The Origins of Electronic Music

Author(s): Karlheinz Stockhausen

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The Originsof ElectronicMusic
KarlheinzStockhausen

This article was writtenby Stockhausen on 13 named-to whichwe shouldadd Nono, Maderna,
September1970 in responseto a letterfromDouglas Berio(fromc 1956)and HenriPousseur(from1953)
M. Davis of 'Newsweek' asking about the originsof -regarded Cage's workas combinatorially inter-
electronicmusic. It was not printedin thatjournal; estingbutmusically banal or merelydilettante.
and Stockhausenwisheshis statementon the subject Theseearliestsound-compositions usingsinetones
to be broughtbeforethe musicalpublic. resultedfromintensivecorrespondence between
Goeyvaerts, whowas livingin Antwerp, and myself
Electronicmusicbeganin Colognein 1952-3.The in Paris (it was only a questionof individual
firstcompositionto use synthetic sounds derived sounds,notyetof'music'in anysense).We wanted
fromsinetoneswas myElectronic StudyI Scarcely absolutelypure,controllablesounds withoutthe
anybodyin Americais nowawareof this;theyact subjectiveemotionalinfluence of 'interpreters'.We
as thoughit had droppedout of theAmericansky wereintimately acquaintedwiththe'tapemusic'of
at sometimeor other.Your questions touchupona Ussachevsky and Luening,at ColumbiaUniversity,
mostdeplorablehabitwhichis regrettably bringing and with the firstsound experiments at Bonn
'theAmericans' intoincreasing disrepute in therest University in 1951ofDr Meyer-Eppler, thephoneti-
of theworld:intellectual property is beingstolen, cist and expertin communications. He had made
its sourceconcealedand ultimately forgotten in contactwithDr HerbertEimert(who was thenin
orderto suppressany historical sense,whereupon chargeof thelate eveningNew Music programme
theyclaimtheideasas theirownnationalproduct. of the Cologne Radio and had writtena book
Morecivilizedpeoplewithgreater awareness would on 12-tonemusic back in 1923) and his friend
call thisplagiarism. Robert Beyer (reader of new music at WDR
Electronicmusicin theUSA is a primeinstance Cologne). Stimulatedby musiqueconcreteand
ofthis.Ifonereadsdictionaries, articlesin specialist criticallyopposed to instrumental 'tape music',
journals(let alone thepopularpress),booksabout thesethreemen made some acousticexperiments
musicand evennewmusictheysay nothingabout withsoundsproducedelectrically bythemelochord
the originsor prototypes of electronic musicas a (inventedby Bode) and the trautonium (Professor
whole,or theysimplylie. Anypsychologist could Trautwein, whoseacquaintance I also madeat that
explaintheAmericanneedto do thissortof thing time),and theyknewJorgMager'selectronicin-
so as to achieveat leasta modicumofself-assertion, struments. In 1952 Dr EimertpersuadedHanns
evenin artisticmatters. Hartmann, thenhead of WDR, to makea normal
The factsare as follows:whenI was 23, I spent musicstudioavailablefortwohours,twiceweekly,
March1952to March1953withPierreSchaeffer at together witha technician (first
Bierhals, thenHeinz
the ORTF in Paris, gettingfamiliarwith and Schiltz),so thatEimertand Beyercould conduct
experimentally codifying everything whichwas then acousticexperiments. This studio was equipped
knownas musique In 1952I madehundreds only withtape-recorders,
concrete. and both men got the
of analyses of instrumentally producedsounds, soundsfromthe phoneticinstitute of Bonn Uni-
Europeanandexotic,inthemusique concrete studio, versity through Meyer-Eppler. I was corresponding
and made tape recordings of exoticsoundsin the regularlywithEimertfromParis,reporting minutely
Musie de l'hommein Paris.Therewas a largesine- on my workthere.Once whenhe was travelling
wave generator in a basementstudioof the PTT, through ParisI playedhimtheConcrete StudyI had
whichI used to producethefirstsynthetic sound- composedthere,also Boulez'stwoEtudes,and we
spectrabysuperimposing sinetones.The workwas wereboth up to date withthe availablemusique
infinitelyarduous;as therewas no tape-recorder in concretebySchaeffer and PierreHenri.
thestudio,I had to copyeach sinetoneon to disc In May 1953 came the famousCologneInter-
andthenre-copy itfromonedisctoanother. Thisfirst nationalFestivalof Contemporary Music,at which
'composition'byelectronic meanswas witnessed by therewas a conference whichincludeda 'concert'of
theFrenchscientist AbrahamMoles,who thought musique concrete, tapemusic,thefirst compositions
me quitemadat thetime.The factof thematteris (soundmontages)of 'ElectronicMusic' by Eimert
thatI had formeda friendship withthe Belgian and Beyer,and myworkKontra-Punkte was heard
composerKarelGoeyvaerts from thetimeofthe1951 forthefirsttime.I was engagedas thefirst regular
Darmstadtsummer school.Goeyvaerts had been a assistantat the newly-founded 'electronicmusic
pupil of Messiaenat the same time as Boulez, studio' of WDR, Beyer withdrew, and Eimert
Barraqu6,Fano, Philippot,Loriod and Grimaud, becamedirectorof the studio.The soundsources
andthenhadthemostadvancedknowledge ofmusical in this studioconsistedof a melochord(witha
composition. We evenknewCage's mostadvanced chromatickeyboard-a kind of electronicorgan)
work to date, Music oj Changes,not to mentionall and a trautonium; thesound-processing comprised
hispreviousworksusingpreparedpianos.Cage had two ringmodulators, an excellentoctavefilter and
beento Paris,Boulezto New York,and theywere twoso-called'W49'radiofilters (builtbytheWDR),
engagedin a livelyinterchange ofideas,butitmust two full-track studiotape recorders and one four-
be said that all the advancedcomposersI have tracktaperecorder. Eimertwas stillusingthemelo-
649

