Milton Babbitt

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Arts & Culture

Milton Babbitt

American composer

Also known as: Milton Byron Babbitt

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Feb 14, 2024 • Article History

Milton Babbitt

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Category: Arts & Culture

In full:: Milton Byron Babbitt

Born:: May 10, 1916, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.

Died:: January 29, 2011, Princeton, New Jersey (aged 94)

Subjects Of Study:: 12-tone music; electronic music; serialism

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Milton Babbitt (born May 10, 1916, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died January 29, 2011, Princeton, New Jersey) was an American composer and theorist known as a leading proponent of total serialism—i.e., musical composition based on prior arrangements not only of all 12 pitches of the chromatic scale (as in 12-tone music) but also of dynamics, duration, timbre (tone colour), and register. Babbitt attended public schools in Jackson, Mississippi; he played violin as a young child and then turned to piano, clarinet, and saxophone. In his youth he loved jazz and other popular music. After beginning mathematics studies at the University of Pennsylvania, ...(100 of 494 words)

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