Composers Charles Wuorinen, Elliott Carter, and Milton Babbitt at the Guggenheim Works and Process Series. Photo: Fred Sherry

New York's new music scene has been bustling with activity this year. Case in point: on May 23rd, there were two hot tickets for devotees of contemporary music -- the New York New Music Ensemble performed at Merkin Hall, and Milton Babbitt's 89th birthday was celebrated (a few weeks late) at the Guggenheim Museum's "Works and Process" series. This simultaneous scheduling did nothing to dilute the throng at the Guggenheim; the hall was filled with friends, colleagues, and even some new listeners. The couple sitting next to me were from the latter category. When I asked them whether they were familiar with Babbitt's work, one replied,"No, but that's why I come to "Works and Process" -- the price is right and the music usually blows your mind"!

He was right on both counts. The performances were top-notch. Several longtime performers of Babbitt's music were on hand: pianist Alan Feinberg, soprano Lucy Shelton, clarinetist Allen Blustine, violist Lois Martin and cellist Fred Sherry, as well as some players who were new interpreters of the composer's work. On one side of the stage, Babbitt sat with composer Charles Wuorinen, providing a mini-panel discussion between each group of pieces. These brief dialogues, mostly anecdotal in character, lent a celebratory flair to the occasion. They also illuminated several aspects of Babbitt's biography and compositional process; his remarks about his vocal music, focusing on text-setting and text selection, were particularly interesting.

The first group consisted of four pieces for solo piano. Feinberg played these daunting works with fluid grace; he recorded all of them in 1988 (for CRI) and it is clear that they've remained in his fingers. Partitions (1957) featured angular virtuosity and vigorous gestures. Dance rhythms and a good deal of humor bubbled under the complex surfaces of Minute Waltz (1977) and It Takes Twelve to Tango (1984). Playing for Time (1977) was filled with puckish interplay between lines in widely separated registers.

Works by two other composers, Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, were included on the program. During his remarks, Wuorinen pointed out that Schoenberg had been an important influence on Babbitt's compositional approach, while Babbitt had in turn influenced Igor Stravinsky's late explorations of serial composition. Feinberg authoritatively played Arnold Schoenberg's Opus 33a, a solidly 12-tone solo piano piece, delineating the intricate phrases and interrelated motivic material with consummate clarity. He was joined by Shelton for a performance of Stravinsky's last complete work, a charming setting of Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussycat".

Shelton then sang a recent song by Babbitt, his 2002 setting of Derek Walcott's "Now Evening After Evening", a haunting and elegiac piece tailor made to Shelton's voice. She deftly negotiated its wide-ranging leaps and detailed dynamic structure. Baritone Thomas Meglioranza was joined by Blustine, Martin and Sherry for "Two Sonnets" (1955), Babbitt's chamber settings of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Meglioranza's voice is light and limber, pleasingly lyrical in timbre. Though he occasionally broke up legato phrases with speechlike declamation, his interpretation of the sonnets was often engaging.

The last piece on the program was An Elizabethan Sextette (1979), a set of six a cappella part songs for women's voices -- settings of poetry by Elizabethans, from Elizabeth I herself to John Campion. Sopranos Jacqueline Horner and Martha Cluver, mezzos Martha Sullivan and Elizabeth Farnham, and altos Luthien Brackett and Abby Fisher, conducted by Sherry, tackled these tremendously difficult pieces with courage and skill. Stacks of piquant harmony were layered alongside swirling lines in "Out of Sight Out of Mind", while an untitled poem by Sir Walter Raleigh employed dovetailing duos in a cascade of echoing imitation. Numerous dynamic shadings and syncopated attacks populated the background of "First Love", over which a soaring soprano line glided ethereally. A minor quibble -- I wish that they had taken a longer pause between songs to allow each one's conclusion to "settle"; frequently, the singers were given just enough time to establish pitch before plunging into the next piece.

It seems fitting that some of Babbitt's most expressive works, his sensitive writing for the voice and vibrant pieces for the piano, comprised this celebration of the near nonagenarian. My seat partner made a good point: programs like "Works and Process" present the artists and music of the contemporary concert world in an accessible format for new listeners, both in terms of cost and of the intimacy of the experience. I can't think of a better potential introduction to Milton Babbitt and his music than the combination of lively performances and engaging conversation offered on this concert.

-- Christian Carey