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 chordforseveralpieces,but I rejectedthesound mentetc),myearliest attemptsat notation,andgave
sourceswhichhad been availablepreviously and a completeanalysisand description ofmysinetone
composedmy Electronic StudyI (1953) usingsine compositionStudyI (withdiagramsof the time
tonesand myElectronic StudyII usingreverberated series,dynamicseries,frequency seriesetc). It was
sinetones. sold outas soon as it appeared,and was translated
Meyer-Epplerhad used the term 'electronic intoEnglishsoon afterwards: theinformation was
music'on severaloccasions,butwhenwe wantedto circulatedfromTorontoUniversity throughout the
use it officiallyhe was againstusingit becauseit USA and to all English-speaking countries.
was imprecise (as we all knew);we oftendiscussed In 1955 HerbertEimertand I editedthe first
possibletermsat length,I insistedtimeand again volumeof Die Reihe (Universal),entitledElek-
on thisterm,simplybecauseof its strongimpact Musik,and myarticleson electronic
tronische music
on mepersonally, and itwonthrough. I shouldalso wereagainassembledin TexteI and II (DuMont-
mentionthatgreatcreditin theevolutionof elec- Schauberg, Cologne).The firstDeutscheGrammo-
tronicmusicis due to Herr Enkel, a technical phon recordings of my threeelectronic composi-
director ofWDR in Cologne.Although he wasover tions,together withpiecesby Koenig,Eimertand
40 at the time,he was a doctoralstudentunder Kienek,weretheonly'sources'from1956to 1967,
Meyer-Eppler inBonnat thetime,andhe succeeded whenthegreatexplosionofelectronic musicstarted
in makingavailablethe moneyforsettingup the in America.
world'sfirstelectronic studioout of WDR's tech- I shouldfinallyadd thatI wenton a six-week
nicalbudget.(The sumwasenormous at thetime-- lecturetourin 1958,giving33 lectures at American
I hearda figure of 120,000DMmentioned.) universities(three different titles),and that I
WhileI wasworking on mytwoStudiesI hadone tookelectronic musicas mysubject,presented my
technician,HeinzSchtitz, whohad alreadyhandled Studies I and II and the Gesang der Jiinglinge,
a bit
thesoundsofEimertand Beyerin 1952.He was an of Kontra-Punkte, a bit of Gruppenfiir
dreiOrchester,
unusuallyresourceful manipulator of sound,and is a bitofZeitmasze,a piecebyEimert, one byBerio,
now in chargeof an experimental WDR sound one by Boulez,one by Pousseurand-last butnot
archivefortelevision and radio.He wouldbe the least-Cage's Concertforpianoand 10instruments,
man to ask about the originsof Eimert'sand and deliberately
mentioned JohnCage six or seven
Beyer'sfirstexperiments and about the earliest timesin mylecture,as wellas thenamesof Earle
compositions ofelectronic music.Duringthisperiod Brown,Feldmanand ChristianWolff.Cage was
I was studying theliterature of acousticsand pho- scarcelyknownin Americaat thetime,and where
netics,and becamea 'student'oncemoreby going he was knownhe was derided.I was sharplychal-
to BonnUniversity twoorthreetimesa week(1954- lenged everywhere, and was often heckled by
