Electronic music pioneers

[Roland Kuit]

Luciano Berio

Lucianoborn at Oneglia, Liguria, on 24 October 1925 into a family in which music was a long-standing tradition. Both his father Ernesto and his grandfather Adolfo were composers, and he took his first steps in music with them.
In 1945 he moved to Milan, where he attended the Conservatorio «Giuseppe Verdi», studying composition with Giulio Cesare Paribeni and Giorgio Federico Ghedini, as well as conducting with Carlo Maria Giulini and Antonino Votto. In 1952 he attended the courses taught by Luigi Dallapiccola at Tanglewood, USA. From the early fifties Berio made a name for himself as an authoritative exponent of the new generation of the musical avantgarde. This period saw the composition of Cinque Variazioni (1952-53), Chamber Music (1953), Nones (1954) and Serenata (1957).
In December 1954 Berio and Maderna created Italy’s first studio of electronic music at the RAI Milan headquarters, inaugurated the following year as the Studio di Fonologia Musicale. Here he was able to experiment with the interaction of acoustic instruments and electronically produced sounds (Momenti, 1957; Différences, 1958-59) and explore new relationships between sounds and words

Thema. Omaggio a Joyce, 1958; Visage, 1961
http://youtu.be/ZfZqD2iqxJ0

[erminardi]

The R.A.I. Italian Laboratory of Phonology was one of the best moments of early electronic experimental music history.
These days were very very naive but full of inventive and absolute genius.
I envy them a little

[53E7]

I am very interested in knowing this history. The only early electronic music recording I have ever really listened to is "Song of the Youth" by Stockhausen. Very cool subject. Thanks for sharing here.

[erminardi]

The RAI Studio of Musical Phonology was opened in Corso Sempione in Milan in 1955 from an idea of Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna, to test concrete music and electronic music, following the example of both Paris and Cologne similar centers.
The study thus became the European "third pole" of contemporary music places with electronic equipment.
The laboratory becomes very important for the creation of many successive soundtracks for TV and film of '60 and '70 (RAI and CInecittà): http://youtu.be/BKiddiPyDsE

Luciano Berio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luciano_Berio
Bruno Maderna: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Maderna

[erminardi]

of course there was also this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Radiophonic_Workshop

<3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delia_Derbyshire

[erminardi]

For those who understand a bit 'of Italian: http://youtu.be/XDD5gqKgrFY
Sorry but no subtitles are available

ps. it seems that having a cigarette, in those days, was a must

[Mr Arkadin]

Always intresetd in this for sure. Being British I know a bit more about the Brits. Some names that have CDs available:

Daphne Oram
Delia Derbyshire
John Baker
F.C. Judd (somewhat forgotten)
Tristram Carey
+ Radiophonic Workshop compilations

Others I have works by:
Tod Dockstader
Hugh Le Caine
Franca Sacchi
Pauline Oliveros
Eliane Radigue
Raymond Scott
Catherine Christer Hennix
Edgard Varese
Iannis Xennakis
Morton Subotnick

Always looking for new music from the pioneers so I will definitely be checking it out.

[Roland Kuit]

Thank you for all your input!
Will we post random pioneers, countries, time here?
Or will we make a scheme?

[dante]

Chronological would be good, with possibly some tie-in with representative movements, such as avante garde, musique concrete, modernism, impressionism then progressing through popular, rock, techno, electro etc.

[erminardi]

Maybe this (huge) project worth a new discussion in the menu...

[dante]

Id be happy to host something on ScopeRise if it needs a home.

[Roland Kuit]

As predescessor we needed instruments like the Telharmonium, 1902.
Thaddeaus Cahill sets up the Telharmonium or Dynamaphone, a 200-ton array of Edison dynamos that
produced different pitched hums according to the speed of the dynamos. The electrical output was "broadcast"
over telephone lines.

Here is a documentary:
Part I: http://youtu.be/PPlbXl81Rs0
Part II: http://youtu.be/e6ym0Gqormk
Part III: http://youtu.be/vcO5EJnkBIs

[Mr Arkadin]

This is quite a handy document:

http://www.mathieubosi.com/zikprojects/ ... cMusic.pdf

Just last month I went to see Messiaen's Turangalila with full-on Ondes Martenot (a bit too full-on as I was right in front of the marvellous speakers).

