The Collected Essays of Milton Babbitt

By: Milton Babbitt, Stephen Peles (Editor), Stephen Dembski (Editor), Andrew Mead (Editor), Joseph N. Straus (Editor)

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Paperback | 4 September 2012

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Like his compositions, Milton Babbitt's writings about music have exerted an extraordinary influence on postwar music and thinking about music. In essays and public addresses spanning fifty years, Babbitt has grappled profoundly with central questions in the composition and apprehension of music. These writings range from personal memoirs and critical reviews to closely reasoned metatheoretical speculations and technical exegesis. In the history of music theory, there has been only a small handful of figures who have produced work of comparable stature. Taken as a whole, Babbitt's writings are not only an invaluable testimony to his thinking--a priceless primary source for the intellectual and cultural history of the second half of the twentieth century--but also a remarkable achievement in their own right.

Prior to this collection, Babbitt's writings were scattered through a wide variety of journals, books, and magazines--many hard to find and some unavailable--and often contained typographical errors and editorial corruptions of various kinds. This volume of almost fifty pieces gathers, corrects, and annotates virtually everything of significance that Babbitt has written. The result is complete, authoritative, and fully accessible--the definitive source of Babbitt's influential ideas.

Industry Reviews

"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

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Arts & Entertainment Music Music Reviews & Criticism Theory of Music & Musicology Techniques of Music / Music Tutorials / Teaching Of Music Individual Composers & Musicians, Specific Bands & Groups History of Art & Design Styles Music Styles & Genres Western Classical Music & Opera Medieval & Renaissance Music from 1000 to 1600 Early Music up to the Year 1000

Classical Music from 1750 to 1830 20th Century & Contemporary Classical Music Romantic Music from 1830 to 1900

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Preface ix
The String Quartets of Bart?k (1949)	p. 1
Review of Leibowitz, Schoenberg et son ?cole (1950)	p. 10
Review of Le Syst?me
Dod?caphonique (1950)	p. 16
Review of Salzer, Structural Hearing (1952)	p. 22
Tintinnabulation of the Crochets (Review of Halsey Stevens, The Life and Music of Bart?k) (1953)	p. 31
Musical America's Several Generations (1954)	p. 34
Some Aspects of Twelve-Tone Composition (1955)	p. 38
The Composer as Specialist (1958)	p. 48
Twelve-Tone Invariants as Compositional Determinants (1960)	p. 55
The Revolution in Sound: Electronic Music (1960)	p. 70
Past and Present Concepts of the Nature and Limits of Music (1961)	p. 78
Set Structure as a Compositional Determinant (1961)	p. 86
Twelve-Tone Rhythmic Structure and the Electronic Medium (1962)	p. 109
Reply to George Perle's "Babbitt, Lewin, and Schoenberg: A Critique" (1963)	p. 141
Remarks on the Recent Stravinsky (1964)	p. 147
The Synthesis, Perception, and Specification of Musical Time (1964)	p. 172
An Introduction to the R.C.A. Synthesizer (1964)	p. 178
The Structure and Function of Musical Theory (1965)	p. 191
The Uses of Computers in Musicological Research (1965)	p. 202
Edgard Var?se: A Few Observations of His Music (1966)	p. 213
Three Essays on Schoenberg (1968)	p. 222
On Relata I (1970)	p. 237
Contribution to "The Composer in Academia: Reflections on a Theme of Stravinsky" (1970)	p. 259
Memorial for M?ty?s Seiber (1970)	p. 263
Stravinsky Memorial (1971)	p. 264
Contemporary Musical Composition and Musical Theory as Contemporary Intellectual History (1972)	p. 270
Memorial for Stefan Wolpe (1972)	p. 308
Since Schoenberg (1974)	p. 310
Celebrative Speech for the Schoenberg Centennial (1976)	p. 335
Responses: A First Approximation (1976)	p. 341
Introduction to Marion Bauer, Twentieth Century Music (1978)	p. 367
Foreword to David Epstein, Beyond Orpheus (1979)	p. 371
Memorial for Ben Weber (1979)	p. 377
Memorial for Robert Miller (1981)	p. 380
The More than the Sounds of Music (1984)	p. 383
I Remember Roger (1985)	p. 388
"A1l the Things They Are": Comments on Kern (1985)	p. 395
Memorial for Hans Keller (1986)	p. 399
Stravinsky's Verticals and Schoenberg's Diagonal: A Twist of Fate (1987)	p. 404
On Having Been and Still Being an American Composer (1989)	p. 428
A Life of Learning (1991)	p. 437
Brave New Worlds (1994)	p. 459
My Vienna Triangle (1999)	p. 466
Index	p. 489
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

The Collected Essays of Milton Babbitt

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

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How to return your order

Defective items

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