Customer Reviews

Milton Babbitt: Philomel

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

 

 

Babbitt's music is difficult to understand. Out of all the composers influenced by Schoenberg, Babbitt creates the most complex textures, which often stand resolutely as absolute music (in contrast to others, like Boulez or Stockhausen, who often have extra - musical elements such as a text or theoretical concept to help unify their work). Once I learned how to understand 12 - tone music, I was surpised to find how much Babbitt sounds like Bach. Often voices imitate one another and the thought process is largely linear. I find these pieces to be a lot of fun. Especially in Post - Partitions you can hear a lot of immediate imitation in 'call and repsonse' format (it reminds me of Bach's 1st invention or the organ fugue in d minor at times) However, it should be said that if you're not willing to work at understanding music and expect all the secrets of a composition to be handed to you on a platter, Babbitt's music is not something you'll enjoy. Too many people end up hating music like this based on one exposure in a collage music appreciation course. People are often put off by western compositions before the 14th century for their inability to hear in the modal system. I will say that, just like it is well worth it to learn to hear 'modally' to enjoy G. Machaut or Leonin, it is worth it to learn to hear 'atonally' for Babbitt, Boulez and Stockhausen. People who are too lazy to spend time with this music shouldn't complain so heartily when they don't understand it!

I have always been a big fan of this unduly maligned composer--maligned for what?!because he happens to be able to speak intelligently about music, with some very important questions asked about the ability of human apprehension of some very challenging music. His music is beautiful, not because it answers to any mathematical paradigm, or whatever the benighted soul wishes to level against it, but because it 'sounds'. The wonderful works on this disc attest to this simple fact. Performances here are first rate.

Babbitt is interested in how details relate to deeper structure. To achieve this there must be deeper structure, and in Babbitt's music there is the most impressive, Brahmsian depth of structure. Some of the ways of achieving this can be described in mathematical terms, but to make it work so beautifully is wholly a musical issue. One can describe bad music in mathematical terms to, likewise simple music. Babbitt improvises with his material until everthing sounds in a compelling way. Babbitt's music, as well as the music of Bach, Haydn, Beethoven and Brahms requires 3-d hearing. It's a bit like the computer generated images that require the proper focusing of the eye to see the 3-dimensioanl figures. When one gets Babbitt's music properly in focus, there is nothing quite so satisfying

Of the numerous works and studies on this CD, "Philomel" stands out the most. Remember that this was one of the earliest symphonic works involving synthesized sound. Babbitt labored for years on a rickety punch-card era machine without preset channels or sampled sound, beginning from scratch sometime around 1960. It took that long to get the sound that he was looking for.

Regarding the other works on this CD: Sadly, even with the playability of Phon. for Soprano & Piano, Post-Partitions, and even Reflections, these are almost never selected for performance. Post-Partitions is attractive for Babbitt's use of "dyads," if we can even apply that term to music.

Milton Babbitt was known to the wider public as the author of "Who Cares if You Listen?", an article published by High Fidelity in 1958 to the scandalized readership. To the contemporary music aficionados, he was a founder and epitome of "total serialism", as well as one of the first to seriously utilize synthesizer in composition (on the famous RCA Mark II.)

Indeed, Milton was outspoken in his fondness of the synthesizer music, even though he moved away from it after mid-seventies. "The medium provides a kind of full satisfaction for the composer.... I love going to the studio with my work in my head, realizing it while I am there and walking out with the tape under my arm. I can then send it anywhere in the world, knowing exactly how it will sound." This might create an impression that Babbitt is an ultra-rational internationalist. As a matter of fact he is musically deep-rooted in the American South's popular tradition. "If you know anybody who knows more popular music of the 20s or 30s than I do, I want to know who it is... I grew up playing every kind of music in the world, and I know more pop music from the 20s and 30s, it's because of where I grew up. We had to imitate Jan Garber one night; we had to imitate Jean Goldkette the next night. We heard everything from the radio; we had to do it all by ear. We took down their arrangements; we stole their arrangements; we transcribed them, approximately. We played them for a country club dance one night and for a high school dance the next." Like Webern, Milton keeps very tight control of his compositional material; like Berg, however, he uses a very wide range of expressive possibilities under the constraints of the serialism or any other compositional techniques he chooses to employ. Philomel is a good example.

