The Classical Music Book

298

SOUND IS THE

VOCABULARY

OF NATURE

SYMPHONIE POUR UN HOMME SEUL

( 1949 −19 50 ), PIERRE SCHAEFFER/

PIERRE HENRY

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Electronic music and

musique concrète

BEFORE

1939 The first example

of electroacoustic music,

John Cage’s Imaginary

Landscape No. 1, uses

variable-speed turntables,

frequency recordings, muted

piano, and cymbal.

1948 Made entirely from

recordings of steam trains,

Pierre Schaeffer’s Étude aux

chemins de fer is broadcast

alongside his other early

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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