because there was nothing in the literature that mentioned more than he taught music, Greek, mathematics, physics and philosophy at St. John's College from 1940-1942. Under the bibliographic listings of Carter's writings in one book, it was noted that he wrote four music laboratory exercises while at St. John's College. From my research I reconstructed his life around that time. Elliott Carter attended Harvard University as an undergraduate completing a degree in English literature instead of music, because he found the music department at Harvard too traditional. He was interested only in new music. Through his musical connections as a young man he was introduced to the famous American composer Charles Ives, who personally befriended him, and Aaron Copland and others who were writing new and exciting music. He decided, however. When Gustav Holst and Walter Piston, who were more receptive to new music, came to Harvard's music department, 14 PAN PIPES WINTER 2013 sai-national.org winter 13 PP.indd 14 2/12/2013 2:15:11 PM

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