Eight Etudes and a Fantasy (1949)

Each of the brief etudes in "Eight Etudes and a Fantasy" poses and solves a specific compositional problem, sharply restricting itself to a single elemental idea. The plenitude that Carter extracts from his recalcitrant materials is fascinating, and several of the etudes are so nifty to listen to that one forgets their pedogogical purpose. The concluding "Fantasy" is a magisterial fugal summation of all that precedes it.