Collected Essays of Milton Babbitt

Milton Babbitt is William Shubael Conant Professor of Music Emeritus at Princeton University. Stephen Peles is Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University of Alabama School of Music. Stephen Dembski is Professor of Music Composition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Andrew Mead is Professor of Music at the University of Michigan. Joseph N. Straus is Professor of Music Theory at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

• Acknowledgments vii Preface ix The String Quartets of Bartok (1949) 1 Review of Leibowitz, Schoenberg et son ecole (1950) 10 Review of Le Systeme Dodecaphonique (1950) 16 Review of Salzer, Structural Hearing (1952) 22 Tintinnabulation of the Crochets (Review of Halsey Stevens, The Life and Music of Bartok) (1953) 31 Musical America's Several Generations (1954) 34 Some Aspects of Twelve-Tone Composition (1955) 38 The Composer as Specialist (1958) 48 Twelve-Tone Invariants as Compositional Determinants (1960) 55 The Revolution in Sound: Electronic Music (1960) 70 Past and Present Concepts of the Nature and Limits of Music (1961) 78 Set Structure as a Compositional Determinant (1961) 86 Twelve-Tone Rhythmic Structure and the Electronic Medium (1962) 109 Reply to George Perle's "Babbitt, Lewin, and Schoenberg: A Critique" (1963) 141 Remarks on the Recent Stravinsky (1964) 147 The Synthesis, Perception, and Specification of Musical Time (1964) 172 An Introduction to the R.C.A. Synthesizer (1964) 178 The Structure and Function of Musical Theory (1965) 191 The Uses of Computers in Musicological Research (1965) 202 Edgard Varese: A Few Observations of His Music (1966) 213 Three Essays on Schoenberg (1968) 222 On Relata I (1970) 237 Contribution to "The Composer in Academia: Reflections on a Theme of Stravinsky" (1970) 259 Memorial for Matyas Seiber (1970) 263 Stravinsky Memorial (1971) 264 Contemporary Musical Composition and Musical Theory as Contemporary Intellectual History (1972) 270 Memorial for Stefan Wolpe (1972) 308 Since Schoenberg (1974) 310 Celebrative Speech for the Schoenberg Centennial (1976) 335 Responses: A First Approximation (1976) 341 Introduction to Marion Bauer, Twentieth Century Music (1978) 367 Foreword to David Epstein, Beyond Orpheus (1979) 371 Memorial for Ben Weber (1979) 377 Memorial for Robert Miller (1981) 380 The More than the Sounds of Music (1984) 383 I Remember Roger (1985) 388 "All the Things They Are": Comments on Kern (1985) 395 Memorial for Hans Keller (1986) 399 Stravinsky's Verticals and Schoenberg's Diagonal: A Twist of Fate (1987) 404 On Having Been and Still Being an American Composer (1989) 428 A Life of Learning (1991) 437 Brave New Worlds (1994) 459 My Vienna Triangle (1999) 466 Index 489

"A car won't run unless it's engineered correctly, and the same applies to a piece of music. And Babbit always insists that the whole point of structure in music is that it can be heard: you may have to listen at full stretch, but it will be worth it. Rather like this book--difficult stuff, but intellectually rigorous and undeniably honest."--Martin Cotton, BBC Music Magazine "It's the book's role as an encapsulation of Babbitt's formalistic way of thinking about music which matters, and this is rendered suitably ambiguous by an intriguing disparity in the types of essay included. These veer between the extremes of the coolly technical and the warmly biographical (and autobiographical). We might not get Babbitt's views on what compositions represent in terms of emotion or feeling, but there is plenty of vivid characterization when it comes to people and places."--Arnold Whittall, Musical Times "Milton Babbitt's musical world is not a simple one... That's also true of Babbitt's written output... But it's witty too, as you'd expect from the composer of such titles as Joy Of Sextets."--Andy Hamilton, The Wire "Milton Babbitt, at eighty-nine, has been handsomely, if belatedly, served by this collection of forty-three essays testifying to his seminal presence in musical history... Overall the enterprise is a fine assemblage of scattered writings which will surprise even aficionados by its range."--Jonathan Harvey, Times Literary Supplement