Babbitt, Milton (Byron )

Elaine Barkin, revised by Martin Brody and Judith Crispin

https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2256107
Published in print: 26 November 2013
Published online: 31 January 2014

Milton Babbitt, 1986. Marion Kalter/Lebrecht Music and Arts

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(b Philadelphia, PA, May 10, 1916; d Princeton, NJ, Jan 29, 2011). American composer and theorist. He
contributed extensively to the understanding and extension of 12-tone compositional theory and
practice and was one of the most influential composers and teachers in the United States since World
War II.

1. Life.

Brought up in Jackson, Mississippi, he started playing the violin at the age of four and several years
later also studied clarinet and saxophone. He graduated from high school in 1931, having already
demonstrated considerable skills in jazz ensemble performance and the composition of popular songs.
His father’s professional involvement with mathematics (as an actuary) was influential in shaping
Babbitt’s intellectual environment. In 1931 Babbitt entered the University of Pennsylvania with the
intention of becoming a mathematician, but he soon transferred to New York University, concentrating
on music under marion Bauer and philip James . He received the BA in music in 1935. As a student and
during the ensuing years, Babbitt immersed himself in the intellectual milieu of New York,
encountering influential philosophers such as Sidney Hook and James Wheelright, developing a life-
long engagement with analytical philosophy, and reading widely in rapidly emerging and sometimes
short-lived journals such as Symposium and Politics. His early attraction to the music of Varèse and
Stravinsky soon gave way to an absorption in that of Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern—
particularly significant at a time when 12-tone music was unknown to many and viewed with
skepticism by others.

After graduation Babbitt studied privately with roger Sessions , wrote criticism for the Musical Leader,
and then enrolled for graduate work at Princeton University, where he continued his association with
Sessions. In 1938, aged 22, he joined the Princeton music faculty and in 1942 received one of
Princeton’s first MFAs in music. His Composition for String Orchestra, a straightforward 12-tone work,
was completed in 1940.

During World War II Babbitt divided his time between Washington, DC, where he was engaged in
mathematical research, and Princeton, as a member of the mathematics faculty (1943–5). Musically,
these were years of thought and discovery, rather than of actual composition; they resulted in 1946 in
a highly technical work entitled The Function of Set Structure in the Twelve-Tone System, which was
the first formal and systematic investigation of Schoenberg’s compositional method. Babbitt submitted
this paper for the degree of PhD. Although lauded by mathematics professor John Tukey, the
dissertation was rejected by the music department who, at that time, only offered higher degrees in
historical musicology. Between 1946 and 1948, shuttling between Jackson and New York, he once
again directed his energies to composition, writing some film scores and an unsuccessful Broadway
musical.

In 1948 Babbitt rejoined the music faculty at Princeton, eventually succeeding Roger Sessions as the
William Shubael Conant Professor of Music in 1965; in 1973 he became a member of the composition
faculty of the Juilliard School. He also taught at the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, the
Berkshire Music Center, the New England Conservatory of Music, and the summer courses in new
music at Darmstadt, Germany. In 1992, 46 years after Princeton’s music department rejected Babbitt’s
dissertation, his colleagues Paul Lansky and Claudio Spies resubmitted the work on his behalf. On
review the dissertation was accepted. The Dean of Princeton’s graduate school at the time, Theodore

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Ziolkowski, explained that Babbitt’s “dissertation was so far ahead of its time it couldn’t be properly
evaluated at the time.” Babbitt’s earned doctorate was granted one year after he had been awarded an
honorary doctorate also from Princeton. He won the Joseph Bearns Prize (for Music for the Mass I in
1942), New York Music Critics’ Circle citations (for Composition for Four Instruments in 1949 and for
Philomel in 1964), a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award (1959) for demonstrating a
“penetrating grasp of musical order that has influenced younger composers,” a Guggenheim
Fellowship (1960–61), membership in the National Institute (1965), a Brandeis University Gold Medal
(1970), a special Pulitzer Prize citation “for his life’s work as a distinguished and seminal American
composer” (1982), a MacArthur Fellowship (1986), and the Gold Medal of the American Academy and
Institute of Arts and Letters (1988). In 1974 he became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, and in 2000 he became a National Patron of Delta Omicron.

Throughout his career, he was actively involved in contemporary music organizations, including the
ISCM (he was president of the American section, 1951–2), the American Music Center, Perspectives of
New Music (as a member of its editorial board), the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (from
1985), and the BMI Student Composer Awards (he was the chairman from 1985 until his death in
2011). Articles, reviews, and interviews by him have appeared in many music publications; he traveled
widely, speaking on issues of current musical thought. His 1983 Madison lectures are published under
the title Words about Music. Babbitt was a remarkably successful lecturer; perceptive and adept at
logical extemporization, he continually stimulated and provoked his audiences. He was also an
inveterate follower of popular sports, a raconteur and punster, and an omnivorous reader.

