Playing the Music Electric in Paine Hall

English scientist Michael Faraday and German composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may seem to be unlikely bedfellows, but their legacies have been combined to surprising effect. A series of concerts by the Fromm Players at Harvard last weekend celebrating “60 Years of Electronic Music” demonstrated how classical music has absorbed technological advancements and how this influential fusion has opened up new possibilities for artistic creation.

On Oct. 5, 1948, Pierre Schaeffer debuted the first piece of musique concrète in Paris, creating new avenues for music that have been explored over the last 60 years. The concerts celebrated the anniversary of this event, showcasing some of the most important works that have been inspired by these original experiments.

The basic premise of musique concrète is to make music that combines “real” sounds recorded in the everyday world with tape effects to create a dense, atmospheric work of art. The related discipline of electroacoustic music often involves a live performer, but they are simply one part of the mix alongside the pre-recorded sounds. New playing techniques and strange harmonies are blended in to stretch the music even further. Melodies and rhythms are buried deep and are often extremely difficult to find. In short, this is not the music you will be tested on in your Music 1b midterm.

Last week’s concerts showcased a wide variety of the music that has been produced since Schaeffer’s great breakthroughs. Many of the pieces involved live musicians backed by electric sounds from the 32 loudspeakers that were distributed all around Paine Concert Hall. Others consisted purely of pre-recorded music. The music ranged from accessible, jazzy clarinet pieces to highly dissonant compositions for piano, flute, and four-channel tape.

Two of the four concerts focused on the work of Karlheinz Stockhausen, a highly influential German composer noted for combining musique concrète with electrical music. Stockhausen, who died in December of last year, was at the forefront of avant-garde music, composing challenging but hugely influential works.

The concerts were attended by Martin Bresnick and Helmut Lachenmann, two of the composers whose works were being performed.

“I think they’ve made an interesting selection,” said Bresnick, the Charles T. Wilson Professor of Music at Yale, commending the diversity of music on display. Bresnick also praised the “Hydra” performance system designed by the Harvard University Studio for Electroacoustic Composition, which created a dramatic and atmospheric rendition of his composition. Giving credit to flautist Patti Monson for her playing during his “Conspiracies for Solo Flute and Four ‘Other Flutes.’” Bresnick emphasized the importance of multiphonics—a novel way of playing the flute that relies on unusual fingerings and special blowing techniques—to the composition. Multiphonics are one of the many innovations that have furthered the development of electroacoustic music.

Bresnick seemed very optimistic about the future of the genre, which, he said, offers a multiplicity of opportunities. “I have ceased to think of the future of music like a train, or cars moving past each other. It is like a balloon, expanding in all directions.”

Pieces like Lachenmann’s “Pression” show the diversity of possibilities that have been and still are available to musicians. Focused more on how sound is produced than on the sound itself, it offers an unusual listening experience, as the cellist spends much of the piece running his hands along the strings and bow rather than actually playing.

Bresnick’s optimism for the future is not unconditional, and he acknowledges that the experimentation inherent in this music can lead to problems.

“There can be indulgences and excesses,” he said. “Writing good music is as difficult as it always was.”

Despite this difficulty, the amount of good music that has sprung from the crucial innovations Schaeffer made 60 years ago is remarkable. As its name would suggest, the importance of musique concrète—influential in the work of The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Aphex Twin—is very much set in stone.