Page 303 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

CONTEMPORARY 301

and the British rock band Spooky the BBC launched its Radiophonic
Tooth. His work also influenced Workshop, which began to develop
composers of multiple electronic atmospheric music for radio and
music styles, including the British television, such as the Dr Who
musician and producer William theme (1963), written by the
Orbit, Mat Ducasse of the UK-based An opera for blind people, Australian composer Ron Grainer
band Skylab, and the UK music a performance without and realized by Delia Derbyshire.
producer and DJ Fatboy Slim. argument, a poem made Important works by Varèse (his
Other composers who worked of noises, bursts of text, Poème electronique) and the Greek
briefly at the Groupe de Recherche spoken or musical. Iannis Xenakis were created in
de Musique Concrète included Pierre Schaeffer European studios at this time.
Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Describing the Symphonie in In 1977, the Institut de Recherche
Boulez, and the veteran Edgard La musique concrète (1973) et Coordination Acoustique/
Varèse, who recognized the advent Musique (IRCAM) opened in Paris.
of a medium that he had longed Boulez was its head, and such
for all his life. However, the main figures as Berio and the French-
contributions to the genre born Slovenian composer and trombonist
in Paris were made elsewhere. Vinko Globokar were among its
In 1952, the German theorist staff. Since then, many composers
and composer Herbert Eimert to combine real sounds with have experimented and realized
inaugurated a department for electronics in his masterly Gesang compositions at IRCAM, using
electronic music at the radio der Jünglinge (1955–1956). electronics and latterly computers.
studios in Cologne. Stockhausen The organization has remained
joined him there and their focus New experimental spaces influential in making such
moved from sounds recorded in Studios similar to those in Cologne techniques part of classical
diverse contexts (as in musique began to open across the world in composition today. Major figures
concrète) to sounds that were New York, Tokyo, Munich, and in to develop work there include
electronically produced. Between Milan, where the Italian composers Jonathan Harvey, Harrison
1953 and 1954, Stockhausen Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna Birtwistle, George Benjamin, Kaija
wrote two influential studies in founded Europe’s third electronic Saariaho, Unsuk Chin, Gérard
pure electronics before going on music facility. In London in 1958, Grisey, and Tristan Murail. ■

Gesang der Jünglinge and Henry. It also reflects the
strong spiritual basis that
Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Gesang Stockhausen’s work almost
der Jünglinge (“Song of the always possessed. Using
Youths”) was created in the electronically generated
studios of West German Radio tones and pulses, filtered white
between 1955 and 1956. Its text noise, and the voice of 12-year-
comes from the biblical Book of old choirboy Josef Protschka,
Daniel where Nebuchadnezzar Stockhausen created a fiery
had the Hebrew youths Shadrach, whirlwind of rich and complex
Meshach, and Abednego cast into textures, operating at different
a fiery furnace for refusing to speeds and dynamic levels, and
worship his image. Remaining utilizing the space around the
miraculously unharmed, they sang audience via four-channel
God’s praise from the flames. (originally five-channel) sound.
The biblical tale of Hebrew youths Some regard the work as the The result is a virtuoso creation
surviving in a furnace, depicted here first masterpiece created using that maintains a consistent
on a Bible study card (c.1900), was a the sound techniques developed momentum due to its perfectly
potent inspiration for Stockhausen. from the experiments of Schaeffer planned overall structure.

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