Emily McCulloch 31852332

Introduction

The revival of the arts following the Second World War facilitated the

development of the second era of electronic music. Prior to 1945, the first era of

electronic music included early electronic tone generation, the development of

instruments such as the Ondes Martenot and the Theremin and their

incorporation into music (Holmes, 2016). Rapid advances in wartime technology

combined with the aspirations of Stunde Null resulted in increasing interest in

pioneering sound techniques to create new electronic music (Manning, 2013).

After the war, Allied governments commissioned new music, which was

displayed at international festivals, on regional concert stages, and on the radio

(Iverson, 2019). Electronic music institutions were established at radio stations,

ushering in the second era of electronic music. Most significantly, Radiodifussion-

Télévision Française (RTF) in Paris and Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR) in

Cologne respectively pursued the radically different ideologies of musique

concrète and elektronische Musik (Manning, 2013). However, over time the

distinction between these aesthetic approaches diminished.

Musique Concrète

Musique concrète arose from the experiments of Pierre Schaeffer and his

collaborators at Club d’Essai, the studio Schaeffer founded in 1942 at RTF

(Holmes, 2016). Schaeffer, an engineer by trade, worked with audio engineer

Jacques Poullin to construct music using recorded audio phenomena, which was

manipulated into “sound objects,” and abstracted into a composition using

existing radio technologies (Cross, 1968). The sound object dealt with the

characteristics of the raw sound material, as opposed to instructions given by

music notation. Schaeffer (2012) described this as a shift from dependence on

“preconceived sound abstractions” to dependence on “sound fragments that exist

in reality … considered as discrete and complete sound objects.” These sounds

were manipulated using basic techniques such as speed changes, overdubbing,

reversing, editing, and looping.

The first completed works of musique concrète were Schaeffer’s Ètudes de bruits.

These five turntable compositions incorporated purpose-recorded sounds with

sounds from the radio warehouse, and were broadcast on Paris radio on October

5, 1948 (Holmes, 2016). The equipment used was very basic – a disc-cutting

lathe, turntables, 4 channel mixer, microphones and filters (Holmes, 2016). The

use of disk made sonic alterations difficult and consequently limited his creative

potential, as manipulation of the sequence of material was only possible in real

time (during the recording or re-recording of content while it was being played),

and resulted in the loss of audio quality (Holmes, 2016).

Additionally, Schaeffer discovered significant problems with association – the

sources retained a large proportion of their identifying characteristics (Manning,

2013). Indeed, many of the critiques of musique concrète condemned its

anecdotal and referential nature. Emmerson (1986) criticised the Ètudes’ refusal

to “relinquish this reference to the real world.” Even in Schaeffer’s works of the

late 1950s, where he focused more on avoiding source recognition, the original

sound sources were still often identifiable (De Lautour, 2017).

Despite divided reception to the Ètudes, their success attracted composer Pierre

Henry to the studio in 1949. Schaeffer and Henry’s collaborations included the

first major musique concrète work, entitled Symphonie pour un homme seul

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(1949-50). This ambitious work was based on two categories of sounds: human

and non-human sounds (Manning, 2013). These sounds were either modified

using available technologies, or edited into interesting patterns, often using disc

loops (Holmes, 2016). For example, the beginning of the Scherzo movement

alternates between prepared piano, and reversed spoken voice, which is looped

several times. It also displays manipulation in dynamics, overdubbing of voice

over piano, and sped up (and consequently high-pitched) human voice.

Symphonie pour un homme seul demonstrated the essential features of musique

concrète, many of which are distinguishing features of electroacoustic music in

general: composition was realised through technological means, working

directly with the recording medium as opposed to being mediated through

notation or performance; any sound could comprise the raw material of the

composition; the work could be replayed identically and repeatedly using

mechanical means; and presentation did not require human performers as such

because the master recording, not a score, could be regarded as the definitive

embodiment of the work (Holmes, 2016).

Tape recording technology eventually became available at the studio, and Poullin

designed unique sound processing devices for recording and editing including

the Phonogène and Morphophone (Holmes, 2016). In 1951, the RTF financed the

creation of the first exclusively electronic music studio in the world – the Groupe

de Recherches Musicals, which attracted many notable new music composers

including Messiaen, Boulez, Varèse and Xenakis (Holmes, 2016).

