THE CONCORDIA COLLECTION WITHIN ELECTROACOUSTIC HISTORY
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1913-1945
THE EARLY BEGINNINGS



1948
France
Pierre Schaeffer composes the first musique concrète work, Étude aux chemins de fer.

Discovery of the Loop and the Birth of Musique Concrète
The first experiences with musique concrète were the result of an “error” Schaeffer discovered while working in the studio. A sound effects disc he was playing had a scratch which caused the disc to play a repeated loop. He realized that when the attack of a recorded sound was removed, the source was difficult to impossible to recognize. Out of this discovery, Étude aux chemins de fer resulted.

1923
USA
László Moholy-Nagy publishes “Neue Gestaltung in der Musik. Möglichkeiten des Gramophons” (“New Form in Music. Possibilities of the Phonograph”) in Der Sturm, invoking the creative potential of the phonograph. 
  
1929
Germany
Electronic sound studio in Darmstadt (Jörg Mager).
  
1930
Germany
Walter Ruttmann’s Weekend is a sound film without images that is sometimes considered to be the first work of “musique concrète”. Ruttmann recorded sound onto film stock and was then was able to edit the recording, create loops and other montages, etc. The film was projected (without images) and later broadcast as a Hörspiel on the radio. 

France
In Opium, Journal d’une désintoxication (translated as Opium: The Diary of a Cure) Jean Cocteau speaks of the recorded voice and the astonishing possibilities of the disc as an audio object.

Great Britain
At the BBC, various experiments with reverberation for Ezra Pound’s radio operas.
  
1932
Germany
Dessau “Studio” (Bauhaus): Paul Arma, László Moholy-Nagy and Friedrich Trautwein.

Great Britain
The Blattnerphone is a direct (and very imposing) precursor of the tape recorder.
  
1934
France
Edgard Varèse uses the Theremin (later revised for Ondes Martenot) in Équatorial.
1935
Germany
Invention of the tape recorder, which would only be introduced in the USA after the Second World War. Gaining only moderate success amongst the general public, it was very popular with professionals — broadcasters, producers, etc. — and connoisseurs. Replacing acetate discs in the radio world, the tape recorder allowed recordings to be edited.

Soviet Union
The Variophone is the first Russian synthesizer, developed by Evgeny Sholpe in Leningrad.
  
1935-1940
Canada
Norman McLaren, animator working for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), scratched, drew or photographed directly onto film stock. This created electronic sounds of a very particular nature.

USA
Slow development of the tape recorder.
  
1944
USA
Percy Grainger, composer of Country Gardens, developed the idea of a Free Music Machine with Burnett Cross, a machine that would allow him to create “beatless music”. This “music in which no standard duration of beat occurs” would use continuous gliding tones, and the melody and rhythms would be completely liberated from the constraints of traditional harmony, scales and meter. Among his explorations of this principle are works such as the Love Verses from “The Song of Solomon”.
  
1945
Germany
The first stereo recording is made in Berlin, during a bombardment. The work recorded was Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto, performed by Walter Gieseking and conducted by Wilhelm Furtwangler.
  
1948
France
Pierre Schaeffer composes the first musique concrète work, Étude aux chemins de fer. 
  
  1923   1929 1930   1932   1934 1935 1935-2   1944 1945   1948
 
  1923   1929 1930   1932   1934 1935 1935+   1944 1945   1948


Produced with the financial participation of the Department of Canadian Heritage

Patrimoine canadien      Gouvernement du Canada

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Projet d’archivage Concordia (PAC) Communauté électroacoustique canadienne / Canadian Electroacoustic Community