Hearing, Studying, and Remembering Milton Babbitt at the CUNY Graduate Center

Milton Babbitt's death on 29 January 2011 was a loss felt across the musical world. At the CUNY Graduate Center, a number of his students and performers and scholars of his work organized several events celebrating Babbitt, including two concerts, a doctoral seminar taught by Joseph Straus and Jeff Nichols, and a series of visits by veteran performers of his music. This essay reflects upon the various kinds of reengagements with his work inspired by these events, particularly addressing the role of serial structure in analysis and the kinds of analytical thinking that may be helpful to performers. An insightful comment by clarinetist Charles Neidich on climax structure in Babbitt's My Ends are My Beginnings (1978) points to the lingering presence of certain traditional formal concepts in Babbitt's music, which are found to be potentially determinative of serial structure. The essay closes with general reflections on Milton Babbitt's life and legacy.