In a controversial article published in High Fidelity magazine in 1958, Babbitt claimed that serious
music required an educated audience. He urged the informed musician to “re-examine and probe the
very foundations of his art.” Babbitt was displeased with the published title of the article, “Who Cares
if You Listen?” which had been added by the magazine editor without his agreement (the original title
was “The Composer as Specialist”). “Now obviously,” he told the Princeton Alumni Weekly in 2006, “I
care very deeply if you listen. From a purely practical point of view, if nobody listens and nobody cares,
you’re not going to be writing music for very long. But I care how you listen.”

During his lifetime Babbitt was revered as an artistic mentor whose students produced music and
scholarly work that spanned the music discipline from the avant-garde to Broadway musicals. He loved
popular music and had an encyclopedic knowledge of Tin Pan Alley songs. In a 2001 interview with
NewMusicBox he commented: “If you know anybody who knows more popular music of the ’20s or ’30s
than I do, I want to know who it is.” Babbitt’s students, many of whom called him “Uncle Milton,”
included mario Davidovsky, paul Lansky, john c. Eaton , and stephen Sondheim . His work in serialism
influenced major European composers such as Luigi Nono, Pierre Boulez, and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

2. Works.

(i) Serial theory and practice to 1970.

Babbitt’s early fascination with 12-tone practice, particularly in its formal aspects, developed into a
total reconsideration of musical relations. Throughout his compositional career he was occupied with
the extension of techniques related to Schoenberg’s (and Webern’s) “combinatorial” sets; with the
investigation of sets that have great flexibility and potential for long-range association; and with an

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exploration of the structuring of nonpitch components “determined by the operations of the [12-tone]
system and uniquely analogous to the specific structuring of the pitch components of the individual
work, and thus, utterly nonseparable” (Babbitt, 1955, p.61). He was a pioneer in his ways of talking
and thinking about music, invoking terms from other disciplines, such as philosophy, linguistics,
mathematics, and the physical sciences.

Babbitt revealed and formalized many of the most salient aspects of 12-tone compositional technique
in several important essays. In “Some Aspects of Twelve-Tone Composition” (1955), “Twelve-Tone
Invariants as Compositional Determinants” (1960), and “Set Structure as a Compositional
Determinant” (1961), he systematically investigated the compositional potential of the 12 pitch class
set, introducing such terms (derived from mathematics) as “source set,” “combinatoriality,”
“aggregate,” “secondary set,” and “derived set.” These terms facilitate the classification of the various
types of pitch class set and contribute to the description of diverse procedures for the compositional
projection of such sets. A secondary set, for example, results when a “new” set of 12 pitch classes
emerges from the linear linking of segments of two forms of a 12-tone series, as shown in Table 1.
Similarly, an “aggregate can be thought of as a simultaneous statement of . . . parts [of a 12-tone
set] . . . it is not a set, inasmuch as it is not totally ordered, because only the elements within the
component parts are ordered, but not the relationship between or among the parts
themselves” (Babbitt, 1955, p.57). 12-tone sets that yield such aggregate and secondary set formations
are called “combinatorial.” (Further distinctions between various types of combinatorial sets—that is,
semi- and all-combinatorial sets, the first-, second-, third-, and fourth-order all-combinatoriality—are
discussed in the same essay.) The nomenclature that Babbitt introduced in his prose writings has
become widely adopted and is the basis for much theoretical work and composition. Moreover, in his
compositions he demonstrated the efficacy of his theories. Thus Babbitt extended the notion of
compositional creativity to encompass the development of musical systems themselves, as well as
specific compositional achievements within such systems. He also persistently explored the
relationships between set transformation and derivation procedures, and virtually all other aspects of
musical structure, such as grouping and form, large- and small-scale rhythm, texture and register,
instrumentation, and timbre.

Ex.1

In “Twelve-Tone Rhythmic Structure and the Electronic Medium” (1962) Babbitt demonstrates a
number of methods for interpreting the structures of pitch class sets in the temporal domain. By
positing an analogy between the octave (in pitch structure) and the bar (in rhythmic and metrical
structure), and by dividing the bar into 12 equal units (each of which can be musically articulated by
individual points of attack), Babbitt provides a basis for mapping pitch class sets onto “time-point
sets.” Thus an uninterpreted set of integers (for example, 0, 11, 6, 7, 5, 1, 10, 2, 9, 3, 4, 8) may be
interpreted as a specific instance of a pitch class set (ex.1 ) or as a specific instance of a time-point set
(ex.2 ). (The time-point of a particular point of attack is a measure of its position within the bar.) In ex.2
the metrical unit is a demisemiquaver, a 12th of the whole bar; time-point 0 therefore occurs on the