6) to attendMeyer-Eppler's lecturesand seminars members oftheaudienceduringor afterthelecture
in phoneticsand communications research(statis- as beinganti-semitic
or communist,simplybecause
tics,chanceoperations, information theory(!)etc). I createdthismusicand spoke on behalfof the
He wasthebestteacherI haveeverencountered; he composersI have mentioned. Sincethen,America
diedsuddenly ofcancer,stillveryyoung,at roughly has grownmorealert,moreself-aware and,as I said
thesametimeas ourtechnical directorFritzEnkel, at the outset,has now gone to the embarrassing
in thelate1950s. oppositeextreme:ofleavingouttheEuropeans(now
On myrecommendation, myfriends KarelGoey- we know everything. . .!), feverishlycreating,de-
vaertsand Henri Pousseurwere then invitedto manding,appropriatingan 'American music',
realizepieces of electronicmusicin the Cologne 'American culture', disguising or simply denying the
studio.They both wroteprecisely-notated scores
historicalfactsat a particular pointin history. The
usingsinetones,aftermyexample,and itwasI who point where,for instance,I as a Germanhave
carriedoutthetechnical realizationsoftheirpieces.
nothingto hide or suppressor conceal,becauseI
Thenotherswhowereinterested cameto thestudiorecognizemyself to be a researcher in soundand a
oftheirownaccord:MaxBill'spupilPaulGredinger composerof the wholeworld,whetherI werein
fromSwitzerland assistedme in my work,and I Japan,Americaor India. Americais becoming
helpedhimin turnwiththerealization ofa compo-provincial.
sitionforsinetones.I nextrecommended Gottfried The subjectofelectronic musicin theUSA is so
MichaelKoenigin 1954;he collaborated withme,fraught withdistortion thatI believeevena single
thenrealizedsomeofhisownpieces,helpedmewith book or articlereporting withscholarly objectivity
the GesangderJiinglingeand Kontakte,and realized would simplygo under.Americanstudentsare
numerousworksby othercomposers.In 1954 I alwayscomplaining about the officialpoliticsof
recommended BengtHambraeus(Stockholm)who theirculture,but theyno longernoticethatthey
workedwithus in the studiofor a fewmonths, themselves are thinking imprecisely, and are totally
nextErnstKrenekwas invited, and our technician egocentric, isolationist and uninformed. Onlywith
Heinz Schiitz realizedhis composition. (Heinz greaterhistorical perspective willit be possibleto
Schiitz should really be asked sometimehow unravelthebeginnings of theelectronic era in the
cameintobeing...!)
'SpiritusIntelligentiae' fieldof music(whichis ahead of all thevisualarts
Anotherdecisivestepat theend of 1953was the in thisrespect)and theintellectual rootsofthisnew
publicationof a special editionof the technical epoch.
house journalof the North-West GermanRadio. *
This issue,devotedto electronicmusic,coveredall
theelectroniccompositionsrealizedduring1953,the An Index of New Musical Notation, in which the devices used
in contemporary music will be catalogued, is to be established
constitutionof the Colognestudio(all the equip- at the New York Public Library.
650

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