20th Century SEVEN

russolo futurist manifesto 1913

the human ear has become accustomed to the speed, energy and noise of the urban industrial sound - a new sonic palette requires a new approach to instrumentation and composition

russolo electronics future

substitute for the limited variety of timbres that the orchestra possesses today the infinite variety of timbres in noises, reproduced with appropriate mechanisms

russolo initial noise

first came into existence as the result of 19th century machines. before this the world was quiet, with the exception of storms. the noise that punctuated was not loud, prolonged or varied

russolo earliest music

simplistic - secrets of music as sacred and reserved for rites and rituals. greek theory was based on the tetrachord maths of pythagoras and featured little harmony. middle age developments led to music like the gregorian chant - still seen as unfolding in time. the chord did not exist

russolo chord

the complete sound, the concept of various parts that make and are subordinate to the whole. they moved from consonant triads to complicated dissonances that ‘characterise contemporary music’ - close to noise sound

russolo evolution

compares evolution of music to the multiplication of machinery - our once desolate sound environemnt has become filled with the noise of machines, urging musicians to make a more complicated polyphony in order to provoke emotion

russolo timbres limits

musical sound is too limited in its variety of timbres. we must break out of the limited circle of sound and conquer the infinite variety of noise sounds

russolo old music boring

no longer has the power to excite or inspire. even when new, it sounds old and familiar, leaving the audience ‘waiting for the extraordinary sensation that never comes’. he urged musicians to listen to noises that are taken for granted, yet can be musical in nature

noise families

thunder, hissing, whispers, creaking, metals, voices

intonarumori general

acoustic boxes with internal constructions like a wheel touching a string attached to a drum. the wheel rattled or bowed the strings, while the drum worked as an acoustic resonator

intonarumori handle

on top of box used to vary string tension. they used enharmonic properties to create sounds that glided from one note to the text, allowing every gradation of sound

first intonarumori

the burster or scoppiatore. meant to mimic a car engine, a box with a speaker cone modulated by a level. it was followed by a hummer and rubber, evoking spatulas scraping rusty pans

corale - one of only recordings

an orchestra score is rendered unsettling by the violent roar of machine

serenata one of only recordings

features less intonarumori, but their occasioanl presence turns a sentimental serenade of strings and woodwinds into a nightmare

paris newspaper intonarumori

an impressive simultaneity of blooody faces and noisy enharmonics is an infernal din

roots of battle

fetishisation of war was central to futurist ideals - many encouraged destruction to clear the way for ‘smashing the chronometric tyranny of rhythm’ - boccioni

marinetti futurism war want

to express the violent desire that stirs in the veins of every creative artist today

1913 concert intonarumori

futurist composers vanished from the stage to the seats and assaulted the audience, now drunk with the rage of tradition and imbecility. russolo continued to direct the orchestra. soon after, half of the orchestra also battled

peter tracy intonarumori concert

this was not random. they aestheticised violence to such a degree that what occurred in the seats was merely an enxtension of what took place on stage

russolo concert halls

we are revolted by the monotony of the sensations experienced, combined with the idiotic excitment of the listeners, buddhistically intoxicated by the thousandth repetition of their hypocritical and artificial ecstasy

russolo tour

european tour had to be cancelled due to the war. he found this unimportant as he thought himself ‘lucky enough to fight in the midst of the marvellous and grand and tragic symphony of modern war'

russolo manipulation of all noises

imitation as not enough. if the instruments are good at reproducing, the effect is nice, but not important: the ear must hear these noises mastered, servile, completely controlled to become elements of art - even noise must lose its accidental character

russolo education

not a professional musician, having worked as a visual artist, and so was removed from the studies of the conservatory compositional classes

futurism restricted

corporation of new music founded in 1923 - futurisms limited by the growing need for reviving academicism, tying musical experimentation into school.

russolo amateur

charged as a dilettante - making music only for pleasure and without sophistication, lacking knowledge and connoting unprofessional, inconsistence work

original founder of futurism

pratella wanted to keep the young away from conservatories, to be independent of academics and critics, and end to the domination of singers - to become like any other member of the orchestra

george antheil inspired by russolo

machinery in the ballet mecanique. xylophones, drums, airplane propellers, electric bells, a siren, and sixteen pianos. he was the first piece to synchronise machines with human players and exploit the difference in what they can play

george antheil ballet mecanique quote

all percussive. like machines. all efficiency. no LOVE. written without sympathy. written cold as an army operates. revolutionary.

