Contemporary Music in Evolution; 23; 1952

Two weeks ago with the playing of excerpts from Sternberg's Moses and Aaron we more or less finished with music composed in 1951. There was one piece left over by Ben Weber. Now as we continue on into 1952 and embark on a year by year investigation of the music of the last decade it almost seems as if Schoenberg's death in retrospect takes on a larger meaning beyond the fact itself. I think it is more than a packed generalization to say that his death marks the end of a certain period of development in the one conceptual direction of contemporary music that seems to have survived more emphatically than any other. And I'm here of course speaking of that very broad and general area known as 12 tone music at the same time Schoenberg's death coincides with the full blossoming and eruption of what is often loosely called and misnamed in my opinion. The music of the oven God and which is perhaps more accurately referred to as music conceived in terms of serialization a serial technique and various chants and

indeterminacy indeterminacy techniques now being used. Ford was in one thousand fifty one fifty two and fifty three that these poster and Verity and post developments really took hold and began to flourish especially in West Germany under the sponsorship of the state supported radio and in Paris. It was also in those same years that Stravinsky for a long time the spiritual leader of the other main stylistic camp in contemporary music many of whose members were violently opposed to the Schoenberg vagrant approach also began to veer away from his previous neo classic precepts towards those of the serial school. This dislodging of Stravinsky from one side of the fence to woods the other naturally constituted a major shift in emphasis and in the process some composers were pulled with him with Stravinsky towards the for them new orientation. While many others were simply left stranded high

and dry by the sudden displacement of Stravinsky. So in many important respects the next two or three years that I shall deal with on the series are crucial ones bringing with them many fundamental changes in attitude and technique years which were almost as crucial and far reaching in their consequences as those famous earlier years of upheaval that occurred just before World War One. Such a major stylistic breakthrough of course wreaks havoc on established listener habits. Suddenly we have new sound material thrust at us like electronic music and music that we have radically new concepts of technique of continuity of form new concepts of organizing the sound materials like the serial technique. We have the introduction of techniques which are not techniques in a strict sense at all. The chants indeterminacy or Alyea Tory practices and as a result listeners are suddenly bereft

of their previously and barely acquired criteria for evaluating new music and are thus left confused and doubting. For those in my listening audience who seek some clarification of the whys and wherefores of these new concepts and directions I hope that my series will be at least a beginning to a broader understanding and acceptance. Let's plunge right in then with a programme on some examples of the most extreme positions reached by 1950 to examples of both electronic and traditional instrumental music. I don't think we in America when I say we I include even all but a few composers and critics were aware of the radical and rapidly evolving musical developments that were taking place in Paris in the late 40s. Or if we knew about them we certainly did not hear any of the products of these developments

until years later. I know my own first actual contact with this music new music from Paris was in 153 and then not in Paris but in Germany from visiting composers such as when I Labovitz and Jacques mano. Some of us had heard about the newer works coming from Paris but we did not get to hear actual performances and most of the music was of course unpublished. So one couldn't even study it visually. We learned later that three things that happened in those post-war years in one thousand forty eight. Soon after the introduction in any widespread sense of magnetic tape a group of composers and electronic engineers began to create music or at least they called it music on tape by means of all manner of electronic manipulation of musical or non musical sounds. Secondly the Polish musician when they libel it's living in Paris was acquainting a group

of young composers with the marvels and mysteries of a bronze compositions. Until then anathema and French music circles and thirdly a group around the composer Olivia misyar who was teaching at the Paris Conservatoire at that time began a thorough reinvestigation and analysis of the most recent musical developments and inspired primarily by the rhythmic serial procedures developed by messi on in his piano pieces Conti or Jaya and for rhythm had to these composers began a whole new trend in composition. I of course have discussed these two piano pieces Conti or jai and four rhythm and two that I miss you know and I have analyzed these on earlier programs in some detail. Of course the new radicals were not only in Paris. There were nests or pockets of them in Germany and Italy as well. In Germany the famous and festival of contemporary music and the newly founded summer courses or

