Customer Reviews

Milton Babbitt: Piano Works - Robert Taub

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Babbitt's music is not an easy listen. It is complex, powerful, and sometimes strange. But never ugly, or complex for it's own sake. By extending Schoenbergs 12-tone "mode" to it's logical structural conclusion Babbitt has unlocked the mysteries of writing non-tonal music that is as beautiful in it's own way as tonal music (based on the overtone series) is. Somehow the "dissonance" of the non-tonal idiom is neutralized by Babbitts profound mathmatic-logical investigations. Just as the ancient Greeks used the Golden Section, or Bach the logical mathmatical internal relations of the fugue, or even Mandelbrot the exquisite calculations of fractal geometry, so has Babbitt utilized the (actually quite simple at the base of it) mathmatical structures of 12-tone tonality and it's implications to create art of sublime beauty. But not for everyone, and not easy to appreciate fully, even for the initiated. Music that repays attentive listening and open-mindedness.

We need not be so quick to classify this music as "not for everyone." It's true that it is very demanding of its listener, quite complex, and highly structured in an intellectual manner, but it is first and foremost musical. Babbitt is one of the most humorous composers of our time, and his music invites us to stay in the moment (fleeting though those moments may be). This music has a playful, bubbly surface: it might be described as "friendly" in its atonality. This recording is a landmark, though not the last word on Babbitt's piano music.

Can't add much to the Babbitt brethren here,except merely to comment on 'ex cathedra' the 'Three Compositions',has still a compelling fascination, it's loose,high convulsive energy wonderful for a post war piece, 1947-1948.

Can't say enough about the threadbare 'Duet', a mere 36 seconds duration a gestural bon-bon,arpeggiated mildly atonaly chords, to his daughter.

'Semi-Simple Variations' from 1956 continued from the earlier excursions into violently controlled energy. I suppose we will listen to violent import in music differently with the new age terror permeating our consciousness now.

Like wise 'Tableaux' and 'Canonical Form' are seminal works encompassing relatively longer durational frames, where Babbitt learned to layer the registers of piano timbre frequently writing on four separate lines.The beauty I think is the focus on particular tones, with dynamic indication as far as a fffff, as loud as possibly to barely perceptible. Elegance is the result as opposed to coldy wrought spatial distributions of tones as Stockhausen so successfully accomplished in his early "klavierstuck" 1 to 5 in particualr.
Robert Taub simply comprehends this music wonderfully, a high level of precision mixed with profound muscianship renders great synergistic processes.

Babbitt's music has often enough not been well served by its interpreters, who sometimes take his wide intervallic leaps and occasionally difficult rhythmic structures as an excuse for reading discontinuity into the music. True, Babbitt's music is not for everyone, at least at the moment--the finest art music often excludes much of the listening public, as it requires some real knowledge of or at least sympathy with the musical idiom and goals of the composer: there are many honest artists, like Babbitt, who choose not to work on the easiest level of accessibility. This recording will probably not convert those who customarily listen to less complex music, but the most wonderful quality of this particular issue is the linear continuity and formal tautness that Taub brings out in Babbitt's work. And no, Taub doesn't invent these things, they are there for any musician to hear who has some grasp of later 20th-century classical idioms, or (perhaps) who is simply willing to listen carefully.

This CD is really cool. The melodies and notes just jump out and grab you, taking you along for quite a ride. I've heard Taub in concert too, playing Babbitt and other things (Beethoven, I think) and his playing is awesome. I'm definitely drawn in to whatever he does. The sound on this CD is great. Whoever has a free mind will love this!

These solo piano pieces are dense, complex works, written in a 12-tone style, and are devilishly fast, intricate, and difficult to play. They have none of the structure that the classically-trained ear will recognize. Be warned, if you aren't familiar with 20th century atonal compositions, particularly those of Boulez, Schoenberg, or Webern, you will probably not like this music. But if you love them, then you will love the complexity and richness of Babbitt's music. It is not emotional music; it is neutral. Yes, it is cerebral, but also beautiful. Take, for example, Reflections for tape and piano. Reflections is a dialog between the piano and delicate synthesized sounds recorded in the mid-70's, and the sounds are still fresh, not dated (though some may recognize the characteristic sound of the computer used to generate the synthesized score).

Robert Taub is one of the worlds most accomplished and versatile pianists. His broad repertoire ranges from man's earliest keyboard music to the 20th century. Mr Taub's performance of Babbitt's works is considered by some to be the definitive interpretation, and his virtuosity is perfectly suited to the works in this recording. Paul Griffiths of the New Yorker wrote of Taub: "His fingers think. The movement, the search, and the feel of thought are present at the keys, and if he plays fast-as he often does in allegros-that's because he thinks fast." His attention to details like dynamics, in the face of incredibly fast tempos, and his ability to jump between distant locations along the keyboard without losing continuity is astonishing.

