Milton Babbitt was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was raised in Jackson, Mississippi. He studied violin and later clarinet and saxophone as a child. Early in his life he showed ability in jazz and popular music.[citation needed]
Babbitt's father was a mathematician, and it was mathematics that Babbitt intended to study when he entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1931. However, he soon left and went to New York University instead, where he studied music with Philip James and Marion Bauer. There he became interested in the music of the composers of the Second Viennese School, and went on to write a number of articles on twelve tone music including the first description of combinatoriality and a serial "time-point" technique. After receiving his bachelor of arts degree from New York University College of Arts and Science in 1935 with Phi Beta Kappa honors, he studied under Roger Sessions, first privately, later at Princeton University, where he joined the music faculty in 1938 and received one of Princeton's first Master of Fine Arts degrees in 1942 (Barkin & Brody 2001). During the Second World War Babbitt divided his time between mathematical research in Washington, DC, and Princeton, where he became a member of the mathematics faculty from 1943 to 1945 (Barkin & Brody 2001).
In 1947, Babbitt wrote his Three Compositions for Piano, which are the earliest examples of total serialization in music, pre-dating Olivier Messiaen's non-serial "Mode de valeurs et d'intensités" by two years, and Pierre Boulez's Polyphonie X by four. The Composition for Four Instruments of the following year was Babbitt's first use of total serialism for instrumental ensemble.[citation needed]
In 1948, Babbitt succeeded Bohuslav Martinů on Princeton University's music faculty[citation needed] and later also taught at the Juilliard School in New York.
In 1958, Babbitt achieved unsought notoriety through an article in the popular magazine High Fidelity (Babbitt 1958). His title for the article, "The Composer as Specialist", was changed, without his knowledge or consent, to "Who Cares if You Listen?" More than 30 years later, he commented that, because of that "offensively vulgar title", he was "still ... far more likely to be known as the author of 'Who Cares if You Listen?' than as the composer of music to which you may or may not care to listen" (Babbitt 1991, 17).
Babbitt later became interested in electronic music. He was hired by RCA as consultant composer to work with their RCA Mark II Synthesizer at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (known since 1996 as the Columbia University Computer Music Center), and in 1961 produced his Composition for Synthesizer. Many other composers[who?] regarded electronic instruments as a way of producing new timbres. Babbitt was much more interested in the rhythmic precision he could achieve using the Mark II synthesizer, a degree of precision previously unobtainable in live performances (Barkin & Brody 2001).
Babbitt continued to write both electronic music and music for conventional musical instruments, often combining the two. Philomel (1964), for example, was written for soprano and a synthesized accompaniment (including the recorded and manipulated voice of Bethany Beardslee, for whom the piece was composed) stored on magnetic tape. This piece was written in collaboration with the poet John Hollander and was funded by the Ford Foundation.[citation needed]
Although it might appear that his usage of the Mark II Synthesizer put Babbitt in the habit of writing music of enormous rhythmic complexity, and that his subsequent pieces for conventional instruments with mortal performers became, as a result, so complex as to seem unplayable, in actuality his interest in these sorts of complexities preceded his time with the Mark II and has continued to the present day, well after the demise of the Mark II.[citation needed]
In 1973, Babbitt became a member of the faculty at the Juilliard School.
In 1982, the Pulitzer Prize board awarded a "special citation to Milton Babbitt for his life's work as a distinguished and seminal American composer" (Columbia University 1991, 70).
Since 1985 he has served as the Chairman of the BMI Student Composer Awards, the international competition for young classical composers.
In 1986, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
In 1988, he received the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for music composition.
He is also a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters.
Babbitt's notable students include Fred Lerdahl, Mario Davidovsky, Lera Auerbach, Andrew Mead, Benjamin Boretz, Michael Kassler, Paul Lansky, David Lewin, Donald Martino, John Rahn, J. K. Randall, Peter Westergaard, Godfrey Winham, Stephen Sondheim, Mario Pelusi, Kenneth Fuchs, Su Lian Tan, Gilbert Levine, Mete Sakpinar, and Eric Ewazen.
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i miss the days when music sounded good
StevenGomezMusic 9 months ago
@Bagas
fixt: Beautifully sonorous.
For an explanation of consonance, for there is only matters of degree of that, read Babbitt's Words On Music.
aculturemind 1 year ago
Beautifully dissonant
Bagas 1 year ago
What recording is this?
pherzman 2 years ago
This is excellent. Thanks for posting.
WrestlingHeretic 2 years ago 2