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first demisemiquaver of the bar, time-point 1 on the next, and so on. In this example the 12 available
points of attack within a bar are ordered according to the numerical set given above. Ex.1 and 2 each
represent only one of the possible interpretations of the numerical set given above; pitch classes may
be presented in various registers, just as time-points may be displaced to subsequent bars, as long as
the same order of presentation (of pitches or points of articulation) is preserved. Furthermore, a time-
point set and a pitch class set determined by the same set of integers may unfold at different speeds: in
the first four bars of the second violin part of Babbitt’s String Quartet no.3 (1969–70), the first six
notes may be understood as a realization in terms of pitch of the first five integers in the set indicated
above (ex.3 ). Also, the three forte markings in this passage articulate the time-points that correspond
to the first and third entities of the same numerical set (time-point 0 is reiterated in bar 2 before the
third time-point, 6, is articulated in bar 4). The second time-point of this set is presented in a different
instrumental line, the last note of violin 1 in bar 3 (ex.4 ). Each of the eight dynamic gradations from
ppp to fff inclusive is employed in the String Quartet no.3 to articulate a particular layer of the time-
point structure, and each of these layers is analogous to one of eight layers of pitch class sets
simultaneously presented in the work; the eight layers of pitch class sets are differentiated by
distinctions of instrumentation, register, and mode of sound production (for example, the use of
pizzicato and arco) throughout the work. This brief discussion of a musical fragment may serve as an
indication of the extraordinary richness of structural relationships that are projected in Babbitt’s
music.

An earlier example of Babbitt’s approach may be seen in his Three Compositions for Piano (1947), one
of his first consistent attempts to extend Schoenbergian 12-tone procedures. The surface of the music
is, in some respects, reminiscent of Schoenberg: registrally dispersed lines alternate with thickly
clustered chordal attacks (in the framework of a quasi-ternary structure), yet the absence of expressive
indications and the reliance on metronome markings would seem to reveal a Stravinskian concern for a
clear, undistracted projection of the temporal domain. Some of the innovative aspects of the work
reside in the conjunction of the structuring of pitch and other domains, resulting in an early example of
“totally serialized” music. Points of articulation made by the superimposition of lines and the number
of consecutive attacks within a contrapuntal line are determined by a set (whose prime form is 5, 1, 4,
2). In the first four bars of the work, this set is presented twice in its prime form (P), once in
retrograde (R), and once in retrograde inversion (RI; ex.5 ). There is also a correspondence between
dynamics and pitch set forms.

Babbitt’s Composition for Four Instruments and Composition for Twelve Instruments (both of which
were written in 1948) go a step further towards a structuring of rhythm isomorphic with 12-tone pitch
structuring. In the 12-instrument work a set of 12 durations emerges and operates throughout. It is
transformed by “classical” serial operations: transposition (addition of a constant to each duration
number of the set), inversion (the complementation of the duration numbers), retrogression (the
complementation of the order numbers of the set) and retrograde inversion. The ending of each of the
three major sections of the work is articulated by the completion of a rhythmic set. The presentation of
the rhythmic sets is often complex—various instruments characteristically participate in the
presentation of a single rhythmic set, and more than one rhythmic set may be presented
simultaneously. Nonetheless, the surface characteristics of the work delineate a simple process.
Beginning with sparsely textured single events (which can be considered an extension of Webern’s

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sound world) and slowly becoming more compact (with regard to aggregate completions), the work
concludes with thicker textures and sustained sonorities, unfolding newly shaped but familiar
harmonic environments.

Ex.6 Partitions, bars 1–4

Babbitt was profoundly involved in the clarification and extension of the systematic aspects of 12-tone
composition, but his music is in no sense rigidly determined by precompositional schemes. Within the
constraints of serial techniques, he used a great range of expressive possibilities and contextually
varied structures. A work such as Partitions (1957) demonstrates numerous precompositional
constraints (such as the projection of an all-interval set, a polyphonic texture in which distinct
transformations of 12-tone pitch sets are unfolded in each line, and aggregates formed by various
vertical partitionings of segments of these lines). In the first four bars a hexachord is presented in each
of four different registers (ex.6 ). The hexachords in the lower two registers (E♭ A♭ F♯ F C♯ E; C G A B♭
D B) are complementary and are, respectively, the retrogrades of the hexachords presented in the
higher two registers. There are 49 different ways in which the pitches presented in these hexachords
might be partitioned to form aggregates. (For example, each hexachord might be divided 3 + 3; or the
hexachords might be divided alternately 2 + 4 and 4 + 2, etc.) The actual partitioning of pitches (1 + 5
in the highest register, 3 + 3 in the next highest register, 5 + 1 in the next register, and 3 + 3 in the
lowest register) contributes to a rich pattern of interval and pitch associations and echoes. Such
partitioning establishes a specific rate of movement through the pitch class sets in each register and
also suggests possibilities for hierarchical distinctions among the pitch classes that constitute the sets
involved. Each registral line has its own rhythm of movement through its pitch class sets, and these
characteristic rhythms are varied contextually throughout the work.

