Poetic Obituaries: [Elliott] Carter was also one of the most

literate composers. He had been an English major at Harvard, and from the very beginning of his career, he devoted himself to setting poetry, mainly American poetry. His Symphony of Three Orchestras was inspired by Hart Crane's The Bridge. Back in the late 1930s and early '40s, he was making enchantingly tuneful, even hummable settings of Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman and Robert Frost. In the mid-'70s, he returned to writing for the voice, setting poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, John Ashbery and, more recently and most movingly, Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound and Marianne Moore.

from NPR: Music News: Always A Rose: Elliott Carter Remembered

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