The ambient century : from Mahler to trance ; the evolution of sound in the electronic age

THE AMBIENT CENTURYFROM MAHLER TO TRANCE — THE EVOLUTION OF SOUND IN THE ELECTRONIC AGEBy Mark PrendergastBLOOMSBURYCopyright © 2000 Mark Prendergast. All rights reserved.ISBN: 1-58234-134-6Excerpt BOOK ONE THE ELECTRONIC LANDSCAPEIt was the summer of 1968. For some a time of student unrest, for othersa time of discovery. For the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen itwas a time of intense emotional upheaval. His wife and children had lefthim. Alone in his house in Kurten, near Cologne, he contemplated his fate.Ideas of suicide crossed his mind. He went on hunger strike and vowed to waitfor his family to return. As time passed he began to write down Japanese-styleverses like: Play a sound, Play it for so long, Until you feel that you should stopor Play a vibration in the rhythm of the universe, Play a vibration in the rhythm of dreaming. That such words could lead to what Stockhausen termed `intuitive music' isone of the great fascinations of the twentieth century. Here the composer wasgetting right inside what it meant to create sound, no longer only concentratingon the external but also the internal processes of becoming aware of what asound was actually like when first encountered. Or, more accurately, when itwas encountered in a different way. Stockhausen played a piano tone after fourdays of fasting. What he heard changed his life for ever. John Cage had already opened up the world to the reality of silence. Duringthe late 1940s and early 1950s the guru from the American Midwest had pushedmusic from Eastern-inspired piano pieces of exquisite calm to nothing at all,expressed most concisely in 4' 33". Here, for that duration of time, anyperformer of any instrument was required to not-play. The music was everythingelse heard, the Ambient sounds of whatever environment the `performance'was happening in. Cage had professed that his favourite music was wheneverything was still, when nothing was attempted. The very sounds of hiseveryday environment were `poetry to his ears'. This non-purposeful acceptance of extraneous sound as music was symptomaticof the increasing hubbub of twentieth-century urban life, where silence asan experience was very rare. To flash back to the mid-nineteenth century, musicwas something that was experienced as a singular occurrence — once you'd beento the concert hall and heard the orchestra play the symphony, that was it. Musicwas live or not at all. There was always the piano, but you had to be musicallyliterate to enjoy it. Or at least know somebody who was. Then along came the player piano, which could record a composer'sperformance. But then Edison realized you could record music magneticallyand away we went towards the capturing of music on record. By the beginningof the twentieth century even Debussy was putting his music on to the newmedium. Add to that the increasing popularity of records, the universality ofradio, the rise of the tape recorder, the clatter of mass production, the coming ofelectronic instruments, the increased demand for cars, the universal spread oftelevision and so on — and by John Cage's time modern noise was indeeddeafening. Music didn't need to have to jolt people out of their quiet lethargy. Itno longer, as it did in the Romantic music of the early nineteenth century, hadto carry the sum of all human emotions. Life was hectic enough without morestormy symphonies. Many opted for quiet. The twentieth century saw two things occur in music which had neverhappened before. Firstly, music was deconstructed. Before, Western music wasquite rigid. The sonata form of the Classical period had specific roles which hadto be adhered to. Of course there were exceptional talents but they wereconstrained within a chosen form. Then the Romantics started to loosen things.Wagner's grandiose operatic orchestration and Bruckner and Mahler pushed thesymphony to its limits so that by the end of the nineteenth century it began tocreak under its own weight. Then along came Satie, Debussy and Ravel with alighter touch. They wrote more accessible melodies in shorter forms whichopenly embraced modernity and the need to look beyond parochialism to theriches to be found in other cultures such as the Orient. As a boy in New EnglandCharles Ives would hear his bandleader father's experiments in overlapping thesounds of different marching bands playing different tunes. In France, Messiaenwould show that sound could possess rich colours if exotic scales were used.Schoenberg and his pupils of the Second Viennese School tore up the rule bookon music and rewrote it imposing upon it a destabilizing force known asSerialism. As old musical ideas begun to be supplanted by new, a second radical changeoccurred — and this was in the very way music was generated. Composers andmusicians began to be fascinated by the nature of