Babbitt, "Philomel" (1964) [Monadnock Music Festival 2010]

[ichiroku]

indeed, simply amazing. truly for the brave and skilled!

[mmturnerlagrange2468]

Absolutely brilliant performance. Your voice is simply beautiful. I had no idea there was anyone brave enough to do this piece live.

[aculturemind]

I love Babbitt.....but he didn't seem able to avoid the standard male composer dork-ness of creating vocal works for sopranos. Blech.

[alaricque]

Pseudomusic of pseudocomposers just experimenting with electroacoustic possibilities. I think, that anyone could create such a composition. As mentioned before, it is definitely difficult to perform, but not only because it doesn't have tonic center, but it also lacks logic and natural gradation and progression. This is just a mixture of sounds of an electroacoustic experimentator. Just like J.Cages' works, rely more on concept and meaning, than real feel of music and composition.

[flammesombres]

@alaricque sorry, but that's absolute rubbish; you should really do some research before making such ignorant comments.

[alaricque]

@flammesombres In fact I have a few subjects in my college related to electroacoustic music, so I am quite educated in meanings of such a composition. But my opinion is the same.

All there is is experimenting with new possibilities of sound, all other meanings are resultive, or supplementary. However, I dont think it is wrong, its just a part of history of music.

Experimenting emerges with every new technological progression, music is not an exception.

[flammesombres]

@alaricque Clearly you didn't get much from those classes, so I'll educate you instead. Babbitt's use of the synthesizer was not to experiment, but rather to realise his music -- this is at a time when, generally, performers would not approach contemporary music. The synthesizer could 'perform' his music exactly as he wrote it... and he only wrote a small handful of pieces in this vein anyway, so to call him a 'pseudocomposer' based on about 5% of his oeuvre is certainly stupid.

[alaricque]

@flammesombres To sum up: The core of these compositions is experiment, and as with every art experiment, some people may call it avantgarde. It is just how it goes :)

The feel of music is subjective. For me, this is no music, just experiment.

[flammesombres]

Yes, FOR YOU this is an experiment, because you haven't bothered to pay attention to what the music is doing, how it's written, or anything. And what a surprise, you claim subjectivity... sure sign of a crap argument. 

[aculturemind]

@flammesombres

Actually, he openly presented his solipsism in his statement that for him all is experiment.

[wilsonkm]

This is extremely difficult to perform....no tonic center, extreme dynamic changes, not to mention you have to be perfect with the electroacoustic sound. Bravo!

[cdal1770]

This is music?!

[UncleC1025]

God, I freaking love the section starting at 9:05. That's always been my favorite.

[flammesombres]

Thanks so much for posting. I like this performance even more than Beardslee's.

[wesleyan97]

@flammesombres I do too. Never thought I'd get to actually watch a performance of it. Thanks to the poster!! Tony Arnold knows how to bring out the beauty in this type of music.

[flammesombres]

Living, growing, changing.