This show, first broadcast on April 6, 2018, was the last program in my series “A 21st-Century Guide to 20th-Century Music.” It concludes my survey of the history of electro-acoustic music by focusing on music that combines synthesized sound with conventional instruments or voice. In the music of Mario Davidovsky, Milton Babbitt, and Robert Ashley, the electronic music created is heard on a tape, which is played with the live musicians; Karlheinz Stockhausen employed sine-tone generators to transform the sound of an orchestra as it performed; and Sun Ra played the Mini-Moog synthesizer along with members of the Arkestra. Included are quotations from my own interviews with Davidovsky, Babbitt, and Sun Ra. The works heard are:
MARIO DAVIDOVSKY
Synchronisms No. 1 (1963)
KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN
Mixtur (1964, rev. 1967)
MILTON BABBITT
Correspondences (1967)
SUN RA
“The Invisible Shield” (1970)
ROBERT ASHLEY
In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women (1972)
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 Robert Ashley, see:
Music Book: SONIC TRANSPORTS: “Blue” Gene Tyranny Essay, part 6
Music Essay: Anne LeBaron, Hyperopera, and Crescent City: Some Historical Perspectives
Music Essay: You Can Always Go Downtown
Music Lecture: My Experiences of Surrealism in 20th-Century American Music
Music: SFCR Radio Show #5, Postmodernism, part 2: Minimalism
Music: SFCR Radio Show #12, A Tribute to Robert Ashley
For more on Robert Ashley, Milton Babbitt, and Mario Davidovsky, see:
Music Book: Soundpieces: Interviews with American Composers
For more on Milton Babbitt, see:
Music Lecture: “Intense Purity of Feeling”: Béla Bartók and American Music
For more on Sun Ra, see:
Music Book: Soundpieces 2: Interviews with American Composers
Music Lecture: King of the Omniverse: Sun Ra and His Arkestra
Music Lecture: The Secret of 20th-Century American Music
Music: KALW Radio Show #1, A Few of My Favorite Things…
Music: SFCR Radio Show #4, Postmodernism, Part 1: Three Founders
Music: SFCR Radio Show #9, Daoism in Western Music, part 2
NICOLE V. GAGNÉ 