seminars for new music in the city of Dom Stott attracted the young Turks from all over Europe in Italy down and we'd you know know from the sort of two man team soon to be joined by Luciano burial under the influence of the German conductor. How much Shashi but the experiments and developments taking place in Paris and to date those of the other two countries and as a result the first major composer of the young generation to emerge was the French composer Boulez on this series contemporary music an evolution we have already heard Boulez early 1046 flute and piano sonata Tina a remarkable work in its own right even regardless of its early date. And of course regardless of the fact that it was revised to some extent in the 50s. In the years 1946 to 51 Boulez was to attract much attention

and Parisian guard circles. His outspoken articles and statements on other composers his violent attacks on everybody including his own teacher MSU and his attacks on Schanberg whom he deposed in the Viennese triumvirate in favor of a vine and of course his own music such as the second piano sonata. All these made Boulez the most talked about and controversial musician in Paris in the late 40s and soon he was to create his own following and cast an influence on others. Among these paradoxically Messi on himself since there is every indication that the more abstract non-program matic aspects of misyar as rhythm etudes and some of the other works of those particular years were via a sort of stylistic feedback. The result of the pressures and influence already exerted by Boulez in Parisian musical circles led by Blair as the pupils of life to its MSE form the

small but articulate segment of the younger French composer generation. And in this climate of course some rather startling developments could be expected and were forthcoming. The work we are to hear first tonight constitutes the culmination point in the initial stage of development towards total serialization. This is stick to structures for Two Pianos by blue as this work was written as a tribute to mess Young's mode develop a downtown CTA and thus the four way series of influences between misyar and belies comes full circle. First stage messy on teaching the young Boulez second stage Boulez developing radical new 12 tone concepts in conjunction with messy rhythmic experiments. Third Stage mess young composes his rhythm etudes which incorporate serialization and the fourth stage

total serialization instructor who as a further extension of an application to 12 tone principles of messy owns serial pieces so the play goes messy on the mood to Boulez back to Monsieur and once more to bless and out comes slick do. When we evaluate the works look to you as an artistic creation. We come to the sad conclusion that while it may be a most important work as a theoretical grammatical experiment and almost as a kind of philosophical tract as an oral oral experience it leaves much to be desired and is in fact a failure since in the realities of performance it falls far short of its own explicit theoretical precepts suggesting much and posing very crucial new problems. It however fails to solve them. Let's let's list its virtues and failings on the positive

side it exposes in an extended three movement format the limits and possibilities of Total Cereal organization. That is the rigorous application of a serial order or numerical order as applied not only to pitches or more accurately pitch classes but also durations types of attacks and their distribution in time intensities that is dynamics and register all distribution. It also pushes to an extreme. The improvisational effect already attempted in Boulez's earlier works and idea which eventually led to improvisational and chance procedures through the use of seemingly unrelated and seemingly haphazard irrational rhythms and I now mix. The music takes on an improv as a Tory character in terms at least of any previous musical tradition. Slick tour also pushed to its ultimate

consequence the notion already suggested by Debbie sease works and handed added various times by Stravinsky and they've written and achieved in our own country by such diverse composers as Milton Babbitt and John Cage. The notion that a work must now evolve and have its own form cannot In other words have a pre-conceived form that the music in effect must invent itself like a spider spinning his own web as it goes along. In slick too and in the serial works of Milton Babbitt each in their own way the proposition that a musical work is in essence the realisation of a specific and limited set of possibilities freed of the necessity to fulfill tonal and thematic functions. This proposition was now a reality in these three main respects as slick duo has had far reaching consequences and has influenced in some way almost all the most important music of the last 10 years in Europe.

On the debit side we note that these aforementioned reality at least as realized in slick do is in part as I've already said a failure in terms of its aural realities. That is to say the rigorous application of the arbitrarily related numerical or serial procedures leads much too frequently to musical results with which simply do not work where the characteristics and limits of the instruments. In this case two pianos are simply not taken into account in the composition. This leads to the most ridiculous discrepancies between what pool is composed and what actually occurs in a performance. And I include here even the best of all possible performances. But even if we leave aside the performance realities and except stick to giving it the benefit of the doubt as a theoretical concept as an abstract document. Even here the relationship between the serial

operation and the musical materials is unlike in the music of Milton Babbitt as I've already pointed out on earlier programs. Arbitrary and secondary and in this respect since almost every self-respecting young European composer has by now analyzed like do at least in part. The work has unquestionably had a rather disastrous but probably not irreparable influence on recent music and has led to a vast body of inferior pieces which have since been lumped together and termed as general as the new academic system. One also wonders how the numerous mistakes in the serial calculations made by Boulez in composing slick data are to be rationalized in view of the implied rigorous concept upon which their work is based. To sum up I've tried to draw an objective balance sheet on this strange and

