Renowned and criticized for the mathematical, technical approach to music, Babbitt leaves behind an expansive body of work that changed not only the world of composition but also the way the public listens.
“Milton Babbitt has an enormous influence on music,” said Steven Mackey, professor and chair of the music department.
Babbitt’s complex style of composition, which to this day draws criticism from his peers, forced his audiences to listen more closely to his work in order to understand it and often required a strong musical background.
“It’s demanding music, and it’s always going to be demanding music,” music professor Paul Lansky GS ’73 said. Lansky studied under Babbitt and is now a leader in the field of electronic music, which Babbitt helped establish.
Born in 1916, Babbitt grew up in Mississippi and began playing violin at age four before switching to the clarinet and then the saxophone. He studied math at the University of Pennsylvania berfore transferring to New York University to study music. He followed his teacher, Roger Sessions, to Princeton, where Babbitt joined the faculty in 1938.
Babbitt’s training in mathematics — he taught math at Princeton during World War II — strongly influenced his method of composing. Mackey said Babbitt believed in a strong relationship between the two disciplines, as he thought that “mathematical beauty and logic would translate into a musical beauty and logic.”
Babbitt fused mathematics and music through a technique known as the “12-tone system.” First developed in the early 20th century by the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg, this compositional technique requires the composer to ensure that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale appear with the same frequency in a given piece.
Lansky explained that Babbitt introduced the concept of combinatoriality — a mathematical termthat describes the way sets combine — to the system. He expanded the concept to include not only the organization of the notes, but also the organization of the dynamics, rhythms and other aspects of the piece. This approach is known as “total serialism,” or “integral serialism,” and has been highly influencial in 20th century composition.
However influential Babbitt’s approach to composition may have been, many of his contemporaries failed to see its value. In 1946, the University music department rejected his dissertation, “The Function of Set Structure in the 12-Tone System.” At the time, the department did not offer a doctorate in composition, only in historical musicology. In 1992, Lansky and his colleague Claudio Spies resubmitted the dissertation to the music department and Babbitt was finally given his Ph.D.
Mackey said that today, “everyone understands the relationship between music and math.” Babbitt’s dissertation has become “a central element of a composer’s training.”
Lansky offered a different perspective, saying, “A lot of his thesis is still not accepted … I think his music is always going to be controversial.”
Regardless, Babbitt’s work had an undeniably profound impact on the development of the music department at the University. Mackey said that his mathematical approach to music “gave graduate studies more of a foothold,” and “convinced his faculty colleagues at Princeton back in the 40s that this is serious study and deserves a doctorate.”
While his approach helped the nascent graduate program at Princeton, it hurt Babbitt’s reputation in the public eye, as audiences and critics often accused him of elitism. In 1958, High Fidelity magazine published an article by Babbitt titled “Who Cares if You Listen?” in which Babbitt argued that modern music required serious training in order to understand it, similarly to any other academic discipline.
Mackey defended the inaccessibility of Babbitt’s work. “It is elitist,” he said. “What’s wrong with that?”
Harold Rosenbaum, who recently edited one of Babbitt’s early works, “Music for the Mass,” echoed Mackey’s sentiments, saying “those who dismissed his music don’t really understand how beautiful it is.”
Rosenbaum also noted that he was always struck by Babbitt’s humanity. “No matter how busy he was, he was there for you … that’s unusual for someone of his stature.”
Lansky said Babbitt’s warm personality was not incompatible with the cold tone of his infamous article and his technical approach to composition. “His music is not about the mathematical theory,” Lansky said. “His music is about the music.”
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