The commitment to systematic precompositional planning is maintained in works with dramatic, poetic
or other associative aspects. In Du (1951), a song cycle for soprano and piano (which represented the
United States at the 1953 ISCM Festival), there is continual interplay between the text and the vocal
and piano lines. Phoneme, syllable, word, and line are carefully contoured, subtly and imaginatively set
to music: the pitch, durational, dynamic, and registral schemata, themselves transformed from poem to
poem, are allied with the verbal elements and indeed help to project the many delicate nuances of the
text. These lyrical, imagist tendencies were most fully realized in Philomel (1964) but are also evident
in All Set (1957), for small jazz ensemble, with its conjunction of 12-tone structure (based on an all-
combinatorial set) and what Babbitt calls “jazz-like properties . . . the use of percussion, the Chicago
jazz-like juxtapositions of solos and ensembles recalling certain characteristics of group
improvisation.”

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Babbitt took a novel serial approach to handling the sonic resources of a large orchestra in Relata I
(1965). Here timbral “families” are correlated with set structure, with woodwind instruments as four
trios, brass as three quartets, and string instruments as two sextets (one bowed, the other plucked).
The work is insistently polyphonic (with as many as 48 instrumental lines), framed at both ends by
massive sonorities and filled with constantly changing and recombined textures and colors. While parts
of the work are analogous to other parts, there is no simple repetition: all aspects undergo
reinterpretation, rearrangement and “resurfacing.” In the more timbrally homogeneous works of the
late 1960s (Sextets, Post-Partitions, parts of Correspondences, the String Quartets nos.3 and 4), the
handling of timbre and tone-color seems even more refined. Sonorously embodied successions of
relations are projected in ever varying contexts, producing changes of “atmosphere” from the most
rarefied to the most dense, with every conceivable gradation. The complexity of Babbitt’s orchestral
music created difficulties for some ensembles, with the New York Philharmonic, in 1969, and the
Philadelphia Orchestra, in 1989, postponing their premieres of his work when the rehearsal periods
were not adequate.

Ex.5 Three Compositions for Piano, no.1, bars 1–4 

(ii) Electronic works.

Another concern of Babbitt’s was electronic sound synthesis. In his 1960 essay “Electronic Music: the
Revolution in Sound” he wrote “Electronic music is just what its name suggests: music produced by
means of ‘instructed’ electronic oscillations. To produce it electrically should be no more alarming than
producing it with that oddly shaped wooden box equipped with taut strings which we call a violin.” At
the time of the first instrumental film soundtrack, in the late 1930s, he had already recognized the
enormous compositional potential of such synthesis. Two decades later, in the mid-1950s, when he was
invited by RCA to be a composer-consultant, he became the first composer to work with its newly
improved and developed synthesizer, the Mark II (see illustration). The Mark II became the focus of the
Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center from 1959. Babbitt, alongside Roger Sessions, Vladimir
Ussachevsky, and Otto Luening, was one of the center’s first directors.

Babbitt was attracted by the convenience of composing for electronic means, explaining in 1969 to the
New York Times that “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.” Composition for
Synthesizer (1961) was Babbitt’s first totally synthesized work. It was followed soon after by Vision and
Prayer for soprano and synthesizer (1961) and Ensembles for Synthesizer (1962–4). His basic
compositional attitudes and approaches underwent little change with the new resource; rather, with
the availability and flexibility of the synthesizer’s programming control they were now realizable to a
degree of precision previously unattainable in live performances of his music. Babbitt’s interest in

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synthesis was not concerned with the invention of new sounds per se but with the control of all aspects
of events, particularly the timing and rate of change of timbre, texture, and intensity. (His Woodwind
Quartet (1953) and String Quartet no.2 (1954) had already given some indication of the rapidity of
dynamic change he wished to achieve, on both single and consecutive pitches.) The electronic medium
allowed him to project time-point sets however he liked, without regard to the demands made on live
performers.

Though the lucidity of his conceptual world finally became manifest under the ideal performance
conditions provided by sound synthesis, Babbitt nevertheless retained his interest in live performance,
and carried over to it several structural procedures from the electronic medium. Perhaps the most
appealing work combining live performance with tape is Philomel, written in conjunction with the poet
John Hollander for the soprano Bethany Beardslee. It is based on Ovid’s interpretation of the Greek
legend of Philomela, the ravished, speechless maiden who is transformed into a nightingale. New ways
of combining musical and verbal expressiveness were devised by composer and poet: 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). Babbitt stopped
writing music with electronic components after the Columbia-Princeton studio was vandalized in the
late 1970s.

(iii) Later serial developments.

During the 1970s and early 1980s Babbitt was increasingly prolific. The fecundity of his compositional
thought was revealed in such diverse combinations as female chorus, double brass sextet, orchestra
and tape, and guitar duo. He continued to explore the potential, and to refine the procedures of, 12-
tone composition, always discovering new ways of extending and interpreting principles of
combinatoriality and correlating the various dimensions of his musical universe.

