&ensp Subscribe to this feed. Canonical Form(1983), Milton Babbitt
Live Recording, June 10 2008
Merkin Concert Hall, NYC
Canonical Form is the longest of Babbitt’s piano works. It also has the unique feature of a recurring series of fermati, scattered throughout the piece, each notated with precise durational values.
Canonical Form by Augustus Arnone is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Duet(1956), Milton Babbitt
Live Recording, June 10 2008
Merkin Concert Hall, NYC
How many 12-tone children’s pieces can you think of?
Duet by Augustus Arnone is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
My Complements To Roger(1978), Milton Babbitt
Live Recording, June 10 2008
Merkin Concert Hall, NYC
This piece has never before been made available in commercial recordings.
My Complements To Roger by Augustus Arnone is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Lagniappe(1985), Milton Babbitt
Live Recording, June 10 2008
Merkin Concert Hall, NYC
What does ‘Lagniappe’ mean, for those of you who like me thought this is a reference to some classical or literary character let’s give thanks for the speed and efficacy of Wikipedia for lending a hand in such matters. This is Babbitt revealing his roots in the South, though it undoubtedly refers to some technical feature of which I haven’t the faintest idea. Anyhow, the term itself… (From the mouth of Mark Twain no less!):
We picked up one excellent word — a word worth travelling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word — “lagniappe.” They pronounce it lanny-yap. It is Spanish — so they said. We discovered it at the head of a column of odds and ends in the Picayune, the first day; heard twenty people use it the second; inquired what it meant the third; adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth. It has a restricted meaning, but I think the people spread it out a little when they choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a “baker’s dozen.” It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure. The custom originated in the Spanish quarter of the city. When a child or a servant buys something in a shop — or even the mayor or the governor, for aught I know — he finishes the operation by saying — “Give me something for lagniappe.” The shopman always responds; gives the child a bit of licorice-root, gives the servant a cheap cigar or a spool of thread, gives the governor — I don’t know what he gives the governor; support, likely. When you are invited to drink, and this does occur now and then in New Orleans — and you say, “What, again? — no, I’ve had enough;” the other party says, “But just this one time more — this is for lagniappe.” When the beau perceives that he is stacking his compliments a trifle too high, and sees by the young lady’s countenance that the edifice would have been better with the top compliment left off, he puts his “I beg pardon — no harm intended,” into the briefer form of “Oh, that’s for lagniappe.”
As for the piece, it contains the slowest tempo in all of MB’s piano music (Quarter=50), it also features the fastest (Quarter=150). I actually attained one of these tempos, you can surely guess which one. Jeez Milty, what were you thinking!
Lagniappe by Augustus Arnone is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
3 Compositions For Piano(1947), Milton Babbitt
Live Recording, June 10 2008
Merkin Concert Hall, NYC
This is Babbitt’s earliest published work for Piano. It is also the only piano work that contains linear/sequential dynamic markings such as crescendos and diminuendos. I believe their uncharacteristic appearance in this piece grows out of the uncharacteristically sectional nature of this work. In Understanding Media, among other works, Marshall Mcluhan extensively develops the connection between the maintenance of discrete formal units and rational, sequential logic — ie, the arrangement and connection of ideas along a linear continuum, what Mcluhan considers an extension of the visual/spatial faculty. This type of logic is generally antithetical to Babbitt’s music, which instead favors the simultaneous unfolding of myriad chains of relation and reccurrence. For this reason, such linear tempo directions such as accelerando and ritardando are likewise incompatible with the unfolding of musical ideas.
James Joyce also develops the idea of static fields vs. sequential arguments in Ulysses. See for example the opening paragraph of the Proteus episode — “Ineluctable modality of the visible….” Here Joyce (as Stephen) muses on the concepts of nacheindander and nebeneinander (from the writings of Lessing), and their connection to seeing and hearing – thus anticipating the fundamental premise of Mcluhan’s work by 60 years.
3 Compositions For Piano by Augustus Arnone is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Overtime(1987), Milton Babbitt
Live Recording, June 10 2008
Merkin Concert Hall, NYC
This is the third of the three pieces that comprise the Time Series. This work has never before been made available in commercial recordings.
Overtime by Augustus Arnone is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
About Time(1982), Milton Babbitt
Live Recording, June 10 2008
Merkin Concert Hall, NYC
This is the second of the three pieces that comprise the Time Series.
About Time by Augustus Arnone is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Playing For Time(1977), Milton Babbitt
Live Recording, June 10 2008
Merkin Concert Hall, NYC
This is the first of the three pieces that comprise the Time Series.
Playing For Time by Augustus Arnone is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Emblems (Ars Emblematica)(1989), Milton Babbitt
Live Recording, June 10 2008
Merkin Concert Hall, NYC
Emblems by Augustus Arnone is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
The Old Order Changeth(1998), Milton Babbitt
Live Recording, June 10, 2008
Merkin Concert Hall, NYC
The Old Order Changeth by Augustus Arnone is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
