Laudate Milton Babbitt

- 336 - - 337 - - 338 - - 339 - - 340 - - 341 - - 342 - - 343 - - 344 - - 345 - - 346 Rolv Yttrehus: Laudate Milton Babbitt From 1957 to 1960 I was studying privately with Roger Sessions at Princeton and teaching at The Lawrenceville School just south of Princeton. This is when I discovered Milton Babbitt. I managed to sit in on his classes in Princeton, trying to absorb as much as I could from his lectures, and using the Princeton University Library where I discovered his article “Some Aspects of Twelve-tone Composition”, large sections of which I copied out by hand. (Those were pre-Xerox days.) I have had many occasions since that time get to know his music, and to enjoy his witty observations on all manner of things. (At Tanglewood one summer when Karlheinze Stockhausen was beginning to make his mark in the world he referred to “the Schott heard ‘round the world.”) In 1997 I left the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh and began teaching at Rutgers University. My contacts with Milton were much more frequent after moving to the East Brunswick in New Jersey After attending concerts in New York I would often give Milton a ride to his Princeton home after a concert. Laudate Milton Babbitt was written for the New York New Music Ensemble and performed by them in 2006. -Rolv Yttrehus ...