Getting Creative, on a Deadline

The PAW article on the history of the senior thesis (May issue) included a photo of Edward T. Cone ’39 and the information that his was the first work submitted as a “creative thesis.” This brought back quite a few memories for me. 

Ed Cone was my mother’s distant cousin and probably the most compelling reason for my attending Princeton. I was a music major and, when thesis time came around, I applied to write a cantata based on the Garcia-Lorca play “The House Of Bernarda Alba.”

All was going well and, since I’d composed music since high school, I thought, “This is a piece of cake!” I submitted it two days early to my thesis adviser, the brilliant composer and educator Milton Babbitt *42 *92, who said, “Fine. Now orchestrate it.”

Holy Humperdinck! I had two days to take my piano score, break it down, and expand it into parts for a full orchestra! I went through boxes of No-Doz but got it done.

A year earlier I had put in a lot of work on my junior paper: “Simultaneous Composition In Jazz And Classical Music,” an examination of the music of Stravinsky, Ellington, et al. I got a disappointing grade. But, without my knowledge, Ed Cone read it and raised the grade. My J.P. adviser didn’t appreciate jazz. Ed Cone did.