Oxford University Press Thinking In and About Music: Analytical Reflections on Milton Babbitt's Music and Thought

Milton Babbitt (1916-2011) was, at once, one of the century's foremost composers and a founder of American music theory. These two aspects of his creative life―"thinking in" and "thinking about" music, as he would put it―nourished each other. Theory and analysis inspired fresh compositional ideas, and compositional concerns focused theoretical and analytical inquiry. Accordingly, this book undertakes an excavation of the sources of his theorizing as a guide to analysis of his music. In Thinking In and About Music, author Zachary Bernstein shows how Babbitt's idiosyncratic synthesis of ideas from Heinrich Schenker, analytic philosophy, and cognitive science―at least as much as more obviously relevant predecessors such as Arnold Schoenberg―provide insight into his aesthetics and compositional technique. At the same time, a close look at his music reveals a host of concerns unaccounted for in his theories, some of which seem to directly contradict theoretical expectations. Bernstein argues, therefore, that new analytical models are needed to complement those suggested by Babbitt's theories. Departing from the serial logic of most previous work on the subject―and in an attempt to discuss Babbitt's music as it is actually heard rather than just deciphered―the book brings to bear theories of gesture and embodiment, rhetoric, text setting, and temporality. The result is a richly multi-faceted look at one of the twentieth century's most fascinating musical minds. Review Milton Babbitt's music and his theories (his thinking in and about music) are central to the history of American music and music theory in the postwar period, but the relationship between them is challengingly complicated. Zack Bernstein knows both the music and the theories as well as anyone ever has and he is a superb explainer, with a remarkable gift for making complicated things easily comprehensible. In this engagingly and beautifully written study, Bernstein opens our ears to aspects of Babbitt's music ― including its rhetoric and its troubled relationship to completeness and closure ― that lie beyond the twelve-tone designs that have preoccupied most earlier studies. ― Joseph Straus, Distinguished Professor of Music, Graduate Center, City University of New York Deeply grounded in Babbitt's own words about music, his and others', and finding further foundation in a thorough understanding of Babbitt's musical and philosophical roots, the book offers fresh insights into a major figure in late 20th Century American music. ― Andrew Mead, Professor of Music, Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University About the Author Zachary Bernstein is Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the Eastman School of Music. His writings on twentieth-century music have appeared in Music Theory Spectrum, Journal of Music Theory, Perspectives of New Music, Music Theory Online, Theory and Practice, and Oxford Bibliographies Online.