[Roland Kuit]

That must be Fun! Mr. Arkadin.
A sticky topic would be nice of this.
Those pioneers deserve this

[Roland Kuit]

Luigi Russolo (April 30, 1885 February 4, 1947) was an Italian Futurist painter and composer, and the author of the manifesto The Art of Noises (1913):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcHJySm ... o89vin3vND

[Roland Kuit]

Edgar Varèse
(December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965)

His use of new instruments and electronic resources led to his being known as the "Father of Electronic Music".
Le Corbusier was commissioned by Philips to present a pavilion at the 1958 World Fair and insisted (against the sponsors' resistance) on working with Varèse, who developed his Poème électronique for the venue, where it was heard by an estimated two million people. Using 400 speakers separated throughout the interior, Varèse created a sound and space installation geared towards experiencing sound as it moves through space. Received with mixed reviews, this piece challenged audience expectations and traditional means of composing, breathing life into electronic synthesis and presentation. Poème électronique(1958) was synchronized to a film of black and white photographs selected by Corbusier which touched on vague themes of human existence. Corbusier's original concept called for a pause in the film while his voice was heard, speaking directly to the audience. However, Varèse objected to the idea that Corbusier's voice would be played over his composition, and the idea was abandoned. (wiki).

http://youtu.be/D7AIiTeKBUc

[Roland Kuit]

Herbert Eimert

In 1951, Eimert and Werner Meyer-Eppler persuaded the director of NWDR, Hanns Hartmann, to create a Studio for Electronic Music, which Eimert directed until 1962. WDR Cologne.(Wiki)

The first research on additive synthesis took place here. With so little equipment they made astonishing works. Sinewave stacking with tape recorders.
http://youtu.be/HTSed3Ybzhg

[Roland Kuit]

Dick Raaijmakers

From 1954 to 1960 he worked in the field of electro-acoustic research at Royal Philips Electronics Ltd. in Eindhoven. There, using the alias Kid Baltan, he and Tom Dissevelt, under the name Electrosoniks produced works of popular music by electronic means (which turned out to be the first attempts of their kind in the world). From 1960 to 1962 he then worked at the University of Utrecht as a scientific staff member. From 1963 to 1966, together with Jan Boerman, he worked in his own studio for electronic music in the Hague. Then, from 1966 until his retirement in 1995, he worked as a teacher of Electronic and Contemporary Music at the Royal Conservatoire (The Hague) and since 1991 also as a teacher of Music Theatre at the Image and Sound Interfaculty, at the same conservatory. (Wiki)

Raaymakers’ oeuvre covers a wide variety of genres and styles, varying from sound animations for films to extremely abstract pulse structures, from "action music" to infinite voice patterns, from electro-acoustic tableaux vivants to extracts of music theatre. He is considered as someone who combines disciplines such as visual art, film, literature and theatre with the world of music. Raaymakers has created numerous electronic compositions, "instructional pieces" for string ensembles, phono-kinetic objects, "graphic methods" for tractor and bicycle, "operations" for tape, film, theatre, percussion ensemble, museum and performance, artworks for offices and conservatory, and many soundscape compositions and music theatre productions, including some for the Holland Festival and for theatre company Hollandia. His theoretical essays are evidence of his profound interest in special inter-media connections. For instance, in his latest publication Cahier M (2000). (Wiki)

His early 'pop'-music(1958!):
http://youtu.be/HW-n6GWFAvI

I like to consider this one of his best works:
http://youtu.be/I4dpALu0YP0

[Roland Kuit]

I forgot Between Russolo and the WDR Studio:

Pierre Scheafer
(14 August 1910 – 19 August 1995) was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist and acoustician. His innovative work in both the sciences—particularly communications and acoustics—and the various arts of music, literature and radio presentation after the end of World War II, as well as his anti-nuclear activism and cultural criticism garnered him widespread recognition in his lifetime.

Amongst the vast range of works and projects he undertook, Schaeffer is most widely and currently recognized for his accomplishments in electronic and experimental music,[2] at the core of which stands his role as the chief developer of a unique and early form of avant-garde music known as musique concrète. wiki

http://youtu.be/N9pOq8u6-bA

[Roland Kuit]

More Musique Conctrete.
Former assistant of Pierre Scheaffer,

Pierre Henry

Pierre Henry was born in Paris, France, and began experimenting at the age of 15 with sounds produced by various objects. He became fascinated with the integration of noise into music. He studied with Nadia Boulanger, Olivier Messiaen, and Félix Passerone at the Paris Conservatoire from 1938 to 1948 (Dhomont 2001).

Between 1949 and 1958, Henry worked at the Club d'Essai studio at RTF, which had been founded by Pierre Schaeffer in 1943 (Dhomont 2001). During this period, he wrote the 1950 piece Symphonie pour un homme seul, in cooperation with Schaeffer; he also composed the first musique concrète to appear in a commercial film, the 1952 short film Astrologie ou le miroir de la vie. Henry has scored numerous additional films and ballets.
Two years after leaving the RTF, he founded with Jean Baronnet the first private electronic studio in France, the Apsone-Cabasse Studio (Dhomont 2001).
Among Henry's works is the 1967 ballet Messe pour le temps présent (Dhomont 2001), a collaboration with choreographer Maurice Béjart that debuted in Avignon (Rubin 2001,[page needed]). In 1970 Henry collaborated with British rock band Spooky Tooth on the album Ceremony (Rubin 2001, 308). wiki

The sound of the door of the Parisian church Jean le Povere in all of its facets:
http://youtu.be/dud4D6PeHqQ