Page 300 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

298 IN CONTEXT

SOUND IS THE FOCUS

Electronic music and
musique concrète
VOCABULARY BEFORE
1939 The first example
of electroacoustic music,
John Cage’s Imaginary
Landscape No. 1, uses
OF NATURE variable-speed turntables,
frequency recordings, muted
piano, and cymbal.

recordings of steam trains,
SYMPHONIE POUR UN HOMME SEUL 1948 Made entirely from
Pierre Schaeffer’s Étude aux
(1949−1950), PIERRE SCHAEFFER/ chemins de fer is broadcast
alongside his other early
PIERRE HENRY studies in sound.

AFTER
1952–1953 Olivier Messiaen
composes his only electronic
work, Timbres-durées,
although he later withdraws it.
1954 Edgard Varèse’s Déserts,
which alternates sections of
musique concrète with others
scored for an orchestra of wind
and percussion, is broadcast
from Paris on December 2.
1956 In Gesang der Jünglinge,
Stockhausen mixes sounds
derived from the voice of
a treble choirboy with
manipulated electronically
generated tones.

1958 Edgard Varèse writes
Poème électronique for the
futuristic Philips Pavilion,
a building designed by
Le Corbusier, at the World’s
Fair in Brussels.

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