Milton Babbit's obituary in the N.Y. Times read: " Milton Babbitt, an influential composer, theorist and teacher who wrote music that was intensely rational and for many listeners impenetrably abstruse, died on Saturday. He was 94 and lived in Princeton, N.J." (Read the NY Times article here).
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Babbitt (that's how we all called him) for a a few days when he was around at Tanglewood in the summer of 2006. Guest composers were scheduled to drop by, and Babbitt was one of them. He was going be around during the festival since he was scheduled to perform Stravinsky's L'Histoire with Elliot Carter and John Harbison. The concert was a smart idea resulting in a unique and amusing performance with this cast.
Babbitt: Who Cares if You Listen? - page 1
Babbitt: Who Cares if You Listen? - page 2
Babbitt: Who Cares if You Listen? - page 3
Add Babbitt: Who Cares if You Listen? - page 4
Babbitt: Who Cares if You Listen? - page 5
I had been curious to meet Babbitt for a while then. During CalArts' days, Mel Powell and Lucky Mosko talked about him and his music all the time. Milton's Chamber Concerto was one of Mosko's favorites for analysis classes. Mel and Milton had been friends since their teenager years in NY so I was curious about the prospect of meeting Mel's old friend, the textbook legend who I had heard so much about.
His lecture/presentation was very charming, full of good stories that only a long career can earn. In the room, the six Tanglewood composition fellows and the senior composers John Harbison, Michael Gandolfi, and John Williams, who before going to rehearsal with the Boston Symphony decided to join us for the afternoon. Star wars in the room?
At same point, one of the people in the room asked Mr. Babbitt about the work he did for the military during the World War II, to which he replied that he couldn't disclose the nature of the work performed... Since he was a trained mathematician, I would venture guessing that code-breaking, or encryption must have been involved.
To Carnegie Hall, on the occasion of its centenary: from my Piano Concerto, which received its first and (so far) sole performance at Carnegie Hall. Greetings, Milton Babbitt 3/21/89.
A few days later, I finally got to meet him one afternoon alone. At the age of 89, all he wanted to talk was about algorithms for composition. Fascinating man, and one of the quickest, most brilliant brains I've ever had the pleasure of encountering. His theoretical writings on set-theory remain twentieth-century classics for music theory. The type of detail, exactness, and the breath of information he sought to control in his work, made the computer and computer music the most suitable instrument/medium for his compositional ideas.
