A Solo Requiem (1976-7)

Milton Babbitt (1916 – 2011)

In her memoir, I Sang the Unsingable, the legendary “composer’s singer” Bethany
Beardslee reminisces of the “wonderful cheese, crackers, and apples for respite during our long
rehearsals” at pianist Cheryl Seltzer’s apartment, in preparation for the 1979 première of Milton
Babbitt’s A Solo Requiem. It’s a charming detail to include, especially amidst the gravity of the
circumstances: Babbitt had composed this new opus in memory of his friend and protégé – and
Beardslee’s husband – Godfrey Winham, who had died four years earlier, at the age of 40,
following a battle with cancer. Beardslee’s poignant evocation of collegial warmth is only fitting;
A Solo Requiem, while largely a melancholy contemplation on death and grief, is also a reverent
commemoration of deep camaraderie, not only with Winham, but also with Beardslee, herself
Babbitt’s close friend, frequent collaborator, and muse.
Babbitt’s dedications mark A Solo Requiem as a more explicitly personal work in an
oeuvre often considered forbiddingly abstract. The piece is sweeping both in its scope and in its
selection of texts – six settings of elegiac poems by William Shakespeare, Gerard Manley
Hopkins, George Meredith, August Stramm, and John Dryden (the same Shakespeare sonnet is
set twice, forming the opening and closing movements). Each is an individual human response to
death, some considering more personal aspects of mourning and loss, and others more universal
in focus. Despite the seriousness of the texts, the music is not without Babbitt’s vivacious wit,
and is laced throughout with rhythms and gestures reminiscent of his beloved jazz.
Perhaps unusual for a work labeled “requiem”, A Solo Requiem has no direct liturgical
associations, and is scored for a spare ensemble, of soprano and two pianos (intimate, yet capable
of broad textural and gestural range). However, it has in common with its predecessors an
essentially somber memorial intent – from the Latin root “requiēs” (“requiem” as an accusative
form of “to rest”), a ceremonial “laying to rest”.

A Solo Requiem was commissioned by the Performers’ Committee for Twentieth Century
Music (Cheryl Seltzer and Joel Sachs, directors). Seltzer, Sachs, and Bethany Beardslee gave the
première in February of 1979.