Milton Babbitt's Philomel

12/02/2012 14 min

Listen "Milton Babbitt's Philomel"

Episode Synopsis

Jazz pianist Ethan Iverson nominates Milton Babbitt's Philomel for soprano and tape, "a classic record that should be owned by all fans of the avant-garde"; Paul Griffiths explains how Babbitt used the timbral and rhythmic resources of the Mark II RCA Sound Synthesizer to help realise his own brand of twelve-tone music. And we hear the voice of the composer himself from recordings made by the BBC in the 1960s.