A HAPPY ENDING

Chapter:

CHAPTER 4 The Third Revolution

Source:

MUSIC IN THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Author(s):

Richard Taruskin

Nevertheless, Babbitt's remarks about taking the limits of the “auditory apparatus” as the limits of compositional technique have to be balanced, as always, against the inevitable slippage between what can be conceptualized in the act of composition (or analysis) and what can be parsed by the mind's ear in the act of listening. For those who consider that to be a problem, the electronic medium offers no solution. Among those who did so consider it was Varèse. Babbitt has recalled Varèse's excitement when he came up to the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center and was given a demonstration of the Mark II synthesizer's capabilities. But Varèse has recorded his dismay at the paltry use to which the machine was being put, as he saw it, by the pompiers des douze sons⁴⁶ (“bureaucrats of the twelve tones”), as he put it (in a whisper) to Stravinsky, and what he took to be the musically insignificant outcome of all the arduous precompositional planning that went into such administration.

Citation (MLA):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 4 The Third Revolution." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-004009.xml>.

Citation (APA):

Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 4 The Third Revolution. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Late Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 15 Mar. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-004009.xml

Citation (Chicago):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 4 The Third Revolution." In Music in the Late Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 15 Mar. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-004009.xml