Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T02:22:53.826Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hugh Davies’s Electronic Music Documentation 1961–1968

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2015

James Mooney
James Mooney*
Affiliation:
School of Music, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS2 9JT, UK
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper provides an account and interpretation of Hugh Davies’s electronic music research and documentation from the period 1961–1968. It is argued that Davies, particularly via his International Electronic Music Catalog (published 1968), characterised electronic music for the first time as a truly international, interdisciplinary praxis, whereas in the preceding literature the full extent of that international, interdisciplinary scope had been represented only partially, and in a way that was heavily biased in favour of the ostensibly ‘main’ Western European and North American schools. This argument is demonstrated by referring to a range of published sources dating from 1952 to 1962, which represented the praxis of electronic music as somewhat fragmented and parochial, and to a range of Davies’s published and unpublished writings, which conveyed a sense of the various international, aesthetic and disciplinary threads coalescing into an apparently coherent whole. An interpretation of Davies’s motivations for representing electronic music in this way is provided, which has to do with his belief in international and interdisciplinary exchange as catalysts for the development of the electronic idiom. Many subsequent publications rely upon the data provided in the Catalog, which continues to be, arguably, the most complete record of international, interdisciplinary electronic music activity up to the end of 1967. Some examples are given that illustrate the influence of the Catalog upon subsequent studies. It is concluded that further work is needed in order to fully understand and evaluate the historiographic consequences of the Catalog’s influence upon discourses of electronic music history.

Type
Articles
Information
Organised Sound , Volume 20 , Issue 1: Special issue: Organised Sound Celebrates 20 Years , April 2015 , pp. 111 - 121
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cross, L. 1968. Electronic Music, 1948–1953. Perspectives of New Music 7(1): 32–65.Google Scholar
Dal Farra, R. 2006. Something Lost, Something Hidden, Something Found: Electroacoustic Music by Latin American Composers. Organised Sound 11(2): 131–142.Google Scholar
Davies, H. 1961. A Survey of Electronic Music. Unpublished essay.*Google Scholar
Davies, H. 1963a. Electronic Music and Musique Concrète: An Historical Survey. Unpublished dissertation.*Google Scholar
Davies, H. 1963b. New Directions in Music. The New University 12(May 1963): 8–17.Google Scholar
Davies, H. 1964a. Letter to Denis Stevens, undated c.1964.*Google Scholar
Davies, H. 1964b. A Discography of Electronic Music and Musique Concrète. Recorded Sound: The Journal of the British Institute of Recorded Sound 14(April 1964): 205–224.Google Scholar
Davies, H. 1966. A Discography of Electronic Music and Musique Concrète. Supplement. Recorded Sound: The Journal of the British Institute of Recorded Sound 22–23 (July 1966):69–78.Google Scholar
Davies, H. 1968. Répertoire international des musiques électroacoustiques / International Electronic Music Catalog. Paris and Trumansburg, NY: Groupe de Recherches Musicales de l’ORTF and Independent Electronic Music Center, Inc.Google Scholar
Eimert, H. and Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1955. Electronic Music. Vol. 1. Die Reihe. Bryn Mawr, PA: Theodore Presser.Google Scholar
Emmerson, S. 2007. Living Electronic Music. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Hein, F. 1999. Internationale Dokumentation Elektroakustischer Musik, www.emdoku.de.Google Scholar
Hiller, L., and Isaacson, Leonard. 1959. Experimental Music: Composition with an Electronic Computer. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, T. 2012. Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture (4th ed.). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Judd, F. 1961. Electronic Music and Musique Concrete. London: Neville Spearman.Google Scholar
Kuljuntausta, P. 2008. First Wave: A Microhistory of Early Finnish Electronic Music. Helsinki: Like.Google Scholar
Landy, L. 1999. Reviewing the Musicology of Electroacoustic Music: A Plea for Greater Triangulation. Organised Sound 4(1): 61–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Caine, H. 1956. Electronic Music. Proceedings of the IRE 44(4): 457–478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manning, P. 2004. Electronic and Computer Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manning, P. 2006. The Significance of Techné in Understanding the Art and Practice of Electroacoustic Composition. Organised Sound 11(1): 81–90.Google Scholar
Mooney, J. 2013. International Electronic Music Catalog: Hugh Davies and the (ethno)Musicology of Electronic Music. Conference paper presented at the Electronic Music Symposium at Anglia Ruskin (EMSAR), Cambridge, UK, www.james-mooney.co.uk.Google Scholar
ORTF. 1962. Répertoire international des musiques expérimentales: studios, oeuvres, équipements, bibliographie. Paris: Service de la recherche de la Radiodiffusion-Telévision Francaise.Google Scholar
Prieberg, F. 1960. Musica ex Machina: Über das Verhältnis von Musik und Technik. Berlin: Ullstein.Google Scholar
Prieberg, F. 1963. Musica ex Machina. Trans. Paola Tonini. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Schaeffer, P. 1952. À la recherche d’une musique concrète. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.Google Scholar
Teruggi, D. 2004. Electroacoustic Preservation Projects: How to Move Forward. Organised Sound 9(1): 55–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weidenaar, R. 1966. Letter to Hugh Davies, dated 5 October 1966.*Google Scholar
Wendt, L. 1985. Sound Poetry: I. History of Electro-Acoustic Approaches II. Connections to Advanced Electronic Technologies. Leonardo 18(1): 11–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zajicek, L. 1995. The History of Electroacoustic Music in the Czech and Slovak Republics. Leonardo Music Journal 5(January 1995):39–48.Google Scholar
*Unpublished sources held in the Hugh Davies Collection, The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB, UK.Google Scholar