Virgil Thomson reviews Elliott Carter

Virgil Thomson reviews Elliott Carter

From Composers Datebook by American Public Media

May 4, 2026 · 2 min

About this episode

The episode discusses Virgil Thomson's review of Elliott Carter's String Quartet No. 1 and its significance in music history.

Synopsis On today's date in 1953, at New York’s 92nd Street YMCA, the Walden String Quartet tackled the difficult String Quartet No. 1 by American composer Elliott Carter. Carter's Quartet was as densely-packed with ideas as a page from James Joyce — an author the composer cited as an influence. But, writing for the Herald Tribune, composer Virgil Thomson gave the work a glowing review: “The piece is complex of texture, delicious in sound, richly expressive and in every way grand — the audience loved it,” wrote Thomson. That same year Carter’s quartet won First Prize in the International String Quartet competition in Belgium — a contest Carter entered almost as an afterthought. “My Quartet No. 1 was written largely for my own satisfaction and grew out of an effort to understand myself,” he said. To escape from the distractions of New York, Carter retreated to the desert near Tucson to write it. No one had commissioned the quartet, and Carter initially feared its complexity would baffle performers and audiences. His next quartet, equally challenging, won a Pulitzer Prize. Complexity would characterize Carter's music for the next 50 years — although the composer himself insisted…

Topics covered

  • Elliott Carter
  • Virgil Thomson
  • string quartet
  • music review
  • American composers
  • music history

Keywords

  • Elliott Carter
  • Virgil Thomson
  • String Quartet No. 1
  • music review
  • American composers
  • Walden String Quartet
  • 1953

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Herald Tribune, Walden String Quartet, Nonesuch

Books & works: String Quartet No. 1

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