Die meeste van ons hoop seker heimlik om gesond en produktief oud te word, maar min van ons sou selfs in ons wildste drome daarop hoop om Elliott Carter sy produktiewe langlewendheid na te doen. Dit sou buitensporig wees; ‘n soort hubris!
Hierdie groot Amerikaanse komponis is op 11 Desember 1908 gebore. Hy word dus binnekort 102 jaar oud… Wat dit meer verstommendend maak, is dat Carter nog strykdeur nuwe werk produseer en laat uitvoer. En nie drupsgewys nie. Tussen sy 90ste en 100ste verjaardae het hy nie minder nie as 40 werke gekomponeer. Sedert hy 100 geword het, al om en by vier groot nuwe werke… Sy mees onlangse komposisie is skaars twee maande gelede by die Aldeburgh Musiekfees (deur Benjamin Britten tot stand gebring) in Engeland uitgevoer.
Carter was nog altyd lief daarvoor om Amerikaanse digters se werk te toonset, maar dit lyk of hy hom in onlangse tye hierop toegespits het. Drie van sy jongste werke, Poems of Louis Zukofsky (2008), On Conversing With Paradise (2008) en What Are Years? (2009), is liedersiklusse bestaande uit toonsettings van Amerikaanse gedigte — van Zukofsky, Ezra Pound en Marianne Moore onderskeidelik. Ek het Moore (1887-1972) se gedig “What are years?” nie geken nie, en dit toe gegoogle. ‘n Pragtige vers; ek kan nie wag om Carter se toonsetting hiervan te hoor nie:
What Are Years?
by Marianne Moore
What is our innocence,
what is our guilt? All are
naked, none is safe. And whence
is courage: the unanswered question,
the resolute doubt, –
dumbly calling, deafly listening – that
in misfortune, even death,
encourages others
and in its defeat, stirs
the soul to be strong? He
sees deep and is glad, who
accedes to mortality
and in his imprisonment rises
upon himself as
the sea in a chasm, struggling to be
free and unable to be,
in its surrendering
finds its continuing.
So he who strongly feels,
behaves. The very bird,
grown taller as he sings, steels
his form straight up. Though he is captive,
his mighty singing
says, satisfaction is a lowly
thing, how pure a thing is joy.
This is mortality,
this is eternity.