Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

A Happy Birthday to Milton Babbitt

To be honest, I'd like to like the music of Milton Babbitt more than I do. I respect him completely and even sympathize with much of what he allegedly "stands for." But, in the end, my conception of music is too dramatisitic -- to borrow Edward Cone's term -- to find much of Babbitt appealing. His relentless, disciplined, and tight style suppresses cathartic moments, buries melodic lines (which are few), and comes across frequently as stiflingly self-conscious and -- for all its contrast and well-formedness -- a little monotonous. I know there are fans of "The Head of the Bed" reading this, but I just kept yearning for the singer to slow down, for Babbitt to give the poor woman some more melismas and some slower note values, or to allow her to cut loose from the instrumentalists -- or vice versa -- or to give us some time to digest John Hollander's dense poetry. No such relief comes. And I need music to breathe; I need to sense a human persona behind the notes; and, too often on last night's concert, I was hearing nothing but sound -- often scintillating sound to be sure, but sound empty of perceptible humanity nonetheless. Oddly, the piece I found most congenial was the abstractly-named "Canonical Form" from 1983. Here are melodies to hold on to, moments in which to reflect, clever surprises, angry bursts from the bass, and flippant parallel octaves. I really enjoyed it from start to finish.

It also occurs to me, however, that what I'm responding to could result less from Babbitt's compositional language than from the inability of (many) performers to really get his music across. This has surely been a perennial problem for Babbitt, and, my friend next to me -- a Babbitt fan who happily jabbers away about the man's weighted aggregates and partitioning methods -- confessed he found many of the performances unconvincing and lacking energy. I have to make exceptions, though, for pianist Robert Taub, whose comfort with Babbitt's music is obvious; baritone Thomas Meglioranza, whose rich voice gratefully found the lyrical impetuousness within "Two Sonnets;" and violinist Rolf Schulte whose playing for a blessed moment (the fifth movement) electrified "The Head of the Bed."

There can be no question, however, that Babbitt the man is wonderful. During the concert we were treated to a brief and priceless discussion between him and James Levine, and Babbitt's manner -- down-to-earth, pragmatic, humorous, and humble -- contrasted refreshingly with his intense music. At one point, Levine remarked how he considered Babbitt's development into a composer to have been "organic," to which Babbitt replied that that would be a "comforting thought," but that, in the end, he couldn't himself be so sure. I told Babbitt at the reception afterwards how moved I was by this comment, and how I felt -- even though I was just a kid -- I knew exactly what he meant. "How can we ever really know we were meant to be composers?" he asked rhetorically. "If you enjoy writing music, you just do it." He asked me my name, where I studied, and, when I told him of my years with David Lewin, we reminisced a moment about our old friend. He was then swarmed by other well-wishers, and I grabbed another piece of cake. Soon, after deciding I was too chicken to approach Charles Wuorinen or James Levine, I left for home.

posted by David Salvage 5/11/2006