As the work progresses through its two movements, the soloist becomes increasingly disassociated from and opposed to the orchestra, each developing its own musical expression and material in its own way.
"[4] In a guide to Carter's music, Tom Service of The Guardian similarly lauded:My favourite of the pieces from Carter's heroic period is the 1964-5 Piano Concerto, partly because it makes an extraordinarily energetic and sometimes terrifying noise – such as the moment when the orchestra attempts to suffocate the pianist with a vapour-like veil of sound, but also because it's a piece whose labyrinthine depths of meaning and motion could sustain a lifetime of listening – and are quite possibly unplumbable.
[5] In a thank you letter to Carter, the composer Igor Stravinsky described the composition as "a masterpiece," despite admitting that he at one point had trouble hearing everything that was happening in the score.
When I pored over the scores, studied Carterite treatises, and rattled the neighbors with repeated listenings to the recordings, I was able to grasp his difficult aesthetic.
But when I listened in a more passive mode, I had the instinctive reaction that Carter has inspired in subscription audiences for decades: Please stop this crazy noise.