This month we visit the famous 1964 pairing of two giants of 20th-century music-making, viz. Bethany Beardslee and Milton Babbitt. The work, of course, is Philomel. The construction and execution of the work is a marvel and ingenious in its own way, but it is an example I have often cited as a timbrally-dated work. This is a result, naturally, of the synthesizer in action here. While many synthetic sounds have a timeless quality (one thinks of Townshend's Baba sounds from Lifehouse and its various descendants: Who's Next, Psychoderelict, etc.), there is a generational hang-up which, for me anyway, comes into play with Philomel. Beardslee is utterly superb (no surprise), but, sacrilege of sacrileges, the work will always sound like an Atari soundtrack to me. Sorry. :-(