I’ve been an absolute hermit the last three days, seeing almost no one, enjoying the stunning double blizzard from inside my cozy Princeton gradpad by the lake — and trying to muster up the courage to finish a paper on modern Gesualdo covers and a piece (Daguerreotype II?) for the Brentano Quartet. Finally this morning, after eating my second meal of roasted potatoes (with rosemary) and soy sauce — because that’s about all that’s left in the cupboard — it became clear that I’d need to find a shovel, find my car, and seek more nutritious rations… Two hours to dig this baby out… Later this afternoon my quartet (the Franklins) came down from the big city to rehearse Bartok 4, which still blows my mind in its demand for folksy lilt, guttural oration, and an expressive interpretation of equal temperament — all while not falling off the effing ridiculous 4/4 wagon!!

Sometime today, just a few miles from here, probably this morning while I was knee-deep in snow, Milton Babbitt passed away. I never got a chance to meet him, although I’m now adrift somewhere in his broad legacy. I’m not sure we would have been best friends, but I really wish I could have talked to him sometime.

Mr. Ross beat me to it, but I’ll post this anyway. Some MMDG folks rocking out to Ethan Iverson’s take on Babbitt’s Semi-Simple Variations (here’s the original).
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