MILTON BABBITT: A Celebration of his Life and Music
October
31-November 1, 2003
Millsaps College
Jackson, Mississippi
David
H. Smyth
Louisiana State University
Building on Babbitt: Form in Schoenberg's Fourth Quartet
Milton Babbitt has taught many of us a good bit about Schoenberg's Fourth String Quartet. Generations of Babbitt's colleagues and students share his fascination with the work, and have built on the foundation his pioneering efforts provided. I can think of no better way to honor a scholar than to carry on that tradition of inquiry. In this presentation, I take as a starting point a pithy observation about the form of the first movement from Babbitt's 1983 Madison lectures. I compare this to what Schoenberg himself wrote in some program notes for a recording, and then develop a new reading of the formal design of the movement. Taking cues from both Babbitt and Schoenberg, I trace a succession of combinatorial row families presented as recognizable themes through the entire movement, and correlate this succession with a sonata-like design. While other analysts have approximated such an effort, none has noted that in this movement Schoenberg traverses the gamut of combinatorial row families, and that he does so in a manner that suggests a deliberate exploration and exhaustion of the contents of the so-called "Babbitt Square" in coördination with a modified sonata design. Even more remarkably, the row families unfold in an ordering that subtly reinforces the oft-remarked implications of a shadowy d-minor "tonality." Mr. Babbitt's response will be requested.
