Electronic music
On 15 January 1968 Redcliffe Concerts gave the first-ever concert in Britain of Electronic Music by British composers, the programme for which is our tenth illustration. It was the work of Tristram Cary and Peter Zinovieff, who did the most to establish and advance professionally the technique of composition by computer in this country.
Illustration 10
First London Concert of Electronic Music
- First London concert of Electronic Music by British composers
Queen Elizabeth Hall Monday 15 January 1968
Presented by Tristram Cary / Peter Zinovieff EMS
Programme
Potpourri Delia Derbyshire
Diversed mind Ernest Berk
3 4 5 Tristram Cary
Birth is life is power is death is God is….. Tristram Cary
December Quartet Peter Zinovieff
Contrasts Essconic Daphne Oram and Ivor Walsworth
* * * *
Partita for unattended computer Peter Zinovieff
Silent Spring George Newson
Syntheses 8, 9, and 12 Jacob Meyerowitz
Agnus Dei Peter Zinovieff
March probabilistic Peter Zinovieff and Alan Sutcliffe
The event was outwardly a spectacular success. A sell-out, a packed Elizabeth Hall, a taxi queue extending to Waterloo Station, and numerous reviews, far larger and more detailed than was normally the practice, some showing insight, particularly those in scientific journals, like Wireless World and Computer Weekly, all reflecting a high level of public curiosity, fed by the novelty value of the new technology.
One result of the concert was to stimulate the setting up of computerised studios in the music colleges and the music departments of universities throughout the country. The concert had demonstrated the stage reached in computer technology in this country.Cary and Zinovieff were invited to give another Redcliffe Concert the following year, with live instruments to supplement and modulate the computer – generated sounds. A computer by itself could not make music without a composer’s creative ordering.
Two British composers were, in the 70s, researching seriously into using the computer as an integral part of their materia musica, Harrison Birtwistle and Jonathan Harvey. Each was commissioned by Redcliffe Concerts to compose a piece. Birtwistle’s Chronometer (1972) was based on the ticking of clocks. Harvey’s Inner Light 1 (1973) was pure abstract research into the harmonic spectrum. Its continuous transitions and “changing degrees of determinacy“ were explored in the relation of computer-generated sounds to pitched instrumental sounds. It was a work – in – progress, to be continued in the fourth Redcliffe Concert (1973)
In all, there were four concerts of Electronic Music given by Redcliffe Concerts, details of which are listed in this Appendix; the last was given on 26th November 1973
The story has a postscript. Just as the four Electronic Music concerts show a development in the use of the new medium, so Birtwistle and Harvey developed it in their later works; Birtwistle in his opera The Mask of Orpheus, for which Zinovieff wrote the libretto and electronics are integrated for the first time as part of the orchestral sonority; and Harvey in a piece for soprano and electronics From Silence, which is the point of arrival of his earlier researches. At a 50th birthday concert for him in 1989, From Silence was performed twice, and followed with Inner Light I, composed fifteen years earlier.
2. Second London concert of Electronic Music by British composers
Queen Elizabeth Hall Monday, 10 February, 1969
Presented by Cary / Zinovieff E M S
Programme
Four Interludes from a tragedy (I) Harrison Birtwistle
For Basset Clarinet and tape
M – Piriform Justin Connolly and Peter Zinovieff
Violin and Tape
Violin, Flute and Soprano
Violin, Flute, Soprano and tape
Spasmo Alan Sutcliffe
Studio of origin EMS London
The Final Desolation of Solitude Lawrence Casserly
Equation (Part 1) Don Banks
Four Interludes from a Tragedy (II) Harrison Birtwistle
* * * *
Four Interludes from a Tragedy (III) Harrison Birtwistle
Narcissus Tristram Cary
Sonata 6 Donald Henshilwood
Shozyg I Hugh Davies
Sychrome Ernest Berk
Four Interludes from a Tragedy (IV) Harrison Birtwistle
3. Third Concert of Electronic and Computer Music by British Composers
Queen Elizabeth Hall Monday 24 April 1972
Presented by Tristram Cary / Peter Zinovieff, Electronics by EMS London
Programme
Fireworks I EMS
Bedtime Stories Howard Rees
Poem one Dedicated to you Lars-Gunner Bodin
Poem two Dance Figure (for EP) Sten Hanson
Chronometer Harrison Birtwistle
Commissioned by Redcliffe Concerts of British Music with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain. First performance
* * * *
Fireworks 2 EMS
Trios Tristram Cary
Poem three Peter Zinovieff
Poem four
Gesang der jünglinge Karlheinz Stockhausen
4. Fourth concert of Electronic Music by British composers.
Queen Elizabeth Hall Monday, 26 November 1973
Presented by Tristram Cary / Peter Zinovieff
Ulysses EnsembleFl. Cl. Vln. Vla. Vc. Pf. Org. Perc.
Directed by Jonathan Harvey, Christopher Wintle
Programme
Chanson de Geste Harrison Birtwistle
Duets for tape and ensemble
Edited for an ensemble of five instruments by Christopher Wintle
Trio for flute and tape Simon Desorgher
Exercise for a passing cloud EMS Putney
For 4-track tape
Continuum II (revised) Tristram Cary
For 4-track tape, violin and cello
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China Music for 4 track tape Hans Werner Henze
Inner Light 1 for seven players and tape Jonathan Harvey
First performance
Commissioned by the Redcliffe Concerts of British Music
with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain.