MILTON BABBITT: A Celebration of his Life and Music
October
31-November 1, 2003
Millsaps College
Jackson, Mississippi
Andrew
Mead
University
of Michigan School of Music
What's
Not to Like?
An Appreciation of Milton Babbitt's Music and Musical Thought
Milton Babbitt has often been held up to scorn in both the popular press and in certain academic circles as a figure who would take all pleasure from engagement with music. The focus of much of the animus against him is his by now legendary article for High Fidelity Magazine, or more aptly, the title given that article by the magazine's editors, "Who Cares if You Listen?" Babbitt has also resolutely avoided language about his music that would plead its case, beyond sometimes complex and clever allusions to its structures. His music's reputation, far better known than the works themselves, is one of cold, high-toned intellectuality, prompting a whole range of prima facie rejection. But just because Babbitt won't talk about it directly doesn't mean that his music can't provide listeners with an emotional charge, and for many who have been drawn to his music it is a sense of sheer delight in the experience that has proven to be the attraction. I will use figurative language to describe my own experiences with selected passages from Babbitt's works, and then consider how these experiences are enabled by the context and structure of the passages in question. I will in turn consider how Babbitt's choices of what and what not to say about his music are consistent with the pleasures I find in it.