I have one gripe, and it is about an error of omission. This collection neglected to include Babbitt's Minute Waltz, a balancing act of phrase versus meter: almost 3/4, but not quite. Alan Feinberg does an admirable job of playing the Minute Waltz on the CRI recording #521 entitled Milton Babbitt. Of the 65 odd minutes of music on that disc, those 61 seconds alone almost make the purchase worthwhile.

Uniformly excellent, rich, satisfying music, drawn from all of Babbitt's career, except the last years. Sophistication of the music seems to grow through time. Although abstract, without tonal touchpoints, this music is fairly accessible as jazz or an analog to abstract expressionist painting. As "jazz," it feels crystalline, oddly bluesy but static, wry, cool, edgy, and concentrated. It also feels like living mathematics, which for me is a *good* thing. As abstract art, to my uneducated ears, it offers more texture than line, harmony, or clear structure. But, as in good abstract visual art, the pervasive sense of structure is apparent, even if you can't put your finger on it. Robert Taub's intensely convincing two-fisted playing delivers.

Three Compositions (1947-48): Scampering, conjunct lines in a spare space. Few chords. Literally sounds like mice, now running, now pausing to nibble, now scurrying across one another's paths. In time, the music changes direction, seemingly testing options, biding time before proceeding. A new start brings conjunct scampering again, with intermittent, repeated jolts of hard, loud chords. A separate path is apparent in each hand.

Duet (1956): 36 second snippet (snore).

Semi-Simple Variations (1956): Perky right hand, supportive left hand. Each simple, no chords.

Partitions (1957): Quick conjunct runs in the bottom, some rumbling. Tinkling sprays of points of light above.

Post-Partitions (1957): Abstract expressionist spatters in treble and bass, like two layers in a Pollock painting. Like Pollock's, the images have structure that I cannot define or point to.

Tableaux (1973): Pointillist throughout. But the right hand seems to follow clean lines, if very disjunct ones. And the left seems to follow the right, though I can never make a direct connection. Bounces around in a closed space in what feels like a well orchestrated manner, but I can detect no explicit patterns.

Reflections for Piano, Synthesized Tape (1974): Electronic sound is a little old-fashioned blippety-blip--points of icy crystal, grunts, buzzes, wangs, all very brief. Sounds feel like they have been sprayed with a toothbrush around a Babbitt piano piece from an earlier time. Piano is sparer than usual to make room for the electronics, which are actually carefully placed never to overlay the piano. In effect, points of piano, electronic sound pop up and damp immediately around one another and an underlying armature that seems to wander endlessly within fairly narrow bounds. We see the armature (like a strange attractor from chaos-related complex dynamics?) only through these points. After a time, the electronic sounds become less pointillist, stretching a bit around pointillist piano figures, as though wrapping around or wreathing them.

Canonical Form (1983): Initially more somber than the music above. More fluid passages of conjoint pointillism. These effects may come from greater focus on the mid register, making the music sound less extreme and warmer. Feels more formal than pieces above, but I can't detect any explicit form.

Lagniappe (1985, standout in the set): I could swear I can discern long, lovely, warm melodic lines emanating from the point fields played by left and right hands. Not tonal, but completely consonant. Quite remarkable-like a memory of a scent just out of reach. In time, the tone shifts to more scattershot patterns. Cooler, harder. If longer lines are present, they are more subdued, noirish. Then another shift, to something funky with some syncopation. A little playful, but in a late-night sort of way. Toward the end, notes race jazz-like in long, indigo, conjunct runs. To a dead stop.

Robert Taub should be commended for tackling a whole album of this tremendously difficult and fantastically beautiful music. Sadly, he really doesn't play it all that well. His rhythms, dynamics, and sometimes even notes are wildly off; so far off that one really can't get a good sense of the piece from his performance. Fortunately, Alan Feinberg and some others have now recorded most of these pieces much better. A great place to start with Babbitt piano music is Marilyn Nonken's recording of Allegro Penseroso.

...artist. this cd contains atonal, amusical combinations of sounds by a mathematician who lacks the slightest fragment of a musical bone in his body. this is "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.

And his music is even more revolting than Babbitt's boogers and yes, his music stinks - worse than his feet. You have been warned: the music on this CD stinks out loud, and is revolting to anyone with a sense of hearing. I have listened to every bit of music on this CD, and you can believe that what I tell you is true.