Milton Babbitt died aged 94

Milton Babbitt, who has died aged 94, was one of the most eminent, and controversial, American composers of the 20th century. Deeply influenced by the 12-tone music of Arnold Schoenberg, whom he met in New York in the 1930s, Babbitt extended Schoenberg's serial organisation of pitch structure to other parameters, including rhythm, dynamics and instrumentation, an approach that came to be known as "integral serialism".

With his Three Compositions for Piano of 1947, Babbitt slightly preceded his European contemporaries Olivier Messaien, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez in producing the first work in this new and stricter manner. Guardian