In fact, some years earlier, he stated that the title he sent to High Fidelity was "The Composer as Specialist",[5] notwithstanding the article's opening line.
"[6] Yet, Babbitt's suggestion in the article for the composer of "advanced music" is "total, resolute, and voluntary withdrawal from this public world to one of private performance".
On the one hand, one commentator stated that "Mr. Babbitt will go to his grave famous for, among other things, a piece of prose whose published title—Who Cares If You Listen?—he insists was appended by an unfeeling editor.
"[8] According to Michael Beckerman, writing in The New York Times in 1994, "Milton Babbitt combined the evolutionary imperative with genuine contempt for his audience in his infamous article, 'Who Cares if You Listen'...
These tactics contrast with those of composers like Janáček, Bartók, and Debussy, who never advocated antagonistic battles or felt that alternative visions needed to be suppressed in the name of progress.
"[9] In 1997, K. Robert Schwarz equated serialism with the "advanced" music Babbitt described in his article, and added, "By the 1960s, the Serialists commanded intellectual prestige and held influential academic posts.
In fact, mainstream audiences disliked their work, preferring the music of traditionalists who retained links with tonality: Copland, Barber, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Britten.
"[10] Nine years later, Walter Simmons echoed Schwarz's belief, and named in addition to Barber et al., Nicolas Flagello, Ernest Bloch, Howard Hanson, Paul Creston, and Vittorio Giannini as victims of "a de facto blacklisting of composers who failed to conform to the approved [i.e., pro-modernist] version of music history", and cites Babbit's article as epitomizing "the contemptuous attitude of Modernist composers".
From this evidence the author concluded, "As the period drew to a close, the American academy was dominated, as it had been throughout the 1950s and 1960s, by tonally oriented composers.
"[8] "In this regard, 'The Composer as Specialist' appears more relevant than ever, given that the drive towards the economic justification of university disciplines has, in Europe at least, reached a critical stage.