Milton Babbitt - Philomel (1995 compi of material released 1970-1980)

Music both bracingly alien and strikingly beautiful from American seralist/electronic pioneer Milton Babbitt (1916-2011).  Babbitt became involved with the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in the early 60s, and two of his purely electronic works can be heard on the album at that link.

This collection focuses on voice and piano alongside the electronics, and starts with Babbitt's most famous work Philomel (1964).  The vocal parts were written for the soprano Bethany Beardslee, who sings the lead and the electronically manipulated vocal echoes here.  The libretto by John Hollander recounts the myth of Philomel's escape and transformation as told in Ovid's Metamorphoses, developing from the virtually mute character in the opening syllables to her final form as a literal songbird.

Next are two versions of Phenomena, which rather than having a text is just built around various sung phonemes, performed in dexterous leaps and bounds by Lynne Webber.  Originally devised for soprano and piano in 1969, then for soprano and electronics in the mid 70s, both are featured here.  The remainder of the collection is piano-based, with a short solo piece (Post Partitions, 1966) and then a really engrossing piano and tape work (Reflections, 1975). 

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