"Philomel for soprano, recorded soprano, and synthesized sound" is probably the best known Babbitt. 'It was commissioned by the Ford Foundation as part of a program enabling solo performers to request pieces from composers of their choice. In this case, the performer was soprano Bethany Beardslee', who records this astonishing performance; even the usually very critical composer give the unusually high praise. The libretto was written by the American poet John Hollander, with the story based on Ovid's interpretation of the Greek legend of Philomela, the ravished, speechless maiden who is transformed into a nightingale.(*1) For those readers interested in modern poetry, reading the sonically highly organized libretto alone could be an exhilarating experience. For someone as insensitive to poetry as I am, it is the combination of sound and text which is most fascinating. In Philomel, new ways of combining musical and verbal expressiveness were devised: 'music is as articulate as language; language (Philomela's thoughts) is transformed into music (the nightingale's song). The work is an almost inexhaustible repertory of speech-song similitudes and differentiations, and resonant word-music puns (unrealizable without the resources of the synthesizer).'(*2)

However, in a sense Philomel is a singular piece among Babbitt's oeuvres. One can find more "typical" Babbitt in the other 3+1 works in the album. 2 of them are recordings of "Phonemena": 'for soprano and piano' and 'for soprano and tape'. There are 24 consonant sounds and 12 vowels utilized, certainly not a surprise in light of the serialism. Both versions were originally intended for Beardslee as encore pieces according to different concert setups, here performed by the soprano Lynne Webber. As much as I admire Webber's technique, I wish it was Beardslee who recorded it, judging from her amazing performance in the Philomel track.

The 4th track is the solo piano piece "Post-Partitions", so named because Babbitt had composed "Partitions" 9 years earlier. It is illuminating to have both works played back to back, as in Robert Taub's performance Milton Babbitt: Piano Works, which I prefer due to the better elucidation of imitative counterpoint.(*3) The last track "Reflections", a piece for piano and synthesized tape, is another example of total serialism, in which dynamical values of 12 levels are serialized.

Overall, this is a fascinating listen. Even if only the performance of Philomel (of nearly 19 minutes here) reaches immortality, it alone warrants very very urgent recommendation.

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Milton Babbitt, a composer, theorist and teacher died on 29th Jan 2011 in Princeton, N.J.. He was 94. The world is worse off without his wit and sharp-tongue.(*4)

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(*1) Brief synopsis: 'King Tereus of Thrace, though married to Procne, ravished her sister Philomela and, to enforce her silence, cut out her tongue. But Philomela wove a tapestry depicting the crime and sent it to Procne; together they executed a hideous revenge, serving Tereus the limbs of his son Itys for dinner. When told what he had eaten, Tereus pursued the sisters into the forest. Just as he was about to overtake them, the gods transformed them into birds.' Procne is the swallow, Philomel the nightingale, and Tereus the hoopoe, 'which fouls its own nest.'

(*2) Quote is taken from the Grove. -- The best other online source of Philomel I know of is the OHM website, whose link is given in the comment below.

(*3) Bear in mind that I was first exposed to Taub's recording and was in Taub's recital, while he was the pianist-in-residence in the Institute for Advanced Study, famed for hosting Einstein during his later years.

(*4) I am gratified to find out there is a surge of demand of Babbitt's recordings as a lot of them are "temporarily out of stock" at this point. Among other Babbitt (-exclusive) recordings I can heartily recommend are:

Milton Babbitt: Piano Works - Robert Taub
Milton Babbitt: Occasional Variations
Babbitt: Concerto For Piano And Orchestra/The Head Of The Bed

Although Babbitt's music requires complete immersion, it never ceases being graceful and uniquely brilliant in its interplay of pitches, rhythms and timbres. This disk features some of Babbitt's seminal works such as 'Philomel' and 'Reflections' written during the genre's infancy which, despite their primitive sound resources, are yet to be matched by newer electronic works. I do also recommend Babbitt's 'Vision and Prayer' on the CRI label.

Philomel is an utter delight:fear not,you can cast the maths aside when listening to Babbitt's music because it sounds so good on it's own terms.For once atonal music for the voice which doesn't sound persistently anguished!

Granted, Milton Babbitt has a reputation for over intellectualized music. However, I think that there are some great textures achieved in the works on the disc, and the performers (esp Bethany Beardslee) do a great job.

Erwartung + Kontakte = Philomel.
Love it or leave it.
Do I need to say anything else?

I have been listening to Milton Babbit's music for many years and like it. This album in particular is wonderful. The perfomances by Miller and Beardsley are magnificant.

So who would you want to trust? Reviewers who repeat the same babble about musical mathmatics (were their mothers scared by algebra before they were born?) or working musicians of the highest order? Listen and you might like it. And you aren't likely to be hurt by stretching your mind.