Electronic and Experimental Music: Pioneers in ... - Aaaaarg

INSIDE ELECTRONIC MUSIC 245
body of work exploring the natural acoustics of a given performing space. Max
Neuhaus, widely credited with inventing the sound “installation,” provided
continuously playing music within the context of public spaces. David Behrman
composed what could be called the first musical composition of electronic
sounds with environmental sounds in 1968 for the Robert Watts (1923–1988)
film Cascade. It was a tape work consisting of highly audible environmental
sounds with electronics murmuring underneath and has much of the atmosphere
and flavor associated with later experimental ambient works. He called it a
collage piece at the time. He remembered that its composition was done
independently of the motion picture: “I had seen the film before making the
music, but didn’t coordinate any of the sounds with any specific action in the
film.” 41 The film made the rounds of art house theaters at the time but was not
highly visible and therefore does not seem to qualify as a major influence on
other composers. Thankfully, the music is now available on CD in the form of a
piece called Sounds for a Film by Robert Watts (Italy, Alga Marghen, Plana B
5NmN.020, 1998). With the exception of a little Cage and Lucier, much of this
kind of music was not recorded or released on record and so became the stuff of
live performance legend.
Three artists released recordings during the ‘70s that defined and anticipated a
growing interest in music that combined elements of the acoustic environment
with musical ideas. Considered individually, one might not normally draw
comparisons between the work of Wendy Carlos, Annea Lockwood (b. 1939),
and Brian Eno. Each was responsible, however, for experimenting in ambient
sound composition in ways that would be much imitated in the future.
Wendy Carlos composed the remarkable Sonic Seasonings in 1972, combining
synthesized sounds with environmental sounds. Nobody knew quite what to
make of it at the time, since it fit none of the convenient names being given to
record bins in the store. It consisted of two LPs’ worth of quiet, subtle sounds,
carefully composed to gently bob the imagination. They were mood pieces,
intended to invoke the essence of the four seasons. Carlos’s own words explain
the concept best:
Sonic Seasonings has the form of a musical suite, made of four contrasting
movements. Each is loosely based on images of the four basic seasons on
our planet: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter…
There is no real plot in any of the movements. Instead they suggest a
cyclic point of view that moves onto a few other musical locations, and
eventually returns to a similar setting to whence it began. 42
Carlos wrote musical parts, ever so minimal at times, to accompany recorded
sounds of nature. For “Spring,” a theme was written to blend with birdsong. For
“Summer,” an “impressionistic throb and ‘klangfarbenmelodie’ of timbre” is
joined by a slowly arpeggiating melody. “Fall” faces off with the ocean with