individual tones. Serialism, inits dislocative way, had thrown up an interest in the essence of a single sound.The leaders of the post-Second World War avant-garde in Europe, such asStockhausen. Schaeffer and Varèse, seized on new electronic equipment andbegan to experiment with tape recorders. New qualities in sound wereperceived, new tonalities divorced from any traditional acoustic instrumentswere realized. De Forest's invention of the valve in the 1920s had madeamplification possible. This, coupled with the concept of the sound environment,made for some spectacular results. The work of Varèse and Xenakis in thepointed Philips pavilion at the 1958 World Fair in Brussels became a twentieth-centuryarchetype of progress married to artistic achievement. Many, feeling the tug of technological evolution, had campaigned for newmusical means. Debussy famously wrote of the century of aeroplanes deserving amusic of its own. Varèse saw that electronics could free music from the shacklesof the past. The conductor Leopold Stokowski saw a future in which musicwould be generated by hitherto unknown means. But it took time fortechnology to catch up with ideas. There were many brave and interestingattempts at creating music machines. In the 1920s both the Theremin andOndes Martenot were valid sources of novel electronic sound. But it wasn'tuntil the tape experiments of Schaeffer and others that it was realized that adevice would have to be built to handle all aspects of organizing and creatingmusic. Hence the arrival of the first synthesizer in the US in the early 1950s. But,as with the computers of the period, music synthesis was tied to the laboratory orsimilar locations. Then Bob Moog took synthesizers out of the lab and madethem more compact and portable. Electronic means had become accessible toany musician who wanted them. Stockhausen's prediction in 1955 that newelectronic instruments would yield `what no instrumentalist has ever beencapable of' was at last becoming a reality. The importance to twentieth-century music of atmospheric sound, its timbreand personality — indeed its `Ambience' — is a measure of how much innovativemusical ideas intertwined with technological change. The series of quiet,luscious Hispanic-inflected albums which Miles Davis made in the late1950s are a case in point. The spirit of Debussy and Iberian composers suchas Rodrigo infuses this beautiful work but so too does the already impressivestate of studio and recording technology of the time. Multi-track recording andediting at the production console, enhanced by special microphone placement,highlighted qualities in the music that in earlier times would have been buriedunderneath gramophone crackle and tape hiss. It's true to say that improvementsin production and consumption of music allowed quieter, more experimentalelements to creep in. Could Ligeti's beautiful Lux Aeterna of 1966 have beenrendered credibly on old scratchy 78s? In the nineteenth century symphonies were often loud and raucous affairsthat gave the public a visceral jolt through the sheer dynamic of the orchestra. Inthe twentieth century rock seemed to take over this function. This leftcomposers free to experiment. Wendy (formerly Walter) Carlos transcribedBach for Moog synthesizer. Iannis Xenakis used mathematics and computers togenerate music. Toru Takemitsu fused Debussy with his Oriental sensibility in areverse image of what had occurred at the beginning of the century. Moreoversynthesizers became digital, with the ability to sample other instruments throughthe new microprocessing technology of silicon chips. By the end of thetwentieth century music was capable of being rendered via small personalcomputers through a veritable treasure-trove of new electronic samplers, effectsunits and complex software. New music no longer needed to shout loud toimpress. It could do so quietly through the beautiful textures of new supersound technology. The dominance of the computer in music at the end of the twentieth centurywas made possible by developments in software and miniaturization. In soundlabs at prestigious places like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)huge advances were made in areas such as acoustic modelling and spontaneousmusical response. In the first of these fields researchers are coming close to aperfect replication of the human voice, in itself an echo from Kubrick's prescientfilm 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the fictitious HAL 9000 computer couldspeak. In the latter field computers are being designed to become moremusically intelligent, so that they can accompany a human ensemble orinstrumentalist. Important as these things are to the century of sound they would be justaspects of research and development if it weren't for the fidelity of CompactDisc, or CD. The ability of a reflective disc with a diameter of just four and a halfinches to communicate music in