There were various developments which ultimately contributed to modern electronic music. Audio-frequency technology had advanced so much that sine and square wave generators, amplifiers, quality control equipment, filter circuits and loudspeakers were readily available for purchase.
Radiodiffusion Francaise (RDF) broadcast composer Pierre Schaeffer’s Etude aux chemins de fer on 5 October 1948, marking its debut as studio realized music and musique concrete/acousmatic art.
Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Schaeffer’s groundbreaking experiments may have met with hostility at first, yet his contributions are essential to electronic music’s advancement. After World War II he worked as an engineer for France’s public radio broadcaster RTF before opening a studio for musique concrete (or acousmatic art) in 1948 – where he experimented with sounds not produced by traditional musical instruments – using equipment such as disk-cutting lathes, four turntables, mixers, filters and echo chambers to craft unique sound artworks – creating new kinds of sound art which influenced every genre since.
Schaeffer was one of the pioneers to use musique concrete, or sound collage, techniques in live performance using PA systems and various sound manipulation methods he borrowed from music collage. This form of experimental composition used sonic fragments captured from nature or industry such as thunderstorms, railway-yards or steel foundries to form sound structures similar to classical composition techniques. He pioneered using PA systems as live performance platforms while drawing upon several sound manipulation techniques from music collage.
At some point, Schaeffer’s recordings of Etude aux chemins de fer and Cinq Etudes de Noises were broadcast over the airwaves, initially sparking comic disbelief as well as outrage among some listeners, yet composers and performers such as Edgard Varese found his Deserts project inspired by Schaeffer’s studio and recording techniques.
Schaeffer’s methods helped launch an influential movement known as authentic electric plus acoustic music in 1954. This combination of acoustic instrumentation with electronically produced recordings (often orchestral instruments or percussion with ship sirens or motor noise) was later popular among composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel.
Schaeffer continued his work under Pierre Henry, and with their help created some of the most influential works of musique concrete ever conceived. These included pieces such as Le Triedre Fertile from 1957 – which employs prepared electronic sounds from Bernard Durr as his pupil’s pupil to create an unforgettable sonic landscape that conjures images of intergalactic space travel – you can hear this piece on this playlist to great effect.
Pierre Henry
Pierre Henry was an innovative composer who explored the new possibilities offered by electronic music. He incorporated these electronic components into his compositions, living life fully – even turning his Paris home into an unusual venue and sound installation with collages and antique machines – full of eccentricity. But his music wasn’t solely experimental: in 1967 his version of Michel Colombier’s “Psyche-Rock” hit number 14 on Billboard Pop Charts – something sampled later by Chemical Brothers and French group Hooverphonic!
Henry began his musical studies at the Paris Conservatoire, studying piano with Nadia Boulanger and percussion with Felix Passerone. However, Henry soon abandoned conventional instruments altogether and instead worked directly with recorded sound. Together with Schaeffer at RTF studios in 1949, Henry helped pioneer musique concrete: music composed without written scores – creating their first big work, Symphonie Pour Un Homme Seul.
Though they were quite different in temperament (Schaeffer was calm and cerebral; Henry wild and intuitive), the two made an exceptional team and set the precedent for electronic music with synthesizers. Henry began compiling a “sound herbal,” cataloguing all sounds that might qualify as musical using editing techniques and speed changes to bring them into play.
As soon as he arrived at Apsone-Cabasse Studio in 1958, he realized that for musique concrete to continue its evolution it must incorporate some of the technology being pioneered elsewhere. He quickly learned how to work with turntables before synthesizers became widely available – continuing this practice even after synthesizers had become available.
Henry continued producing work of an epic scope, such as his explorations of the Tibetan Book of the Dead through sound exploration, cortical brain experiments and collaborations with British rock band Spooky Tooth. Never losing his childlike curiosity throughout his career, Henry always continued experimenting with exciting new sounds until his passing away in 2012.
Karlheinz Stockhausen
The 50s saw several significant advances in electronic music, with modular synthesisers becoming an important innovation. These tools allowed musicians to sculpt sounds more precisely while exploring various effects more easily; also composers could quickly compose new pieces.
Karlheinz Stockhausen’s innovative work during this period stands out as an important development. After studying with Schaeffer and continuing the harmonically liberating methods of the 2nd Vienna School, Stockhausen became increasingly fascinated with sound itself – exploring its composition through studies on primitive ethnic instruments as well as recordings from everyday life, then using these as sources for his compositions.
His work then began to focus on creating a new musical language using these sounds, pioneering ways in which they could be combined with live performances, culminating in 1960 with his piece Kontakte for piano, percussion and four-channel tape – using loudspeakers around a concert hall to manipulate recorded sounds in real time during performances and zoom them around and across an audience in real-time during performance – this work explored directionality through recorded sounds using loudspeakers mounted around it as part of real time performance; an early precursor of what surround-sound systems used today by cinemas and concerts alike!
Additionally, he composed works that were entirely electronic, such as his Klang cycle which represented 24 hours in one piece and Cosmic Pulses. Later he developed an approach where orchestral players interacted in real time with synthesizers for added realism.
He also played an influential role in early 60s rock bands such as the Beatles who placed him between W C Fields and Lennon on the cover of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. Many consider him the father of modern experimental music; his works were essential in developing electronic rock through bands such as Psychedelic Furs, Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Edgard Varese
Edgard Varese was among the pioneers to adopt electronic music. He found its use liberating, and strongly advocated its link with science; suggesting musical production should reflect scientific principles as much as possible, and trying to design instruments with more varied and broad sounds than traditional ones.
Varese was born in Paris in 1883 to Henri, an engineer of Italian descent. While Henri attempted to mold Varese into following in his professional footsteps, he ultimately rebelled and moved away in pursuit of music instead.
Varese soon met Leon Theremin, inventor of the theremin, and began experimenting with this instrument. Additionally, he met many leading composers and founded the International Composers’ Guild; Varese’s debut American composition Ameriques (1921) featured both piano and theremin as well as being among the first works ever composed to include tape-recorded sound.
Varese created several works for theremin and synthesisers during his 30s work period, such as Offrandes (1923) for orchestral instruments with two sirens; Hyperprism for horns, flutes and percussion; Ionisation for percussion and piano. Deserts (1954), an electronic composition using tape-recorded voices was composed using various electronic sounds such as Hyperprism; this same year at Brussels World Fair 1958 his Poeme electronique work used 425 speakers to create a spatial experience heard by an estimated two million listeners – that work used 425 speakers for an estimated two million listeners to enjoy!
Varese collaborated with Chinese student Chou Wen-chung in his later years to complete some long-neglected compositions such as Deserts and Transicion II for Theremin cello. Together they founded Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (now Computer Music Center), now the oldest center for electronic music research and production in North America. As soon as this studio opened it inspired composers such as Morton Subotnick, Pauline Oliveros, Ramon Sender and Anthony Martin to begin exploring innovative methods of creating and presenting electronic music composition and presentation methods of composition/presentation/performance methods of presentation for electronic composition/production/presentation/presentation methods while others began researching similar facilities throughout North America which inspired similar studios across continents resulting in establishment of similar facilities across continents as it also inspired composers such as Morton Subotnick Pauline Oliveros Ramon Sender and Anthony Martin to begin exploring new methods of composition/presentation/presentation methods using electronic music composing/presentations than traditional methods such as those used when producing/presenting electronic music composition/presentations etc.