Babbitt: Portrait of a Serial Composer (Robert Hilferty documentary)

[berickson925]

52:58 "Goodnight, Robert!" :D

[Alkoholism]

50:52 Beautiful quote by Babbitt. He really was a genius.

[gustavoturm]

"Have you ever heard the music of Lady Gaga?"

"Who?!"

"Lady Gaga."

"Never, is she on radio or television?"

[quelbop]

I LOVE this documentary: it brilliantly captures the essential spirit of Babbitt's music. Just little things made me nostalgic,like seeing Tower records in the opening sequence, which no longer exsists.

[aculturemind]

If there existed only a few sources of history of the western world in the 20th century, this would be one of them.

[MartytheElder]

Wonderful Laura. Thank you for doing this.

[hbc0224]

Silly, Babbitt...

What a great character...and what a great doc...definitive!!...would love to hear Stanley Jordan play his composition for guitar!!

8/4/11

( |o }=====:::

[ILIKECYNIC]

Thank you for posting this. I had never seen any video footage of Mr Babbitt, let alone footage of him discussing his work and playing Jazz piano! I wish I could have heard his analysis of All the Things You Are.

Priceless video.

[civilfailure111]

@ILIKECYNIC I was thinking the same thing. Really wanted to hear that analysis.

[pestoman]

absolutely wonderful. thank you for putting this up maybe it should be submitted to channel 4 in the UK or something? it should be seen by as many people as possible!

[bathotic]

This is wonderful. Thank you!

[1herbiekritzer]

Fantastic! Thanks so much.

[stanchinsky]

Thank you for sharing this great film... !

[poulsendean]

A wonderful, endearing portrait of a very important American Master.

Watched it on NPR's site. Thanks for posting.

[poulsendean]

A wonderful,endearing portrait of an very important American Master.

Thanks for posting.

[jocydeoliveira]

Good documentary, it brought me memories of "Uncle" Babbitt as he was friendly called by musicians at Tanglewood... Congratulations!

[allegramente5000]

What a deeply moving documentary. It really captures the spirit of Babbitt's music, and edges it away from the misconstrued idea of it being dry and academic.

I've no idea why Joan Peyser is clutching onto her lurid/unlovable biography of Leonard Bernstein while being interviewed!

[japanesesweet]

52:30 and 52:50 very cute ;-)

the course of music history would've been quite different had composers tried to woo their audiences, which is what Babbitt's detractors seem to suggest is a good approach to take.

[CoreOgg]

is it a strange edit or a subliminal message around 14:13 after the word "dynamics"?

[XE1GXG]

Lo ví en NPR. Está bién hecho y es bastante interesante. My biggest problem with serial music (and even richly polyphonic serial music such as Babbitt's has to do with pitch and interval relationships that depend on intonation. Intonation is a big "if". Many wonderful "matrixes", realised at the compositional level, have gestural and performance impact on the listener, but the faulty intonation (within our tempered system) makes many of the nuances, I think, impossible to appreciate.

[XE1GXG]

Lo ví en NPR. Está bién hecho y es bastante interesante.

[fiddlercrab3]

"The American composer—serious composer—is very likely to be utterly schizoid." BEST!

[Bagas]

ME TOO!

[stimpylin]

AWESOME, I LOVE THIS TREAD! GREETINGS FROM MEXICO

[NewMusicXX]

Thanks for posting this. It's an excellent documentary.

[LesbianStraightGay]

Thanks for posting!

[MichaelRHolloway]

It deeply saddens me that this wonderful documentary has only 8 views. Thank you for sharing this.

[straypixel]

@MichaelRHolloway Michael, that might be because I only uploaded it yesterday! :-) It should appear in search results and suggestions boxes very soon...

[LesbianStraightGay]

@MichaelRHolloway The video has reached 300 views.

[LesbianStraightGay]

@MichaelRHolloway The video has reached 300 views.