Milton Babbitt: PianoWorks (1986)

There are those who lament the supposed rupture of the Western musical performance tradition. In decades past, their argument runs, performers were either naturally interested in the music of their time or composed themselves, thus extending the tradition by recasting the music of the past in the image of the present. Now, pessimists complain, performers concern themselves only with rote regurgitations of the past, leading to the ossification of the tradition. Robert Taub, who has recorded all of the Babbitt's piano works for Harmonia Mundi, does not limit his musical sensibility, honed by his involvement in intense, abrupt, unforgiving modern music, to treating the composer's music like some rare form of hieroglyph—although unquestionably indecipherable it may be.

Tracklist

1. Three Compositions (1947-48)
2. Duet (1956)
3. Semi-Simple Variations (1956)
4. Partitions (1957)
5. Post-Partitions (1966)
6. Tableaux (1973)
7. Reflections (1974) for piano and synthesized tape
8. Canonical Form (1983)
9. Lagniappe (1985)

Robert Taub, piano

Harmonia Mundi: HMC 905160

Important note: It's possible that a RAR file might be located within another RAR file. If so, you're advised to extract each file and then repeat the process for the extracted files. In addition, the original cover is now replaced with a better one. Since I couldn't add it to the archive, I uploaded it as an image for this post. Just click on the above pic and select "save as".