In works such as Arie da capo (1973–4), Babbitt incorporates “weighted aggregates”—transformations

(by inversion) of pitch class arrays (abstract, precompositional designs made up of combinatorially
related rows) in which at least one pitch class appears more than once (see Babbitt, 1973–4). Arie da
capo also employs an “all-partition array” that systematically uses all the possible partitionings of the
structural elements that comprise an aggregate (in this case, all the possible partitionings of 12-tone
sets into as many as six parts). All-partition arrays are found in much of Babbitt’s music after 1960.
Each of the sections of Arie da capo may be construed as an “aria” for one of the five instruments; but
the conception of the aria is reimagined so that “the central instrument dominates less quantitatively
than relationally, in that its music is the immediate source of, and is complemented and counterpointed
by, the music of the ‘accompanying’ instruments.” “Da capo” repetitions of set forms recur throughout
the arias, both on the musical surface and as non-consecutive pitches associated by register,
articulation or instrumentation.

A Solo Requiem for soprano and two pianos (1976–7) is Babbitt’s most extended composition for voice.
This magisterial work (a memorial to the composer Godfrey Winham) incorporates a wide range of
vocal techniques and reveals the extraordinary range and sensitivity of Babbitt’s response to a variety
of dramatic and lyrical poetic texts. In My Complements to Roger, one of several short works of the
late 1970s and early 1980s for solo piano, Babbitt succinctly demonstrated a number of methods for

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associating pitch and rhythmic structures. The partitioning of metrical units and pitch class sets is
correlated in each bar to form aggregates. Often in the piece the grouping of a string of pitches
extracted from the abstract pitch class array is articulated on the musical surface by presenting the
pitch string within a single beat, subdivided into the same number of parts as there are pitches in the
string (see Mead, 1983).

Babbitt continued in the 1980s to expand the 12-tone universe. He explored the premise of the
“superarray,” the combination of individual arrays to form larger and more intricate 12-tone
structures. These very large arrays of pitch class structure have inspired ever more inventive musical
textures. For example, in Transfigured Notes for string orchestra (1986), Babbitt divided each of four
instrumental groups (1st and 2nd violins, violas and cellos) into two sub-groups and then distinguished
between three separate registers in each group in order to articulate 24 distinct areas. These
instrumental groupings are then recombined to project the structural counterpoint which comprises
one interpretation of the abstract superarray.

The world that Babbitt’s music evokes is not simple. He once said “I want a piece of music to be
literally as much as possible.” While some critics felt that such an attitude has resulted in a body of
inaccessible music, others praised his pioneering approach, involving as it has a systematic and
comprehensive exploration of the 12-tone compositional universe. Babbitt liked to merge serious music
with light-hearted and humorous titles, such as “The Joy of More Sextets,” “Four Play,” and “Sheer
Pluck.” His emphasis on the relationship between practice and theory, his insistence on the composer’s
assumption of responsibility for every musical event in a work, and his reinterpretation of the
constituent elements of the Western musical tradition have had a vital influence on the thinking and
music of numerous younger composers.

See also Theory ; Twelve-tone music .

Works

all published unless otherwise stated

Instrumental

Orchestral

Generatrix, 1935, inc., withdrawn

Composition for Str Orch, 1940, withdrawn

Sym., 1941, inc., withdrawn

Into the Good Ground, film score, 1949, inc., withdrawn

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 Relata I, 1965

Relata II, 1968

Ars combinatoria, small orch, 1981

Conc. for Pf and Orch, 1985

Transfigured Notes, str orch, 1986

Conc. no.2, pf, orch, 1998

Concerti for Orchestra, 2004

Chamber

Str Trio, 1941, withdrawn; Composition for 4 Insts, fl, cl, vn, vc, 1948

Composition for 12 Insts, wind qnt, tpt, hp, cel, str trio, db, 1948, rev. 1954

Str Qt no.1, 1948, withdrawn; Composition for Va and Pf, 1950

Ww Qt, 1953

Str Qt no.2, 1954

All Set, a sax, t sax, tpt, trbn, db, pf, vib, perc, 1957

Sextets, vn, pf, 1966

Str Qt no.3, 1969–70

Str Qt no.4, 1970

Arie da capo, fl, cl + b cl, pf, vn, vc, 1973–4

Paraphrases, fl, ob + eng hn, cl, b cl, bn, hn, tpt, trbn, tuba, pf, 1979

Dual, vc, pf, 1980

Str Qt no.5, 1982

Groupwise, pic + fl + a fl, vn, va, vc, pf, 1983

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 Four Play, cl, vn, vc, pf, 1984

