Do you like old synthpop? Then OHM: The early gurus of electronic music is something for you!!
The whole compilation is on Spotify(some songs missing) and YouTube (3 songs missing) and probably other sites too :) it consists of the most important early composers and pieces from many different places, time periods and styles.
Some pieces uses one of the first ever electronic musical instruments: the theremin! It was invented by soviet musician-physicst Leon Theremin around 1920, therefore the name. This instrument is space-controlled, so you play it by moving your hand around it, not really touching it. It looks really cool!
In the first track (CD:1), "Tchaikovsky: Valse Sentimentale" (2:08) 1977, Clara Rockmore, a true pioneer in space-controlled electronic music, plays the Theremin together with her sister Nadia Reisenberg, who plays piano. This piece is truly magnificent and strange-soundig :D Rockmore actually was Leon Thermins student and protégé in the beginning of her career!
Before this gets way too long I must tell about one of my favourites in CD:1, which is the 4th track: "Williams Mix" (5:42) 1952 by John Cage. ...... And at the end of it you can hear a long abd roaring applause, which is very much deserved, of course :D Chris Cutler (musician, composer) tells about this piece in the booklet included with the CD collection.
"Williams Mix" follows a score five hundred pages long, which has never been reproduced, each page made up of two ten-inch graphic sections. The tape is to be laid directly on the page, which is a pattern showing all the edits and the angles at which tape should be cut, as well as recipes for constructing the sounds each piece of tape should contain -Cutler, 2000
The score he's talking about (a piece of it pictured above, x) is a sort of pattern or guide for making the pieces of magnetic tape that was used, making it possible to split, splice and edit the sounds. Around 600 tracks of sounds from for example the country, the city, wind- and electronically produced sounds. (X) This took about a year and was absolutely groundbreaking work! More info here!
If you liked that one, "He Destroyed Her Image" (1:59) 1973 by Charles Dodge is also a mix of different sounds, but made with newer and more advanced technology, and it's far more melodious and, well, structured. It plays with words like a poem, and Dodge has the following to say about it (from the booklet, source below):
I'd never been able to write very effective vocal music, and here was an opportunity to make music with words. I was really attracted to that. It wasn't singing in the usual sense. It was making music out of the nature of speech itself. I've always liked humor and had an attraction to the bizarre, the surreal. These poems were almost dreamlike in their take on reality. So that made me feel at home somehow. -Dodge, 2000
This is my favourite in CD:3 and the vibes are really amazing! I think thats all for this post but if you are interested, just ask me and I'll write about more of the songs! The whole collection has 42 in total :)
Sources for images are provided in the main text or ALT text, as well as links with other sources for information. Source for the booklet that came with the CD: OHM: the early gurus of electronic music: 1948-1980 (2000) by Thomas Ziegler and Jason Gross, ellipsis arts.
