This interview with Elliott Carter, conducted on 30 May 2012, is among the last that he gave. Carter talks candidly about his past, the present, and what his legacy will be. While discussing his latest works – a series of short epigrams and a new setting of Wallace Stevens poems – Carter explains how each composition is a unique musical adventure; consequently, he does not repeat himself. Innovation is the essence of Carter's oeuvre, clearly manifested in his string quartets, which Carter still views as his grandest musical statements. He speaks openly about the difficulties of getting these and other works performed well, the lack of performances of his compositions on the West Coast, and the current trends and direction of composition today. Carter recalls important experiences and events in his life involving Nadia Boulanger, Ives, Cage, Boulez, and Stravinsky.

• Elaine Gould's ‘Behind Bars’ Julian Anderson

• Birtwistle's ‘The Mask of Orpheus’ Michael Hooper

• Adolf Busch biography Erik Levi

• Glenn Watkins's ‘The Gesualdo Hex’ Rodney Lister

• Further reviews Peter Palmer, James Percival, Clemens Gresser, John Wheatley

BARRY: In the Asylum. CLARKE: Piano Trio; Etude; Independence: Part 1; Island; Isolation. FINNISSY: In stiller Nacht; Independence Quadrilles; Necessary and More Detailed Thinking. Trio Fibonacci. NMC D107.

Alfred Schnittke (1934–1998) is among the most notable composers in the second half of the 20th century. Over the past 20 years his work has won wide acceptance and greater international attention. His music, performed by world-class musicians in countless countries and in the most prestigious concert halls, has become an integral part of Russian cultural heritage. Schnittke's vast popularity is evident in the existence of so many publications, reviews, and dissertations not only in Russia but all over the world. However, some aspects of the composer's life and music remain unexplored, and a study of Schnittke's work would not be complete without examining one particular subject which influenced Schnittke throughout his creative life: the Faust Legend. The Faustian Legend ‘was among the forces that supported Schnittke's dialogue with the past and shaped his identity’. Before delving into this topic it would be logical to give a brief excursus in the history of the Faustian legend itself.

‘Contours’: New and Recent Music for Clarinet by DONATONI, SMITH, UDUMAN, CAUSTON, ROMANO, SCIARRINO, ERBER and FOX. Kate Romano (cl). Metier MSV CD 2074.

The glowing critical response to Georg Friedrich Haas's in vain (2000) has focused particularly on the visceral effect created by Haas's use of ‘endless’ scales, richly saturated microtonal chords, and passages that take place in total darkness. Discussion of these features has often led reviewers and commentators to use forms of description and praise which evoke the old (but lately rejuvenated) aesthetic category of the sublime. This article explores these connections with sublime aesthetics in more detail as a way of clarifying both philosophical and interpretative perspectives on in vain. The idea of the sublime serves as a thread connecting aspects of spectral technique and aesthetics, the mathematical visions of M.C. Escher, and the charged socio-political context in which the work was written.

Judith Bingham was born in Nottingham in 1952, and grew up in Mansfield and Sheffield. After making considerable self-taught progress in composition while still a schoolgirl, she attended the Royal Academy of Music (1970–73), where her teachers were Malcolm MacDonald, Eric Fenby Alan Bush and John Hall (composition), and Jean Austin-Dobson (singing). In 1972 she was awarded the Academy's ‘Principal's Prize for Composition’ for the ‘Fires of London’-influenced chamber-piece Maelstrom. After obtaining her Performer's Certificate, she continued her composition studies privately with Hans Keller (1974–80), and took singing lessons from Eric Vietheer and David Mason. In 1976 she was selected for the BBC's ‘Young Composers' Forum’ on the strength of two scores: The Divine Image (1976) for harpsichord, and The Fourth Universe (1976) for mezzo-soprano and harpsichord.

This article looks at a creative trajectory in my recent work, an ongoing exploration of how the coordination of and precise interaction between performers in music-performance can be considered a primary compositional parameter (and perhaps compositional material in its own right). This investigation began with a survey of performer interactions in Olivier Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps and older music of my own. This led to an interest in the entanglement of ‘instrumental theatre’ and compositional scenarios in which performer behaviours, in relation to coordination and interaction, contribute idiosyncratically (i.e. outside of the more typical interpretation/improvisation models) to the music.

