More’s Utopia (2004) | Compositions | Elliott Carter, composer

Instrumentation: 1.2picc.2.corA.2.dbcl.2.dbn-4.3.3.1-perc(3):I=log dr/tpl.bl/wdbls/lg slap stick/xylorimba; II=tam-t/gong/4susp.cym/vib; III=BD/tom-t-pft-strings
Contained In: Three Illusions for Orchestra (2002)
Buy Score: Hendon Music (Boosey & Hawkes)
Manuscripts: Paul Sacher Stiftung

Premiere: Oct 6, 2005/ Boston Symphony Orchestra / James Levine/ Symphony Hall, Boston, MA

Thomas More invented the word Utopia (Ou Topos – no place), the name for his imagined completely happy society with no central government, which followed draconian laws that governed almost all human activities. For example: every able bodied person had to spend 2 years living and working on a farm, and was allowed to occupy the same house for only a period of 10 years before being forced to move.
Sir Thomas More, a devout Catholic, who was Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII and opposed the King’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, was beheaded.

– Elliott Carter