Electronic Inspirations Series Editor Jane F. Fulcher Series Board Members: Celia Applegate Philip Bohlman Kate van Orden Michael P. Steinberg Enlightenment Orpheus: The Power of Music in Other Worlds Vanessa Agnew Voice Lessons: French Mélodie in the Belle Epoque Katherine Bergeron Songs, Scribes, and Societies: The History and Reception of the Loire Valley Chansonniers Jane Alden Harmony and Discord: Music and the Transformation of Russian Cultural Life Lynn M. Sargeant Musical Renderings of the Philippine Nation Christi- Anne Castro The Sense of Sound: Musical Meaning in France, 1260–1 330 Emma Dillon Staging the French Revolution: Cultural Politics and the Paris Opera, 1789– 1794 Mark Darlow Music, Piety, and Propaganda: The Soundscapes of Counter- Reformation Bavaria Alexander J. Fisher The Politics of Appropriation: German Romantic Music and the Ancient Greek Legacy Jason Geary Defining Deutschtum: Political Ideology, German Identity, and Music- Critical Discourse in Liberal Vienna David Brodbeck Materialities: Books, Readers, and the Chanson in Sixteenth- Century Europe Kate van Orden Singing the Resurrection: Body, Community, and Belief in Reformation Europe Erin Lambert Electronic Inspirations: Technologies of the Cold War Musical Avant- Garde Jennifer Iverson Electronic Inspirations Technologies of the Jennifer Iverson Cold War Musical Avant- Garde 1 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Iverson, Jennifer, author. Title: Electronic inspirations : technologies of the Cold War musical avant-garde / Jennifer Iverson. Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2018. | Series: New cultural history of music series | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018006765 | ISBN 9780190868192 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780190868208 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Electronic music—20th century—History and criticism. | Westdeutscher Rundfunk. Studio umlaut: Elektronische Musik. Classification: LCC ML1380.I84 2018 | DDC 786.709/045—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018006765 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Paperback printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America This volume is published with the generous support of the AMS 75 PAYS Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. For Della and Ian: dream it. Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1 Origins: Creating a Laboratory 23 2 Kinship: Cage, Tudor, and the New Timbral Utopia 49 3 Collaboration: The Science and Culture of Additive Synthesis 75 4 Reclaiming Technology: From Information Theory to Statistical Form 105 5 Controversy: The Aleatory Debates Beyond Darmstadt 139 6 Technosynthesis: From Vocoder Speech to Electronic Music 167 Epilogue 195 Notes 201 Glossary of Actors 241 Bibliography 251 Index 293 Don’t stop after beating the swords into ploughshares, don’t stop! Go on beating and make musical instruments out of them. Whoever wants to make war again will have to turn them into ploughshares first. — Yehuda Amichai, “An appendix to the vision of peace” Acknowledgments Once I articulated “invisible collaboration” as a central theme of this book, I began to see it everywhere. My own work is deeply and immeasurably enriched by the collaborative encounters that define my scholarship. In researching this book, I have spent considerable time in European archives, foremost among them the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel—t he city I call my second home. While I am there and while I am not, I am grateful for the attentive guidance of Heidy Zimmermann, Matthias Kassel, Angela Ida de Benedictis, Michèle Noirjean-L inder, Evelyne Diendorf, and Isolde Degen. At the WDR Historical Archive in Cologne, I benefited from the help of Jutta Lambrecht, Petra Witting- Noethen, and Maria Lutze. At the Stockhausen Foundation in Kürten, I am grateful for the significant assis- tance of Maria Lukas, Suzanne Stephens- Janning, and the always responsive Kathinka Pasveer. Several copyright holders have generously given permis- sion to publish archival materials, including the Amichai family, the Nono family, the Xenakis family, the Pousseur family, and the Berio family. I have benefited much from sustained interactions with European interlocutors who know midcentury electronic music inside and out, including Kees Tazelaar, Pascal Decroupet, and Elena Ungeheuer. I have especially enjoyed many conversations with Gottfried Michael Koenig, who generously shared his insider experience and deepened my understanding of everything from the techniques to the politics of the studio. I began working on this project in fits and starts at the University of Iowa, where the support of David Gier (now at University of Michigan) and the mentoring of Christine Getz and Jennifer Sessions helped me toward a crystalized idea. I learned so much in conversations and continuing study with my then- junior colleagues, including Matthew Arndt, Nicole Biamonte