NICOLE V. GAGNÉ

This show, first broadcast on December 1, 2017, continues my survey of the history of electro-acoustic music by focusing on music that combines tape with live performers. It concentrates on four composers: Edgard Varèse, who ended years of silence with a breakthrough score for instruments and tape; Alan Hovhaness, who employed tape to bring the sounds of whales into his orchestral music; Morton Subotnick, whose “ghost score” transforms the sound of the solo musician; and Morton Feldman, who used tape to multiply his score’s solo voice. Quotations are included from my own interviews with Hovhaness and Feldman. The works heard are:

EDGARD VARÈSE

Déserts (1954)

ALAN HOVHANESS

And God Created Great Whales (1970)

MORTON SUBOTNICK

Axolotl (1981)

MORTON FELDMAN

Three Voices (1982)

Link to:

Music: SFCR Radio Shows 2012–2018

For more on these composers, see:

Music Book: Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music, Second Edition

More Cool Sites To Visit! – Music

For more on Morton Feldman, see:

Music Book: Soundpieces: Interviews with American Composers

Music: SFCR Radio Show #5, Minimalism

For more on Morton Feldman and Edgard Varèse, see:

Music Lecture: “Intense Purity of Feeling”: Béla Bartók and American Music

For more on Alan Hovhaness and Morton Subotnick, see:

Music Book: Soundpieces 2: Interviews with American Composers

For more on Alan Hovhaness and Edgard Varèse, see:

Music Lecture: The Secret of 20th-Century American Music

For more on Morton Subotnick, see:

Music Lecture: My Experiences of Surrealism in 20th-Century American Music

Music: SFCR Radio Show #26, Surrealism in 20th-Century American Music

For more on Edgard Varèse, see:

Music Book: SONIC TRANSPORTS: Glenn Branca Essay, part 9

Music: SFCR Radio Show #10, Percussion in Early 20th-Century Music

Music: SFCR Radio Show #29, Electro-Acoustic Music, part 1: New Instruments