counter)induction

My first blog post ever! I'm excited.
We've been rehearsing Babbitt for Friday, and it is grueling. As Ben observed, we've been proceeding at a rate of about 50 bars per hour! Damn, that is slow! It's the very intricate rhythms, especially the irrational tuplets that don't align with strong beats, that are the most difficult.
But it is such incredible music, so incredibly rich and eventful. As Babbitt said, "I want a piece of music to be literally as much as possible". I love that, I always say that. This is some of my favorite stuff; it's sad that only now, after his death, is his music getting played more.