Expansion of Sound Resources in France, 1913--1940, and Its Relationship to Electronic Music.
James, Richard Schmidt
1981
Abstract
An interest in increasing the subtlety and variety of musical expression is characteristic of Western composers and musicians. Such interest is manifest in the evolution of compositional styles and in the ever-changing dem and s on performer and instrument. It is also the impetus behind the quest for new sound resources and new means of creating, manipulating, and reproducing them. This dissertation is intended, in part, as an exploration of the more far-reaching attempts to exp and sound resources during the first half of the twentieth century. Specific topics include manipulation of sound recorded on photographic film, microtones, noise and percussion usage, electronic instruments, and the creative uses of the phonograph and player piano roll. Examination of these topics is undertaken for an additional purpose, that of providing an historical background for the advent of electronic music in the late 1940s. Due to the magnitude of the departure from musical tradition embodied in this medium it is often seen as more the product of modern technology than of trends within music. The validity of such a view is challenged in this study via an analysis of the relationship of electronic music to early efforts towards sound resource expansion. France, as the cultural crossroads of Europe during the era in question and as a center for musical innovation, provides an ideal microcosm for this subject. With few exceptions, the topics under investigation represent radical lesser-known work, often by minor figures. As a result, information is gleaned largely from period music journals. These sources are reinforced by a series of twelve interviews conducted with ten people associated with this topic: Henri Barraud, Jacques Chailley, Henri Dutilleux, Pierre Henry, Arthur Hoeree, Maurice Martenot, Abraham Moles, Pierre Schaeffer, Louise Varese, and Ivan Wyschnegradsky. Documentation of the amount of attention such efforts received and the tenor of critical and public reaction to them plays an important part in establishing the stature of this work within its own musical milieu and , hence, the depth and vigor of the prefigurement of electronic music in early twentieth-century music. This research discloses the existence of numerous interesting relationships between electronic music and pre-1940 efforts to exp and sound resources. The latter do not however, function as precursors to or a necessary foundation for the former. The relationship is best characterized as one of common motivation. The pioneers of electronic music responded to aesthetic motivations and interests, many of which had already given rise to theories, experiments, and actual music. More specifically, some of the impetus behind early efforts in electronic music had been at work for decades: interest in noise composition, scientific construction of new sounds, and freedom from the influence and limitations of the human performer. Even some of the techniques central to electronic music had already been explored and applied in rudimentary fashion in film music, noise composition, and early electronic instruments. Such prefigurements in no way detract from the startling originality of the work of Pierre Schaeffer, Herbert Eimert, Pierre Henry, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and others, but they do put it into perspective and make the advent of electronic music appear less precipitous.Types
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