The Joy of More Sextets, vn, pf, 1986

Fanfare, 4 hn, 4 tpt, 3 trbn, tuba, 1987

Souper, spkr, fl, cl, vn, vc, pf, 1987

Whirled Series, a sax, pf, 1987

The Crowded Air, fl, ob, cl, bn, pf, mar, gui, vn, va, vc, db, 1988

Consortini, fl, pf, vib, mar, vc, 1989

Soli e Duettini, 2 gui, 1989

Soli e Duettini, fl, gui, 1989

Soli e Duettini, vn, va, 1990

Little Goes a Long Way, vn, pf, 2000

Swan Song no. 1, fl, ob, vn, vc, 2 gui, 2003

An Encore, vn, pf, 2006

Counterparts, 2 tpt, hn, trbn, tuba, 1992

Septet, but Equal, 2 cl, cl + b cl, vn, va, vc, pf, 1992

Fanfare for All, 2 tpt, hn, trbn, tuba, 1993

Str Qt no.6, 1993

Accompanied Recitative, s sax, pf, 1994

Arrivals and Departures, 2 vn, 1994

Triad, cl, va, pf, 1994

Bicenquinquagenary Fanfare, 2 tpt, hn, trbn, tuba, 1995

Pf Qt, 1995

Qnt, cl, 2 vn, va, vc, 1996

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 When Shall We Three Meet Again?, fl, cl, vib, 1996

Piano solo

3 Compositions for Pf, 1947

Duet, 1956

Semi-Simple Variations, 1956

Partitions, 1957

Post-Partitions, 1966

Tableaux, 1972

Minute Waltz (3/4 ± 1/8), 1977

Playing for Time, 1977

My Complements to Roger, 1978

About Time, 1982

Don, pf 4 hands, 1981

Canonical Form, 1983

Playing for Time, 1983

It Takes Twelve to Tango, 1984

Lagniappe, 1985

Overtime, 1987

In his Own Words, spkr, pf, 1988

Emblems (Ars Emblematica), 1989

Envoi, pf 4 hands, 1990

Preludes, Interludes and Postlude, 1991

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 Tutte le corde, 1994

The Old Order Changeth, 1998

Allegro Penseroso, 1999

More Melismata, vc, 2005–6

Other solo inst

My Ends are my Beginnings, cl, 1978

Melismata, vn, 1982

Sheer Pluck (Composition for Gui), 1984

Homily, snare drum, 1987

Beaten Paths, mar, 1988

Play it Again Sam, va, 1989

None but the Lonely Flute, fl, 1991

Around the Horn, hn, 1993

Manifold Music, org, 1995

Composition for One Inst, celesta, 1999

Conc. Piccolino, vibr, 1999

Vocal

Dramatic

Fabulous Voyage (musical, R. Childs, R. Koch, Babbitt), 1946

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Choral

Music for the Mass I, SATB, 1940, withdrawn; Music for the Mass II, SATB, 1941,
withdrawn; 4 Canons, female chorus, 1968 [after Schoenberg]

More Phonemena, 12vv, 1978

An Elizabethan Sextette, female chorus 6vv, 1979

Glosses, boys’ choir, 1988

Solo vocal

Three Theatrical Songs, 1v, pf, 1946 [from musical Fabulous Voyage]

The Widow’s Lament in Springtime (W.C. Williams), S, pf, 1950

Du (Stramm), song cycle, S, pf, 1951

Vision and Prayer, S, pf, 1954, unpubd, unperf.; 2 Sonnets (G.M. Hopkins), Bar, cl, va,
vc, 1955

Composition for Tenor and 6 Insts, T, fl, ob, vn, va, vc, hpd, 1960

Sounds and Words, S, pf, 1960

Phonemena, S, pf, 1969–70

A Solo Requiem (W. Shakespeare, Hopkins, G. Meredith, Stramm, J. Dryden), S, 2 pf,

1976–7

The Head of the Bed (J. Hollander), S, fl, cl, vn, vc, 1982

The Virginal Book, C, pf, 1988

4 Cavalier Settings (R. Herrick, T. Carew), T, gui, 1991

Mehr “Du” (Stramm), Mez, va, pf, 1991

Quatrains, S, 2 cl, 1993

No Longer Very Clear, S, fl, cl, vn, vc, 1994

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 Pantuns, S, pf, 2000

From the Psalter, S, str, 2002

Now Evening After Evening (D. Walcott), S, pf, 2002

A Waltzer in the House (S. Kunitz), S, vib, 2003

Autobiography of the Eye (P. Auster), S, vc, 2004

Works with tape

Composition for Synth, 4-track tape, 1961

Vision and Prayer (D. Thomas), S, 4-track tape, 1961

Ensembles for Synth, 4-track tape, 1962–4

Philomel (Hollander), S, 4-track tape, 1964

Correspondences, str orch, tape, 1967

Occasional Variations, 4-track tape, 1971

Concerti, vn, small orch, tape, 1974–6

Phonemena, S, tape, 1975

Reflections, pf, tape, 1975

Images, sax, tape, 1979

Recorded interviews in Nhoh

Principal publishers

Associated, Boelke-Bomart, Peters

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Writings
(for fuller list see Mead, 1994)

The Function of Set Structure in the Twelve-Tone System (unpubd paper, 1946; diss., Princeton
U., 1992)

