Episode 152

Chapter 13, Edgard Varèse and The Listener’s Experiment. Works Recommended from my book, Electronic and Experimental Music 

Welcome to the Archive of Electronic Music. This is Thom Holmes.

This podcast is produced as a companion to my book, Electronic and Experimental Music, published by Routledge. Each of these episodes corresponds to a chapter in the text and an associated list of recommended works, also called Listen in the text. They provide listening examples of vintage electronic works featured in the text.

The works themselves can be enjoyed without the book and I hope that they stand as a chronological survey of important works in the history of electronic music. Be sure to tune-in to other episodes of the podcast where we explore a wide range of electronic music in many styles and genres, all drawn from my archive of vintage recordings.

There is a complete playlist for this episode on the website for the podcast.

Playlist: CLASSICAL MUSIC WITH ELECTRONICS

Time

Track Time

Start

Introduction –Thom Holmes

01:28

00:00

1.     Edgard Varèse, “Déserts” (1954). Early combination of live orchestra with magnetic tape.

24:49

01:36

2.     Maurice Blackburn and Norman McClaren, “Blinkity Blank” (1955). Film score for five instrumentalists and sounds created by etching directly onto the soundtrack.

05:07

26:28

3.     Morton Subotnick, “Laminations” (1966). Live orchestra with electronic sounds on tape.

10:29

31:24

4.     Mario Davidovsky, “Synchronisms No. 5” (1969). For percussion quintet and electronic sounds on tape. 

08:39

41:50

5.     Wendy Carlos, “A Clockwork Orange” (1971). Early analog synthesis of orchestral and choir sounds.

07:03

50:36

6.     Jacob Druckman, “Animus III” (1971). For clarinet and tape.

15:44

57:34

7.     Isao Tomita, opening four tracks from The Bermuda Triangle (1979) including themes by Prokofiev and Sibelius.  Analog electronic orchestration.

12:52

01:13:18

8.     Wendy Carlos, “Genesis” from Digital Moonscapes (1984). Completely digital orchestration.

07:10

01:25:58

9.     Robert Ashley, “Superior Seven” (1988). Live instruments with MIDI instrument accompaniment.

30:15

01:33:10

10.   William Orbit, “Adagio for Strings” (2000). Electronic realization of Samuel Barber orchestral work.

09:34

02:03:26

Additional opening, closing, and other incidental music by Thom Holmes.

My Books/eBooks: Electronic and Experimental Music, sixth edition, Routledge 2020. Also, Sound Art: Concepts and Practices, first edition, Routledge 2022.

See my companion blog that I write for the Bob Moog Foundation.

For a transcript, please see my blog, Noise and Notations.

Original music by Thom Holmes can be found on iTunes and Bandcamp.