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The relationship between the composer and the technician was fundamental to

the musique concrète studio. The role of the technician was to help realise the

vision of the composer. However, these roles have overlapping functions in the

case of composers such as Schaeffer. There is an argument that concrete music

composers cannot be considered composers in the narrow sense of the word,

where composition occurs through experimentation with manipulation of

sounds using recording equipment. Schaeffer’s role was arguably closer to that of

an engineer or technician as his starting point was raw sound material, and his

compositions arose from experimenting with the manipulation of these sounds

in the studio. On 18 April 1948 he announced in his diaries his decision to

relocate his energies from “the Studio” to “the sound booth” (Schaeffer, 2012).

Listening, interpreting and manipulating sounds in the sound booth, and

working with other engineers/technicians, closely aligns with the role of sound

engineers/producers in the modern recording studio (De Lautour, 2017).

However, Schaeffer, as the composer, directed the recording, manipulation and

construction of the sound objects, and it was his vision that the studio team was

attempting to realise. Therefore, he both guided the creative direction of the

team of engineers and technicians, and contributed to the manipulation of the

sounds in the studio. Rather than a concrete divide between composers and

technicians, the studio environment created a continuum between the traditional

roles of technician and composer, where neither the “composers” nor

“technicians” of musique concrète lay at the extremes.

Elektronische Musik

The development of elektronische Musik arose out of Stunde Null: the notion of a

clean break with the Nazi regime and a new beginning, which spread into the

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post-war cultural development in West Germany. The Allied government was

pouring funding into cultural reconstruction, much of it in the form of regional

radio stations and courses such as the Internationale Ferienkurse für neue Musik

in Darmstadt, which was established in 1946 (Iverson, 2019). Post-war West

Germany viewed aesthetic modernism as a sign of political progressiveness and

a reaction against the late-romantic music that was embraced by the Nazi party

(Iverson, 2019).

The ideals of elektronische Musik were originally opposed to those of musique

concrète, and consequently the schools of thought had little respect for each

other. Unlike musique concrète, early elektronische Musik was solely comprised of

electronically generated tones, with a notion of asserting complete control over

all the elements of sound, inspired by a particular (mis)reading of serialist

composers such as Anton Webern (Holmes, 2016).

The premiere electronic music studio of the 1950s, Westdeutscher Rundfunk

(WDR), was founded by Herbert Eimert, Werner Meyer-Eppler and Robert Beyer

(Iverson, 2019). After separate explorations in electronic music, they

collaborated for an evening broadcast on electronic music in 1951.

Consequently, they secured funding for an electronic music studio under

Eimert’s direction, which was ready for use by early 1953 (Iverson, 2019).

WDR originated many of the features of electronic music studios which were

picked up by subsequent studios. Its diverse, laboratory-like working culture

where composers, engineers, scientists, technicians and musicologists could

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collaborate and explore new aesthetics, scientific concepts and new technologies

opened up new avenues for sonic and conceptual exploration (Iverson, 2019).

Many of the technologies used in the WDR studio were created for wartime

applications, and were reclaimed for aesthetic purposes in the 1950s, mirroring

the general wartime reclamations that were occurring across West Germany.

(Iverson, 2019). This included magnetic tape recording, which had dwindled in

popularity outside of Germany due to its lower audio quality than disk, but had

been improved in Germany to overcome its earlier limitations (Holmes, 2016). In

contrast to musique concrète, elektronische Musik used tape recording from its

outset.

Engineer Fritz Enkel was instrumental in developing new technologies for

elektronische Musik, and the equipment used included tone-generating electronic

musical instruments, control consoles, oscillators for generating waveforms, tape

recorders, audio filters, a ring modulator and a white noise generator (Holmes,

2016). This equipment allowed for the control of elements such as loudness,

duration, tone colour and pitch in a systematic way, and was fundamental to the

development of elektronische Musik.

The accomplishments of WDR were made possible by the technicians such as

Enkel and Heinz Schü tz, who were not credited at the time but arguably made

just as significant a contribution to electronic music works as the composers.