stockhausen job

he worked at the studio for electronic music of the west german radio, focusing on creating new sounds using electronics.

stockhausen studie 1 1953

first piece of purely electronic music. 10 minutes based on a fusion of sine tones and eerie whistling, creating unearthy clanging, dark rumbles - raindrops in the sun

stockhausen studie ii

made using noise based sounds that he synthesised by blending sine tones in a reverberation chamber. noise refers to sounds like consonants, like shh, fff or sss - not loud or irritating. it became a 3 minute piece of soft, ringing, hissing tones that sometimes glide or stutter

how were studies made

sine tone oscillations rather than electronic instruments - clunky electronic devices designed for testing equipment used at radio stations. all sounds can be broken down and analysed into sine tone components. the emphasis was on precision and control with almost every detail prescribed

gesang der junglinge

combined the sound of a human voice with electronic sound for the first time. a sung biblical text was recorded and fragmented into phonemes, syllables, words and phrases and combined with electronic versions made with sine tone oscillators, pulse generators, noise generators and filters

gesang der junglinge surround sound

the material was transferred onto four spools of magnetic film stock on a machine used for creating film soundtracks. he wanted to connect the output of each spool to four loudspeakers, each in one corner of the concert hall

robert worby surround sound

this was completely new; nobody had witnessed anything like this before - the audience were surrounded by swarms of vocal and electronic sound

1960s process music stockhausen

sounds plucked from the ether, via shortwave radio, which are emulated and transformed by performers according to the procedures set by the composer. each performance is different because what is picked up by the radio receivers is unknown and unpredictable

process music score

elaborate graphics, diagrams and symbols that signify processes - pitches higher, durations longer, dynamics louder

stockhausen cosmic pulses

13 part of the klang cycle based on 24 hours, and his last purely electronic work. its composed from 24 melodic loops, ranging from 1 to 24 pitches over 7 octaves, rotating at 24 different speeds around 8 loudspeakers. the loops are layered from low to high and slow to fast

cosmic pulses quote

the virtual job of synchronising the orbits of 24 planets around a sun, with individual rotations, tempi and trajectories

kontakte

combined electronic music with instruments in live performances. he built a rotation table with a directional loudspeaker. four microphones were connected to a 4 track tape recorder. this enabled sounds to zoom around the concert hall

the beatles stockhausen

featured his image on the cover of their lp, sgt pepper’s lonely hearts club band

robert worby stockhausen redefined music

he liberated the whole word of sound and this, in turn, has liberated the listener

neidhofer stockhausen influence

the influence of kontra-punkte and gruppen may be seen in works of many composers like stravinsky’s threni

sir harrison birtwistle, influence of stockhausen on his work

gruppen premiere in school - he listened many times to the recording of this performance, while trying to penetrate its secrets - how it always seemed to be about to explode, but managed nevertheless to escape unscathed in its core - but scarcely managed to grasp it

ferneyhough stockhausen

i doubt that there has been a single composer of the intervening generation who, even if for a short time, did not see the world of music differently thanks to the work of stockhausen

rock music stockhausen influence

frank zappa acknowledges him in the liner notes of freak out! rick wright and roger waters of pink floyd also acknowledge him

stockhausen popular

one of the few avant garde composers to have succeeded in penetrating the popular consciousness. a day in the life and revolution 9 by the beatles were influenced by electronic music

robin maconie stockhausen beethoven

if a genius is someone whose ideas survive all attempts at explanation, then by definition stockhausen is the nearest thing to beethoven this century has produced. reason? his music lasts.

