Customer Reviews

Milton Babbitt: An Elizabethan Sextette

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Babbitt's music is very special in that it requires complete immersion while never ceasing to be graceful and uniquely brilliant in its interplay of pitches, rhythms and timbres. The performances are exemplary: I particularly recommend 'Vision and Prayer' sung by Bethany Beardsley to the accompaniment of electronic sound. Written during the genre's infancy, it is a work of scintillating originality, and despite its primitive sound resources, is yet to be matched in newer electronic works. I do also recommend Babbitt's 'Philomel' on the New World Records label.

One of America's masters at his very best. Super performances by pianist Alan Feinberg. Elizabethan Sextette is an extraordinary work. I agree with the previous poster; it alone is worth the price of this excellent CD

The Elizabethan sextettes are worth the price of the CD alone. They are wonderfully sung and hauntingly beautiful. There's a really good choice of piano pieces too, spanning many decades of his life as a composer.

Reading these reviews brings back memories of a disc which i all too rashly got rid of a few years ago.The writing and theoretical stuff surrounding Babbitt's work has sometimes obscured the fact that his music actually sounds rather more sensual and engaging than alot of music of this stock.strongly recommended!

"Who cares if people listen?" he famously said, and the strength of his convictions ring true on this, one of the greatest discs of serial music ever assembled.

The Elizabethan Sextette doesn't really suit my tastes. What really fascinated me was the Minute waltz. As beautiful and delicate a piece as twelve-tone music can be. It justifies the price of the disc.

...who lacks the slightest fragment of a musical bone in his body. this cd contains music for the eye and head by all-star theorist milton babbitt. recommended listening for the intellectual and mathematically talented deaf person with score in hand.