Similarly as in musique concrète, technicians collaborated with composers to

devise tangible ways to help them realise their musical vision.

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In the early 1950s, leading elektronische Musik composer Karlheinz Stockhausen

extolled the advantage of the electronic medium, in that it allowed composers to

produce and tightly control their own sonic material (Morgan, 1975). His early

electronic works such as the Elektronische Studien, which were composed of

electronically generated sine tones, were driven by the novelty aspect of the

possibilities of electronic tone generation and the control this would give the

composers over the resulting compositions (Toop, 2001). However, this

idealistic objective of total control was not workable, as even with the

development of new technologies and the assistance of technicians, the

hardware was not sophisticated enough to accomplish what was in the minds of

the composers (Iverson, 2019).

Over time, the distinction between the opposing approaches of musique concrète

and elektronische Musik dissolved as different composers brought their own

ideas and influences to both studios (Holmes, 2016). Stockhausen, who had

previously apprenticed with Schaeffer at the GRM, was strongly influenced by his

discoveries during his time in Paris (Holmes, 2016). This is displayed in Gesang

der Jünglinge (1955-56), which combined approaches used by both the Paris and

Cologne studios.

Gesang der Jünglinge arose out of Stockhausen’s idea to compose a mass for

electronic sounds and voices, with text taken from the Book of Daniel. It was

meticulously sculpted from a visual score specifying the placement of sounds and

their dynamic elements over the course of the work (Holmes, 2016), using a

mixture of recorded human voices and electronically generated sounds. He

pioneered new tape editing techniques, avoiding the typical choppy editing and

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seamlessly integrating the different sound sources smoothly together (Holmes,

2016). Three basic types of electronically generated sounds were used: sine

tones; pulses; and filtered white noise; as well as recordings of a boy soprano

(Decroupet, Kohl, & Ungeheuer, 1998). A striking aspect of the piece is the use of

spatiality and dynamics in space, particularly for such an early piece of music.

Gesang der Jünglinge’s combination of acoustic and electronic sounds signalled a

maturing approach to electronic music composition, marking a break from the

novelty aspect of early electronic music and the obsession with total control. By

the late 1950s, Stockhausen began to emphasise the unique property of

instrumental music, where the subjective reactions of performers are

incorporated into the composition, allowing for spontaneity that is impossible in

machine-generated music (Morgan, 1975). This change from the initial

elektronische Musik focus on tight control over sound material and use of purely

electronically generated sounds reduced its stark distinction from musique

concrète.

Other Electronic Music

It should be noted that the Paris and Cologne electronic music studios were not

the only significant electronic music institutions. The Studio di Fonoglia Musicale

in Milan under Luciano Berio made particularly important contributions to text-

sound composition using the human voice in compositions such as Berio’s Thema

(Omaggio a Joyce) (1958-59). The BBC Radiophonic Workshop in London

produced music for commercial television and radio and was instrumental in

popularising electronic music with the general public (Holmes, 2016). These and

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many others around Europe made important contributions to the development

of electronic music.

In contrast to Europe, the development of electronic music in the United States in

the early 1950s was predominantly the work of independent composers working

without institutional support (Holmes, 2016). In opposition to the strict control

of elektronische Musik, John Cage created music using chance procedures, as well

as pioneering tape composition techniques in pieces such as Williams Mix (1951-

53). Significant developments were also made in Hollywood for film music. Louis

and Bebe Barron used “electronic tonalities” when scoring the film Forbidden

Planet (1956). Electronic music also developed in Latin America, Asia and

Oceania.

Conclusion

Initially, the development of electroacoustic music mainly consisted of two

distinct aesthetic approaches. Musique concrète focused on the manipulation of

recorded sound material, whereas elektronische Musik focused on the generation

of, and tight control over, pure electronic tones. Both approaches required

collaboration between composers and technicians in order to realise their

respective creative visions. However, the limitations of the available technologies

of the time diminished the creative potential of electroacoustic composers,

whose initial idealistic aims could not be fully realised. Over time, the distinction

between the approaches lessened as electroacoustic composers acknowledged

these limitations and amalgamated techniques from both strands.

Word count: 2186

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