germany political life 1968

student revolts - stockhausen was a target for criticism, especially from the left who wanted music in the service of the class struggle. former students denounced him as a servant of capitalism

rehearsals of fresco in 1969

objections from the orchestra questioning directions such as ‘glissandos no faster than one octave per minute’ and others phoned the union to clarify whether they had to perform his work

premiere of fresco in 1969

backstage a handwritten sign: we’re playing, otherwise we would be fired. parts on the music stands were replaced by placards reading stockhausen-zoo. please don’t feed. the stand lights were turned off and after 260 minutes it ended, with no one participating

kontra punkte quote stockhausen

a series of the most concealed and also the most conspicuous transformations and renewals - with no predictable end. the same thing is never heard twice - ten instruments which resolves contrasts of extreme note values and dynamics into one texture

kontra punkte 2/3

only performed the first 2/3s in 1953 because the last was too difficult for the pianist. it later premiered in paris where the composer aided - from time to time played a note obviously not within the capacity of ten fingers but required by the score

kontra punkte ausmultiplikation

adds progressively longer insertions of denser note groups, while replacing them with groups of rapid, short ones. this erosion of the originally sparse texture sees the timbres of the full ensemble reduced to a solo piano, fluctuating durations to the same, and wide dynamics to a soft level

gesang der junglinge voice as electronic

recorded voice of a treble matches sine tones, pulses and white noise - vowels are harmonic spectra like sine tones, fricatives and sibilants and like filtered noises, and plosives resemble impulses

gesang der jungling comprehensibility of speech

paused between syllables, added reverb, layering and overlayed speech with electronic sounds to create a scale of intelligibility. he maintained the timbre of the boy’s voice. the electronics were a coordinated performance creating swooping and melodic buzzes and beeps - sometimes the voice is in the foreground or vice versa

gruppen build

3 orchestras, each with its own conductor, displayed to the left, right and front. a spatial separation motivation by the compositional requirement of keeping simultaneous yet musically separate passages distinct. some passages saw a single process passed from one orchestra to another

gruppen 12 tone row

tempo, durations and pitch fields, designed to include all 11 intervals. this was resequenced 11 times, creating 145 groups each with a different construction. the tempo went from 60-120, chosen based on the note. lower registers had longer durations

zyklus form

percussion solo, circular and no starting point. there is no right side up to the score. the performer can start at any point and play left to right or not. it has a range of notational specificity - some are exactly fixed

zyklus not actually on the spot

only max neuhaus has consistently performed spontaneous versions

zyklus percussion

9 kinds gradually become more dense then sparse over 18 periods, equally spaced. the percussion types end up cross fading with each other

zyklus free choice layer

the soloist chooses what notes to play, what order and when. this is not necessarily audible, but allows collaboration between composer and performer

stockhausen zyklus choice

what i really what is that, when a percussion player makes his own version of zyklus, he creates sound complexes that are his own, and you cannot analyse how he made them

kontakte spatial movement - instrumental and electronic groups quote

a high pitch descends in several waves, becoming louder as it begins to snarl and finally passes below the point where it can be heard as a pitch. it is now heard as a succession of pulses which slow until they become a steady beat. with increasing reverberation it becomes transformed into tones again

kontakte quote

i found for the first time, ways to bring all properties under a single control

bosseur momente

it seeks to employ the greatest possible number of vocal phenomena - not just singing but also the functions of speech, whispers, crying and laughter, producing an ‘infinitely rich mode of expression that profoundly touches our emotive sensibility’

momente syllables

isolated syllables and phonemes like vowels and consonants are used in a scale of exhaling, whispering, giggling, and screaming to singing in order to permit the compositional of timbral transitions between speech and instruments

momente choir

clap, snap their fingers, stamp and shuffle their feet, and play auxiliary instruments like cardboard tubes, shaken boxes or spanners to create links between timbres. having the choristers play with each syllable they sing or speak solves the problem of rhythmic coordination

momente repetition

many moments can be repeated. sometimes this involves a change of speed, with one performed 4 times slower

momente premiere

began with a clapping moment in the choirs, which was seen by some as a mockery of the audience, but by others as a means of intensifying the connection

mixtur stockhausen quote

the first work in which an orchestra is electronically transformed in real time: the genesis of live electronic music

mixtur build

orchestral families arranges from left to right, and the piece mixes the sounds with sine waves in ring modulators. the sound is heard by the audience in a different way than expected. each player has a microphone and their playing is mixed with the sounds from other instruments which are fed into separate modulators

mixtur moments

20, played continuously after each other. the mixture of live sound is electronically manipulated to physically fill the space with sounds which range from threatening low and penetrating high registers