Columbia–Princeton Electronic Music Center

★★★★★

   Technology is what changes the world. New sources and technical methods of sound modeling have always formed the basis of the development of new styles and even a new aesthetic paradigm. The history of electronic music in USA began in 1951, when the Columbia Music Department purchased the first Ampex 400 tape recorder. Two composers: Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening began experimenting with recorded voices and instruments. During the First Congress of Experimental Music in 1953, they made contact with composers in Europe who created the first experiments in radio studios: Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry in Paris, and Karlheinz Stockhausen and Herbert Eimert in Cologne. These meetings resulted in many new ideas for the development of electronic music studios in universities of USA and Canada. In 1957 first American studio was installed in Macmillan Hall. The same year group of composers were able to work with RCA Mark II synthesizer installed in the studio, a flagship of Columbia–Princeton Electronic Music Center. And the first presentation of electronic music from Columbia–Princeton Electronic Music Center took place at the Composers Forum concert at the Macmillan Theater at Columbia University on May 9, 1961, and was repeated the next day. Material from this concert was published by Columbia in 1964.
   Six pieces by six composers presenting the most advanced achievements in the field of experimental and studio music. Few of them were composers of different cultures. The first in the program was Bülent Arel (1919-1990), a composer and pioneer of electronic music from Turkey. Born in Istanbul, a graduate of the Ankara Conservatory, he was invited in 1959 by the Rockefeller Foundation to the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, later became a professor at Yale University (from 1961 to 1970) and a professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he worked from 1971 to retired in 1989. He was an active composer of contemporary symphonic and chamber music, his music for tape includes the two main pieces of Stereo Electronic Music No. 1 (1961) and Stereo Electronic Music No. 2 (1962). The first of these two tracks was presented during the concert mentioned above and released as an introduction to the first LP presenting the achievements of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.

Columbia–Princeton Electronic Music Center (1964)

   One of artists known for his serious contribution to the development of the ideas and techniques of concrete and electronic music was an Egyptian ethnomusicologist and composer Halim El-Dabh (1921-2017). In his works he combined electronic sounds and processed human voice. El-Dabh’s work Leiyla and the Poet shows modern version of old Arabic tale about Layla and Majnun. The story of Qays ibn al-Mulawwah, 7th century Bedouin poet obsessed with beloved Layla became the context for the narrative form in this early period of concrete music. He achieved interesting effects using processed vocal sounds in the manner rooted in traditional folk music. He became the pioneer of such forms already in beginning of 1940s. He was student of Cairo University, when in 1944 he created The Expression of Zaar, using wire recorder. Composition Layla and Poet was recorded 15 years later in Columbia-Princeton Studio on AMPEX tape recorders. Halim El-Dabh has strong influence on the ideas of developing experimental music and experimenting composers of popular music. His idea of looping became technical base for many progressive artists, and its influences included popular music. Some references can be found in the early work of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (Leila), Mothers of Invention and Frank Zappa.
   Two composers playing leading role in the studio, presented two compositions combining electronics with traditional musical media. In the work by Vladimir Ussachevsky (1911-1990) called /Creation—Prologue based on text of Babylonian creation myth Enuma Elish, electronic sound was used as accompaniment to performance of The Little Chorus Of Macalester College mastered by Ian Morton. In Gargoyles by Otto Luening (1900-1996) sound of RCA synthesizer recorded and tape manipulated is interfering with solo violin played by Max Pollikoff. Two works published on this record were created solely as a result of pure artificial sound. Argentinian-American composer Mario Davidovsky (1934-2019) presented Electronic Study No. 1 based on sine wave, square wave and white noise tape manipulations. He came to USA in 1960 to study music and remained as citizen. One of his teachers was composer and mathematician Milton Babbitt (1916-2011) who’s Composition for Synthesizer opens B-side of the album. Babbitt was also performer of this work on RCA Synthesizer. These pure electronic works show how fruitful was new idea of sound creation in connection with 20th century new principles of musical form. Six works, five of them composed with tape manipulations, four composers born outside US, three works of pure electronics, two works connecting electronics with traditional media, one example of musique concrete – this math is something really making sense. Five stars for sixty years of noble presence in musical world.