problematic work and I hope my efforts will be rewarded by a more objective in appreciation of the piece on the part of you the listeners will Eslick do for two pianos. You just heard a performance of slick 2 for Two Pianos

by blueness the pianist where the two German specialists and I'm god music out of funds and out of these contacts ski the next work also by Boulez provides an excellent transition to the other area in which I said earlier the Parisian scene was sort of mending. Namely electronic music in 1950 to compose the electronic etude number two one of two such works realized as a result of his taking part in the courses given by Chef AI and his group to music that courses also attended incidentally by other composers such as Michelle Feeley pull back a lowdown. The significance of this little etude by Boulez it lasts only three minutes lies in the fact that it was probably the first piece of music it created in which a rigorous compositional discipline in this case the serial technique was

applied. The piece is subtitled etude on seven sounds and refers to seven sound sources which are then transformed electronically and mechanically to produce a certain sonic result. I do not know what these seven sound sources were in their original form but I do know that the transformations were realized in accordance with serial procedures especially in terms of its rhythmic Argos ation and in this piece. I think one can say music conquered it became a legitimate compositional enterprise and no longer the domain of musical Dilla talents and non-musician engineers. I'm assuming but perhaps but perhaps I shouldn't that we all know what the term music concreate means. I guess you don't know what it means. Music created by metamorphosing concrete sounds that is musical or non musical sounds or a noises by electronic means

electronic music on the other hand is music created purely by electronic means on electronic instruments and electronic sound generators. In Boulez's etude number two as in stick to the aural artistic result again falls far short of the inherent theoretical precepts. The piece is thus not much more than a thoughtful but minor and limited least successful experiment. Let's listen to it now. Here is Boulez etude number two. OK. OK I.

Buy. One. That was the early electronic etude number to buy.

A much more effective and imaginative application of cereal take me to music that was created the same year by Will as fellow messianic student John Bach a composer whose music is little known in this country or for that money even in Europe. But the composer was much discussed a year or so ago when Andrea Davis book since Debussy devoted a whole chapter to this composer's music. Again I do not know all the sound sources here employed but certainly one of them seems to be a piano chord transformed by electronic filtering. Despite the limited technical means in these early days of electronic experiments Baquet achieves a sumptuous sonic variety and sense of contrast in this work which characterizes all the music I've heard of him and which makes the previously heard Boulez etude seem somewhat limited and as Bach A seems to have an uncanny sense of juxtaposing just the right one might say inevitable sound

choices. And this it seems to me we have not had much of an electronic music and certainly not in conjunction with serial technique until the more recent electronic works of Milton Babbitt. Here now is Bach is music concrete etude composed in one thousand fifty two and actually realized electronically two years later. B.

God. Why.

That was the music conquered by the French composer

Rocky while I am playing these pieces from the French music on credit of the early 50s. Let me add one more by Andre or Dan.. There although also a student of misyar and a musician Sara Lee trained in the rigorous French tradition always always has had one foot in jazz so to speak playing violin with French jazz groups in the late 40s. Oh they're turned away from non jazz composing about the same time and has served in this non jazz area only as a critic and a writer when in 1952 therefore he was invited to create an electronic piece. He did so in terms of the jazz idiom the work which we're about to hear is called Jazz Asia has and will soon be available here on the Philips Mercury label or their sound sources here were a jazz orchestra certain phrases and sounds were recorded by this ensemble and

then by means of mechanical speeding up slowing down inverting reversing and filtering a tape background was created. This was then joined to and also pre recorded rhythmic substructure played by a jazz bass and jazz drums. Against this composite tape a pianist then is instructed to perform a jazz improvisation according to indications and directions given by the composer. As you will hear in this piece the three musical sources that is the two tapes and the performer are coordinated in a conventional tonal order in which serial organization played no part. And it is a very effective piece. The pianist in the original performance was bound up by a fan but on this recording it is the remarkable French Algerian jazz pianist jazz a jazz by on they are down.

OK. OK.

