A Short History of Babbaptations

Abstract

This essay considers some specific examples, as well as the general idea, of adapting and transforming Babbitt’s compositions, especially cross-stylistically (to traditional chord-melody texture jazz, to improvised electronic idioms, to late-Romanticism, and to algorithmically generated textures). These unorthodox activities shed new light on the implications of some of the most central aspects of Babbitt’s theorising and compositional systematics (such as hexachordal combinatoriality, all-partition arrays, and superarrays), making these potentially arcane facets easier to imagine, comprehend, and hear.