University of Virginia Library

Stretching Ears

Many have criticized Babbitt by
saying that he and his fellow
exponents of electronic music have
dehumanized the art. Quite the
contrary, for, as Babbitt is the first
to point out, the composer no
longer has to be concerned with the
limitations of the instruments and
instrumentalists for whom he is
writing now his major concern is
the limits of human perception.
Herein, perhaps, lies a key to the
phenomenon of electronic music.
The listener has to meet the music
halfway. As Charles Ives's father
said in defense of his practise of
making his children sing in one key
while accompanying themselves in
another. "Everyone needs to have
his ears stretched." While I have
never asked him. I imagine that Mr.
Babbitt might agree with this
analysis. Great music is rarely
"easy" and there is more to it than
the simple ability of being able "to
go in one ear and out the other."

After all, twentieth century
composers are not the first to
stretch the ears of their listeners.
One only has to consider the
reactions of contemporary
audiences to Bach's chorale
improvisations. Beethoven's Erotica
Symphony and Wagner's Tristan
und Isolde. Electronic music is in
good company.

To many of his detractors,
Milton Babbitt seems to live and
work in a rarefied, hothouse
atmosphere, but that is one of the
qualities of a genius. A genius
always seems "rarefied" to his
contemporaries who are much less
gifted than he.