“The String Quartets of Bartók,” MQ, xxxv (1949), 377–85

“Some Aspects of Twelve-Tone Composition,” The Score, no.12 (1955), 53–61

“Who Cares if You Listen?,” High Fidelity, viii/2 (1958), 38–40; repr. in The American Composer
Speaks, ed. G. Chase (Baton Rouge, LA, 1966), 234–44; repr. in Contemporary Composers on
Contemporary Music, ed. E. Schwartz and B. Childs (New York, 1967), 243–50

“Electronic Music: the Revolution in Sound,” Columbia University Magazine (1960), spr., 4–8;
rev. as “The Revolution in Sound: Electronic Music,” MJ, xviii/7 (1965), 34–7

“Twelve-Tone Invariants as Compositional Determinants,” MQ, xlvi (1960), 246–59; repr. in

Problems of Modern Music, ed. P.H. Lang (New York, 1960), 108–21

“Past and Present Concepts of the Nature and Limits of Music,” IMSCR VIII: New York 1961,
398–403; repr. in Perspectives on Contemporary Music Theory, ed. B. Boretz and E.T. Cone (New
York, 1972), 3–9

“Set Structure as a Compositional Determinant,” JMT, v (1961), 72–94; repr. in Perspectives on

Contemporary Music Theory, ed. B. Boretz and E.T. Cone (New York, 1972), 129–47

“Twelve-Tone Rhythmic Structure and the Electronic Medium,” PNM, i/1 (1962), 49–79; repr. in
Perspectives on Contemporary Music Theory, ed. B. Boretz and E.T. Cone (New York, 1972),
148–79

“Remarks on the Recent Stravinsky,” PNM, ii/2 (1963–4), 35–55; repr. in Perspectives on
Schoenberg and Stravinsky, ed. B. Boretz and E.T. Cone (Princeton, NJ, 1968, 2/1972/R), 165–85

“An Introduction to the RCA Synthesizer,” JMT, viii (1964), 251–65

“The Synthesis, Perception and Specification of Musical Time,” JIFMC, xvi (1964), 92–5

“The Use of Computers in Musicological Research,” PNM, iii/2 (1964–5), 74–83

“The Structure and Functions of Music Theory I,” College Music Symposium, v (1965), 49–60;
repr. in Perspectives on Contemporary Music Theory, ed. B. Boretz and E.T. Cone (New York,
1972), 10–21

“Edgard Varèse: a Few Observations of his Music,” PNM, iv/2 (1965–6), 14–22; repr. in
Perspectives on American Composers, ed. B. Boretz and E.T. Cone (New York, 1971), 40–48

“Three Essays on Schoenberg,” Perspectives on Schoenberg and Stravinsky, ed. B. Boretz and
E.T. Cone (Princeton, NJ, 1968, 2/1972/R), 47–60

“Relata I,” The Orchestral Composer’s Point of View, ed. R.S. Hines (Norman, OK, 1970), 11–38;
repr. as “On Relata I,” PNM, ix/1 (1970–71), 1–22

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“Contemporary Music Composition and Music Theory as Contemporary Intellectual History,”
Perspectives in Musicology, ed. B.S. Brook, E.O.D. Downes and S.J. Van Solkema (New York,
1972), 151–84

“Since Schoenberg,” PNM, xii/1–2 (1973–4), 3–28

“Responses: a First Approximation,” PNM, xiv/2 (1975–6), 3–23

“The Next Thirty Years,” High Fidelity/Musical America, xxxi/4 (1981), 51–66

Words about Music, ed. S. Dembski and J.N. Straus (Madison, WI, 1987)

“Stravinsky’s Verticals and (Schoenberg’s) Diagonals: a Twist of Fate,” Stravinsky

Retrospectives, ed. E. Haimo and P. Johnson (Lincoln, NE, 1988), 15–35

“On Having Been and Still Being an American Composer,” PNM, xxvii/1 (1989), 106–12

with others: “Brave New Worlds: Leading Composers Offer their Anniversary Predications and
Speculations,” MT, cxxxv (1994), 330–37

S. Peles: and others, eds.: The Collected Essays of Milton Babbitt (Princeton, 2003)

Bibliography
CBY 1962; VintonD (B. Boretz)

G. Perle: Serial Composition and Atonality (Berkeley, CA, 1962, 6/1991)

R. French: “Current Chronicle: New York,” MQ, l (1964), 382–8 [on Philomel]

P. Westergaard: “Some Problems Raised by the Rhythmic Procedures in Milton Babbitt’s

Composition for Twelve Instruments,” PNM, iv/1 (1965), 109–18

E. Barkin: “A Simple Approach to Milton Babbitt’s ‘Semi-Simple Variations,’” MR, xxviii (1967),
316–22

J. Hollander: “Notes on the Text of Philomel,” PNM, vi/1 (1967), 134–41

R. Kostelanetz: “The Two Extremes of Avant-Garde Music,” New York Times Magazine (15 Jan
1967)

E. Salzman: “Babbitt and Serialism,” Twentieth-Century Music: an Introduction (Englewood

Cliffs, NJ, 1967, 3/1988), 154–5, 158

“An Interview with Milton Babbitt,” MEJ, lv/3 (1968–9), 56 only

S. Arnold and G. Hair: “Champion of Serialism,” Music and Musicians, xvii/10 (1969), 46–7

H.W. Hitchcock: “Systematic Serial Composition,” Music in the United States (Englewood Cliffs,
NJ, 1969, 3/1988), 252–9