MACMILLAN: Piano Sonata; in angustiis… I; Birthday Present; Barncleupédie; Lumen Christi; For Ian; A Cecilian Variation for JFK; Angel. MACRAE: Piano Sonata. Simon Smith (pno). Delphian DCD 34009

The increasing precarity of arts academic jobs, combined with a much needed focus on equity and decolonisation, are de-privileging and destabilising the experimental music tradition and contemporary composer identity. As a result, composition departments are pursuing a paradox: scrambling to focus on specific marketable skills while also broadening the genres taught. After teaching in a composition department, a generalised arts department and a prison college programme, I describe methods to provide skills training for students interested in different genres, even if those genres are not the specialty of a department's faculty. These include: (1) discrete ‘levels’ of creative thought, from high-level questions of art's purpose to ground-level skills training; (2) creative process assignments, in which students plan and document their way through a prompt, developing a practical discipline into which desired skills can be incorporated; and (3) formal spaces for students to learn from each other, one-on-one, getting deeper into the similarities and differences they have. The goal is to empower students not simply via marketability, but by developing a sense of vocation without tethering creativity to employment, so that students may more realistically and more potently design their own lives in music.

The problematic relationship between UK composers and the Darmstadt Summer Courses is well known. Christopher Fox, Björn Heile and Martin Iddon among others have discussed why this platform for discussion and ideological conflict has not been to this country's taste. This article argues, however, that just such an event organised in the UK would enliven and enrich contemporary music making through increased knowledge exchange and collaboration. After exploring how Darmstadt operates within Germany, and its perception in the UK, a concluding tentative sketch will be made of how such a British Darmstadt might begin, and the benefits it would bring.

In Volume 57/223 of Tempo, my book, A Comprehensive Biography of Gustav Holst, was critiqued by Raymond Head. Not being adverse to justifiable criticism, I can accept much of what he has to say. There are indeed some editorial problems. The index, in particular, was originally perfect, but had to be hastily reconstructed at the last minute due to a publication design change. It is also true that there are a number of misspellings—largely due to some faulty guesswork from partially legible manuscripts – but not nearly as many as implied by the critique, especially when one considers the length of the work. And yes, I admit that I unintentionally included a misrepresentation of the physical Egdon Heath in Wareham. These items will, hopefully, be addressed and corrected in later editions.

A recent exchange of emails with the composer Christopher Fox touched on Morton Feldman. Christopher commented, ‘My “problem” with Feldman, and it is just mine and not a problem, is that he was not an innovator; but has there ever been a conservative composer who took more risks?’. This led me to consider the value of innovation, the need for risk and the nature of the risks we take.

In September 2015, ABC Classic set a target of 5 per cent women composers on air as the beginning of a push to combat serious gender imbalance in the works broadcast on the network. This target has gradually changed broadcast culture, encouraging content makers to champion women's music and allowing for major programming events and goals, and it has led to an increase of women composers broadcast from 2.2 per cent in 2015 to 9.9 per cent in the 2018/19 reporting cycle. This article examines our journey over this time, arguing for targets as a means to enact change and establish concrete outcomes. It explores the ways in which a target has encouraged us to consider gaps in the content offered along with new opportunities to present music by hitherto under-represented composers. It also reflects on the work ahead, acknowledging the ongoing importance of targets in moving towards better gender representation in classical music programming.

Kevin Volans achieved remarkable fame in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the Kronos Quartet's recordings of White Man Sleeps and Hunting:Gathering. With record-breaking album sales, he was perhaps even one of the most accessible twentieth-century composers operating outside of the popular or film music spheres. Thirty years later, his position could not be more different. Volans's controversial 2016 keynote at the Contemporary Music Centre Ireland, entitled ‘If You Need an Audience, We Don't Need You’, announced most vehemently his current stance in its Babbittean (or, more accurately perhaps, Feldmanesque) denouncement of populism and the music industry. For him, the tactics of publicists and marketers engender a breakdown in respect between audience and composer, while short-form works required by festivals are the epitome of a composition culture in regression.

Between 1947 and 1962 Roberto Gerhard contributed incidental music to eight Shakespeare plays for the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (later Royal Shakespeare Company). Of these, easily the most controversial was George Devine's production King Lear for the Stratford Touring Company in 1955. A far cry from his very traditional The Taming of the Shrew (1953) and still relatively ‘safe’ A Midsummer Night's Dream (1954) – for both of which Gerhard also composed music – this was a thoroughly modern production. The sets and costumes were designed by the American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (of mixed American and Japanese parentage), and were his first theatre designs. The rationale behind the production was set out in the programme:

Our object in this production has been to find a setting and costumes which would be free of historical or decorative associations so that the timeless, universal and mythical quality of the story may be clear. We have tried to present the places and the characters in a very simple and basic manner, for the play to come to life through the words and the acting.