Form as ‘Empiricism’?:
Babbitt, serialism and
the RCA synthesiser
Dr Tom Hall
Milton Babbitt
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Milton Babbitt, 1916–2011
American
clarinetist, saxophonist
early interest in jazz and
popular musics
interest in mathematics (father a
mathematician)
Studied music at NY University
Embraced second Viennese
School, esp. 12-tone music
Milton Babbitt II
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Key figure in US Musical Modernism within
Academia
‘Composer-Theorist’
‘Who Cares if You Listen?’ / ‘The
Composer as Specialist’ 1958
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www.palestrant.com/babbitt.html
A plea for the legitimacy of the academic
‘ivory tower’: “Granting to music the position
accorded other arts and sciences promises
the sole substantial means of survival for the
music I have been describing. … [If] this
music is not supported…music will cease to
evolve, and, in that important sense, will
cease to live”
Serialism
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AKA 12-tone music
Arnold Schoenberg, 1874–1951
Austrian composer, fled to the United
States in 1933
1920s, "Method of Composing with
Twelve Tones Which are Related Only
with One Another”
Commonly seen as a formalism of the
extension of the chromaticism of late
Romantic music.
Emancipation of the Dissonance
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Strong legacy in the US after the WWII
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Serialism II
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from The Composition with 12 tones
(1950)
The method of composing with twelve tones
grew out of necessity. In the last hundred years
the concept of harmony has changed
tremendously through the development of
chromaticism … it became doubtful whether a
tonic appearing at the beginning, at the end, or
at any other point really had a constructive
meaning. … This state of affairs led to a freer
use of dissonances comparable to classic
composers’ treatment of diminished seventh
chords, which could precede and follow any
other harmony, consonant or dissonant, as if
there were no dissonance at all.
RCA Synthesizers, Mk I & II
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RCA Mark II Synthesizer
The Victor Talking Machine Company
(1901-29)
¤  “His Master’s Voice”
¤  phonographs
Radio Corporation of America /
Princeton Laboratories
Harry Olsen and Hebert Belar, inventors,
1950s
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used to recreate popular music
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Mark II Synthesizer, 1956+
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24 vacuum tube oscillators, punch
paper roll, disc cutter
RCA Mark II Synthesizer
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RCA Mark II Synthesizer
Entrusted to and core of new
Columbia-Princeton Electronic
Music Center (1959+)
From Columbia: Otto Luening
(1900–1996) and Vladimir
Ussachevsky (1911–1990)
mainly Milton Babbitt
representing Princeton
Babbitt tool 4 years to learn to
use the Mark II before making
his first piece, Composition for
Synthesizer (1961)
RCA Mark II Synthesizer
Babbitt on Electronic Music
The Revolution in Sound: Electronic Music (1960)
"All factors militate against the composition of complex contemporary
music: the uncompensated time involved in its composition, the crushing
costs of preparing materials, the inadequate number of rehearsals, and
the consequent, unusually unsatisfactory, always ephemeral
performance. The electronic medium discriminates not at all against such
complexity; rather, it is most appropriate to it. Such music can now
remove itself entirely from the inapposite milieu of the public concert
hall; it exists, in any case, only in recorded form, and is so available to
anyone who is interested, to be played and replayed at the listener's
convenience"
In Babbitt, M., 2003. The Collected
Essays of Milton Babbitt.
Princeton: Princeton University
Press. P.75
RCA Mark II Synthesizer
“My first electronic work was the
Composition for Synthesizer, written in
1961. I had already been working
with the synthesizer for four years, just
working, learning to master the
instrument. And then I felt comfortable.
I felt remarkably well. For the first
time the functions of the composer and
the performer had been fused into
one. I could not only realize what I
wanted musically, but I had to take
total responsibility. If it wasn't what I
wanted, the only blame could possibly
rest with me. It was an enormous sense
of accomplishment and achievement.”
from Babbitt, M., and Swartz, A., 1985.
‘Milton Babbitt on Milton Babbitt’.
www.jstor.org/stable/3051833
Babbitt, electronic works
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Composition for Synthesizer (1961)
Vision and Prayer (1961) for soprano
and tape
Philomel (1964) for soprano, recorded
soprano, tape
Ensembles for Synthesizer (1964)
Correspondences (1967) for String
Orchestra and Tape
Phenomena (1969-1970 / 1975?) for
soprano and Tape
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Occasional Variations (1968- 1971)
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Reflections - (1975) for piano and Tape
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Images (1979) for Saxophone and Tape
Charles Wuorinen
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Born 1938, New York to academic
parents
At 16, won the NY Philharmonic's
Young Composers' Award
BA and MA in music from Columbia
University 1960s
In 1962 co-founded The Group for
Contemporary Music
championed music by composers
such as Elliott Carter, Stefan
Wolpe, Milton Babbitt
Commissioned by nonsuch records
to write a piece at the ColumbiaPrinceton Electronic Music Center
Charles Wuorinen
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Time’s Encomium (1969)
Encomium: ‘a speech or piece of
writing that praises someone or
something highly’
Made primarily on RCA Mark II
Synthesizer.
Wuorinen only other composer other
than Babbitt to use the Synthesizer to
make the majority of a piece (except
for Otto Luening who used it also)
Took a year to make: Jan 1968– Jan
1969
First electronic piece to win the
Pulitzer Prize for music (1970)