ABSTRACT
The Fifth String Quartet (1995) is Carter’s farewell to the genre: after completing this work, he regarded his series of quartets as finished, imparting an element of retrospection into the new work. This chapter examines how Carter’s techniques in the earlier quartets contribute to both the evocation of the past and the conception of the new. His choice of the harmonic, intervallic, and rhythmic constraints, combined with the development of a conceptually novel form, offers insights into the composer’s aesthetic objectives and technical preferences in his music of this period. With this quartet, Carter not only wanted to display to the audience a piece itself but to also reveal his compositional process to everyone. The study of the original materials shows how Carter integrated both the process of composing and the finished composition into one expression. The form of the piece features an alternation between complete movements and short fragments. The movements portray the composition itself, while the dispersed fragments represent short musical ideas in a manner they just first appeared to Carter while composing the piece. Hence, the quartet captures the rehearsal, discussion, and performance of the piece at the same time.
