Augustus Arnone — Journal

Program Note

“Ours is a brand new world of allatonceness. ‘Time’ has ceased, ‘space’ has vanished. We now live in a global village … a simultaneous happening. We are back in acoustic space. … At the high speeds of electric communication, purely visual means of apprehending the world are no longer possible. … Our electrically-configured world has forced us to move from the habit of data classification to the mode of pattern recognition. We can no longer build serially, block-by-block, step-by-step, because instant communication insures that all factors of the environment and of experience co-exist in a state of active interplay.” — Marshall Mcluhan

It is difficult to imagine a more relevant companion text to the music of Milton Babbitt than this passage from the work of Marshall Mcluhan. He was writing about the impact of electric media, such as the radio and telephone, which through new capabilities for instantaneous information retrieval have led to a revolution in consciousness, the dissolution of sequential logic in favor of the integrated field of simultaneous awareness. As we contemplate the scintillating pace and myriad networks of differentiation and relation within Babbitt’s music it is worth bearing in mind not only the immediate effects these works have upon our aesthetic sensibility, but also the invisible hypotheses they advance with regard to our capacity for sensory awareness and interaction with environments.

James Joyce once wrote, “The first step in the direction of beauty is to understand the frame and scope of the imagination, to comprehend the act itself of esthetic apprehension.” I feel extremely fortunate to find myself in the position of presenting this corpus of works, which together enable a thrilling composite view of the gigantic steps towards confronting the very nature of imagination taken by one of the truly epoch-making composers of our time.

The Programs

Concert I — March 6, 2008

Allegro Penseroso(1999)

It Takes 12 to Tango (1984)

Partitions (1957), Post-Partitions(1966)

Tableaux(1974)

Preludes, Interludes, and Postlude (1991)

Semi-Simple Variations(1956), Minute Waltz (1977)

Tutte Le Corde (1994)

Concert II — June 10, 2008

The Old Order Changeth (1998)

Emblems (Ars Emblematica) (1989)

The ‘Time Series’

Playing For Time (1977)
About Time (1982)
Overtime (1987)

Lagniappe (1985)

My Complements to Roger (1978), Duet (1956)

Canonical Form (1983)

3 Compositions For Piano (1947)