P. Lieberson, E. Lundborg, and J. Peel: “Conversation with Milton Babbitt,” Contemporary Music
Newsletter, viii (1974), no.1, 2–3; no.2, 2–3; no.3, 2–4

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J. Peel: “Milton Babbitt: String Quartet no.3,” Contemporary Music Newsletter, viii/1 (1974), 1–2

PNM, xiv/2–xv/1 (1976) [double issue, 3–23]

B. Benward: “The Widow’s Lament in Springtime,” Music in Theory and Practice, ii (Dubuque,
IA, 1977, 2/1981), 483–96

R. Gauldin: “A Pedagogical Introduction to Set Theory,” Theory and Practice, iii/2 (1978), 3–14

H. Wilcox and P. Escot: “A Musical Set Theory,” Theory and Practice, iv/2 (1979), 17–37

M. Capalbo: “Charts,” PNM, xix/1–2 (1981–2), 310–31

C. Gagne and T. Caras: “Milton Babbitt,” Soundpieces: Interviews with American Composers
(Metuchen, NJ, 1982), 35–52

A. Mead: “Detail and the Array in Milton Babbitt’s My Complements to Roger,” Music Theory
Spectrum, v (1983), 89–109

J. Rockwell: “The Northeastern Academic Establishment and the Romance of Science,” All
American Music: Composition in the Late Twentieth Century (New York, 1983), 25–36

A. Mead: “Recent Developments in the Music of Milton Babbitt,” MQ, lxx (1984), 310–31

P. Lieberson: Milton Babbitt’s “Post-Partitions” (diss., Brandeis U., 1985)

P. Swartz: “Milton Babbitt on Milton Babbitt (Interview with the Composer),” AM, iii/4 (1985),
467–73

S. Blaustein and M. Brody: “Criteria for Grouping in Milton Babbitt’s Minute Waltz (or) 3/4 ±
1/8,” PNM, xxiv/2 (1986), 30–79

W. Lake: “The Architecture of a Superarray Composition: Milton Babbitt’s String Quartet no.5,”
PNM, xxiv/2 (1986), 88–111

J.N. Straus: “Listening to Babbitt,” PNM, xxiv/2 (1986), 10–24

R. Taub: “An Appreciation of Milton Babbitt’s Piano Music,” PNM, xxiv/2 (1986), 26–9

A. Mead: “About About Time’s Time: a Survey of Milton Babbitt’s Recent Rhythmic Practice,”
PNM, xxv/1–2 (1987), 182–235

J. Peel and C. Cramer: “Correspondences and Associations in Milton Babbitt’s Reflections,” PNM
, xxvi/1 (1988), 144–207

J. Dubiel: “Three Essays on Milton Babbitt,” PNM, xxviii/2 (1990), 216–61; xxix/1 (1991), 90–123;
xxx/1 (1992), 82–131

A. Mead: An Introduction to the Music of Milton Babbitt (Princeton, NJ, 1994) [incl. further
bibliography]

M. Brody: “‘Music for the Masses’: Milton Babbitt’s Cold War Music Theory,” MQ, lxxvii/2
(1993), 161–92

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D. Lewin: “Generalized Interval Systems for Babbitt’s Lists and for Schoenberg’s String Trio,”
Music Theory Spectrum, xvii/1 (1995), 81–118

Milton Babbitt, videotaped interview, Brandeis University Archive of Electro-Acoustic Music

(1997)

PNM, xxxv/2 (summer 1997) [special issue, “A Symposium in Honor of Milton Babbitt”]

Babbitt: Portrait of a Serial Composer, documentary film, dir. R. Hilferty (1998)

F.J. Oteri: “Milton Babbitt: a Discussion in 12 Parts,” NewMusicBox (1 Dec 2001) <http://
www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=1545 <http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?
id=1545>>

G. Zuckerman and M. Babbitt:, “An Interview with Milton Babbitt,” American Mavericks
(American Public Media, July 2002) <http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/
interview_babbitt <http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/interview_babbitt>>

Obituaries, New York Times (29 Jan 2011), Washington Post (30 Jan 2011), Guardian (30 Jan
2011), Gramophone (2 Feb 2011), Los Angeles Times (2 Feb 2011)

More on this topic

Babbitt, Milton <http://oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/
9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000001645> in Oxford Music Online <http://
oxfordmusiconline.com>

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