Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T06:54:08.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘There is Music in It, But It is Not Music’: A Reception History of Musique Concrète in Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 August 2018

LOUIS NIEBUR Open the ORCID record for LOUIS NIEBUR [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The traditional narrative of the development of musique concrète and elektronische Musik tells a story of esoteric, academic branches of musical modernism emerging out of Paris and Cologne in the 1950s. But this narrative clouds our understanding of the unique ways this music developed in Britain, largely filtered through the BBC, as a relatively populist, accessible iteration of Continental techniques. This article explores how British reactions to contemporary music and, in particular, musique concrète and elektronische Musik, reflected on the one hand continued suspicion towards Continental music and on the other a deep insecurity about Britain's musical position in the world. The predominantly hostile attitude towards electronic music from within establishment musical cultures betray profound concerns about trends that were seen to exert a harmful influence on British musical society.

Type
Articles
Information
Twentieth-Century Music , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 211 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2018 

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

Bosworth, G. H. ‘Points from the Post’. Radio Times, 10 August 1961, 59.Google Scholar
Bridgewater, Leslie. ‘Music in the Theatre’. Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 103/4950 (1955), 386–97.Google Scholar
Briggs, Asa. The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, Vol. 2: The Golden Age of Wireless. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Carpenter, Humphrey. The Envy of the World: Fifty Years of the BBC Third Programme and Radio 3, 1946–1996. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996.Google Scholar
Cary, Tristram. ‘Introduction’, in Dictionary of Musical Technology. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Chessa, Luciano. Luigi Russolo, Futurist: Noise, Visual Arts, and the Occult. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Coates, J. F. Radio Times, 26 February 1954, 33.Google Scholar
Cooke, Deryck. ‘Autumn Symphony Concerts’. Radio Times, 25 September 1953, 27.Google Scholar
Currie, G. A. ‘Points from the Post’. Radio Times, 27 July 1961, 59.Google Scholar
Doctor, Jennifer. The BBC and Ultra-Modern Music, 1922–1936. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Drew, David. ‘Music That Cannot Be Played’. Music and Musicians, March 1954, 11.Google Scholar
Dreyfus, Laurence. ‘Early Music Defended against Its Devotees: A Theory of Historical Performance in the Twentieth Century’. Musical Quarterly 69/3 (1983), 297–322.Google Scholar
Eimert, Herbert. ‘What is Electronic Music?’ Die Reihe 1 (1955); English Edition (1957), 1–10.Google Scholar
Emmerson, Simon. Living Electronic Music. Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007.Google Scholar
Frank, Alan. ‘Radio Music’. Musical Times 95/1332 (1954), 80–2.Google Scholar
Geraghty, Christine. British Cinema in the Fifties: Gender, Genre and the ‘New Look’. London: Routledge, 2000.Google Scholar
Goddard, Scott. ‘Aldeburgh Festival’. Musical Times, 95/1338 (1954), 438.Google Scholar
Hansen, Peter S. An Introduction to Twentieth Century Music, 4th edn. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1978.Google Scholar
Heikinheimo, Seppo. The Electronic Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen: Studies on the Esthetical and Formal Problems of its First Phase, trans. Absetz, Brad. Helsinki: Suomen Musiikkitieteellinen, 1972.Google Scholar
Herd, J. C. Radio Times, 3 July 1953, 29.Google Scholar
Leonard, Lawrence. ‘Is Musique Concrète an Art Form?’ Musical Opinion, November 1954, 87.Google Scholar
‘Ludwig Koch, “This Fanatical Lover of Sounds”’. Radio Times, 2 November 1951.Google Scholar
Manning, Peter. ‘Paris and Musique Concrete’, in Electronic and Computer Music, 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. 19–25.Google Scholar
Milner, Anthony. ‘The Vocal Element in Melody’. Musical Times 97/1357 (1956), 128–31.Google Scholar
‘Music of the Future – Science Fiction for the Piano’. The Times (London), 19 December 1956, 2.Google Scholar
‘Musique Concrete – Noise, Sound or Music?’ The Times (London), 1 July 1954, 5.Google Scholar
‘Musique Concrète – Tyranny Over Sound’. The Times (London), 12 July 1954, 4.Google Scholar
Niebur, Louis. Special Sound: The Creation and Legacy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
‘Notes from Abroad’. Musical Times 95/1342 (1954), 671–4.Google Scholar
Palombini, Carlos. ‘Ideas for a Musicology of Electroacoustic Musics: Notes to a Reading of Landy’. Electronic Musicological Review 6 (2001), 2.Google Scholar
Parrott, Ian. ‘Escape to Outer Darkness’. Musical Times 97/1390 (1956), 294–5.Google Scholar
‘Points from the Post’. Radio Times, 15 June 1961, 59.Google Scholar
‘Points from the Post’. Radio Times, 17 May 1962, 28.Google Scholar
‘The President's Address’. Musical Times 91/1292 (1950), 387–9.Google Scholar
Radio Times, 5 March 1954, 33.Google Scholar
Reaney, Gilbert. ‘Radio Music’. Musical Times 96/1351 (1955), 477–9.Google Scholar
Robertson, Alec. ‘This Modern Music’. Radio Times, 5 October 1951, 13.Google Scholar
Russolo, Luigi. Arte dei rumori (The Art of Noises), trans. Brown, Barclay. New York: Pendragon Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Rutland, Harold. ‘Adventures in Contemporary Music’. Radio Times, 21 March 1952, 11.Google Scholar
Scannell, Paddy and Cardiff, David. A Social History of British Broadcasting, Volume One: 1922–1939, Serving the Nation. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991.Google Scholar
Schaeffer, Pierre. In Search of a Concrete Music, trans. North, Christine and Dack, John. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Schaeffer, Pierre. La Musique Concrète. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1973.Google Scholar
Schrader, Barry. Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982.Google Scholar
Stanford, R. D. ‘Points from the Post’. Radio Times, 10 August 1961, 59.Google Scholar
Stuckenschmidt, Hans Heinz. ‘The Third Stage’, Die Reihe 1 (1955); English Edition (1957), 11–13.Google Scholar
Taylor, Tim. Strange Sounds: Music, Technology & Culture. New York: Routledge, 2001.Google Scholar
Teruggi, Daniel. ‘Musique Concrete Today: Its Reach, Evolution of Concepts and Role in Musical Thought’. Organized Sound 20/1, 51–9.Google Scholar
The Times (London), 10 November 1954, 4.Google Scholar