That was jazz age jazz by the French composer Andre are down which combines a live improvising pianist with two pre recorded taped tracks. In America we of course had our own

experimenters in the tape and electronic media and probably the first one to consider these possibilities and to be interested in them for many years was Milton Babbitt but he did not actually create electronic pieces as far as I know until the RCA synthesizer now installed at Columbia University had been invented the other early pioneer in this field was of course John Cage. I have already presented on this series Cage's imaginary landscape number one before the days of tape composition created in part for frequency records performed on record turntables. In other words a kind of prototype of music on credit written way back in 1939. In January of 152 Cage wrote his first outright magnetic tape piece called imaginary landscape number five. Probably the first such work produced in this country and slightly antedating also the

three French works. We just heard after imaginary landscape number five came the piece called Williams makes and that's the next piece we're outta here. And the ultimate creation of this piece John Cage had a number of collaborators in a sense even co composers sound materials were recorded by Louis and Bebe Barron of Film Fame and the actual assembling of the tapes and other words of the composition was done by cage and Earl Brown and David Tudor. This piece is conceived for eight tracks of tape running simultaneously the sound material is collected by the barons were arbitrarily divided into six categories by Cage a city sounds the country sounds. See electronic sounds d manually produce sounds including instrumental music. E wind produce sounds including vocal sounds and AF

small sounds requiring electronic amplification to be heard in conjunction with the other sounds. These six sound categories were further catalogued in terms of pitch temper and dynamic intensity and whether these elements were controllable or not controllable. The actual composing was then done by Messrs cage Brown and tutor. By means of chance operations taken from the ancient Chinese Book of Changes which Cage has employed in a number of recent works. At this point I regret to say I no longer quite follow the proceedings and while I tend to question the artistic anaesthetic validity in general of chance procedures because among other things they take the onus of responsibility off the composer. But this gets into a big philosophical discussion which I'm not going to now. While I question the validity of these things the result as produced here in this particular piece Williams makes I find quite amusing. Harmless and certainly not

controversial and mercifully short here is Cage's Williams next. Again thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was Williams makes a Causey musical taped melons

by John Cage. The next piece is a real quickly you know Shorty. It is one of the first pieces created by the American Russian born composer D-men used to Chatzky. It is another slight minor experiment from the early days of this medium and his electronic music only by the skin of its teeth. It is called Sonic contours and is simply a piano piece not even a very interesting one. Treated and modified electronically on the most elementary level. And you still hear the electronic repetitions which you'll hear have long ago become the staple of every Hollywood monster and murder film. But here we hear the device used in a comparatively pristine setting. I will come back to more important work splay Cesky again in later programs. But here now is the one minute sonic contours. That was Sonic contours by Vladimir you suggest ski.

The last piece on this program is by the Dutch composer Hank battings one of the older generation of composers and Holland and I believe the first composer there to work with electronic medium. The reason for the early entry and into an electronic field of in Holland is that the gigantic Philips concerned one of the biggest electronic manufacturers in the world opened its doors to Dutch composers the minute the main new musical possibilities became apparent. In 1952 Hank battings composed the piece called Caprice yo for violin and two soundtracks which was first performed that year at grad design o Switzerland where an annual festival devoted to electro acoustical experiments of all kinds and founded by the conductor Hammond Sheshan takes place. Like oh there's jazz a jazz. The preacher of battings is one of the earliest attempts to combine a traditional instrument with electronic sounds. Intentions here are

fairly obvious. He basically wrote a good old fashioned romantic violin concerto only with the added luxury of indulging in a whole new world of acoustic sounds as a quasi orchestral background. The piece is nicely put together but aesthetically it is sort of self-defeating because it uses a rather radical means. The electronic means to produce a very conservative result. This doesn't make too much sense as a fundamental philosophical approach to the new medium but the work represents a pleasant early experiment. Here is a picture of a violin and two soundtracks were. Nothing.

Will you.

The East. Bay Area.

Thank. You. Why. That was the company chill for a violin and two soundtracks

by Hank bindings the violinist was a Dutch violinist Yucca van Marilyn and of course the soundtracks were produced at the Philips studios and home in Holland. By coincidence this program turned out to be a survey of early electronic hand and or serial music and the various approaches and attitudes applied in 1952 to the young medium. Next week I'll be back with music by three European composers John Bach a CA and Stockhausen and keys and have played it.