all its recorded perfection has renderedtechnological advances audible in the home. With better hi-fi systems thelistener can hear the subtleties of Ambient sound whether it be by Satie, Delius,Cage or Eno. Stockhausen has remastered in digital form his entire life's workfor presentation on CD. The availability of so much music on the new soundmedium has radically changed people's perception of what music is. Thecombination of constant reissuing of back-catalogue and newer musical hybridshas blurred old prejudices, making it acceptable to like an eclectic mix of styles,At the end of the twentieth century old categories like jazz, pop and classical nolonger really applied. Everything was thrown into the sonic soup by virtue ofnew digital technology. Over a century music had traversed an electroniclandscape and now, by virtue of technology, its very texture, its very essence,had become digitally encoded. The search for newer and newer sounds hadopened up music to the endless possibilities of Ambient sound. Now, thebleeding heart of electronic progress had, by its very nature, rendered allrecorded music, by definition, Ambient.GUSTAV MAHLERThough many point to Wagner's awe-inspiring Prelude to Act 3 of Tristan undIsolde (1859) as being where modern music begins, its chromatic or uncertainkey style and hazy effect presaging a future era, for me Gustav Mahler is the realconnection between Romanticism and Modernism. His use of extremely longmelodic lines, recurring thematic elements and clear orchestral tones shifted thehistory of music towards the repetitive conceptual music of the twentiethcentury. Hence it's not for nothing that Mahler became big news when therecording industry coalesced in the 1960s. His cycle of symphonies seemedtailor-made for continuous listening pleasure. Most people's entry point to Mahler, born in 1860 in Bohemia, is theachingly beautiful Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 of 1902. And this because ofVisconti's mesmeric film Death In Venice (1971), which places a fictitious Mahler(played to the hilt by Dirk Bogarde) in a plague-doomed Venice in search ofperfect homoerotic love. In truth this limpid masterpiece for harp and stringswas a love poem to the real-life composer's future wife, Alma. Mahler's life was conventional in that he rose through the academic systemwithout fail. He gave his first live performance when only ten and by 1878 hadgraduated from the Prague and Vienna Conservatories and began conducting tomake money. In 1895 he converted from Judaism to Catholicism to becomehead of the Vienna Opera, then the most prestigious musical appointment in theworld. Yet his own music was ridiculed for its ardent sprinkling of cow bells andherd horns, its open-air sound, its use of folk tunes and nursery rhymes. Acomplete Romantic, Mahler believed he could put everything into his workand every summer retired to a country retreat in the Salzburg Alps to do so. What is remarkable about Mahler is that through a loosened key structure hecreated a mysterious language that is full of intense yearning. This was first heardin 1895's Symphony No. 3, whose concluding Adagio, subtitled `What Love TellsMe', blueprints the Mahler sound. The lilting shifts of the Poco Adagio from1900's `Fourth' expands the idea with a subtly understated rhythmic figure. Theaforementioned Adagietto from the Fifth is a compound of airy lightness andornate melancholia derived from one of the composer's songs, Ich Bin Der WeltAbhanden Gekommen (`I Am Lost To The World'). The Andante Moderato from1904's Sixth is sadness suffused in sound and tragically anticipated the loss, in1907, of both his job and his young daughter and his being diagnosed as havingheart disease. His song-symphony based on Chinese poems, Das Lied von derErde (Song Of The Earth) (1909), was a daring way to come to terms with tragedybut the lengthy Adagio to his unfinished Tenth (1910) revealed his true despairin a music which gradually dissipates tonality until we hear loud discord. Withina year he was dead. Mahler is singular among Romantic composers in that a selection of his musiccan be programmed for performance or playing on CD and the result in bothcases is a truly Ambient experience of landscape and emotion. This is particularlyfascinating in that his use of incidental sounds would be mirrored by suchAmbient House stars as The Orb nearly a century after his death.LISTENINGMahler is one of those composers whose work nearly every prominentconductor wants to excel at, and so there are versions and boxed sets galoreof his music. Sir Georg Solti on Decca, Bernard Haitink on Philips, RafaelKubelik on Deutsche Grammophon and Klaus Tennstedt on EMI are the mainheavyweights who have recorded all the symphonies. Yet individual works arebrought out better by different conductors. My favourites include BernardHaitink's masterly control of the Fourth's Poco Adagio in 1967, Sir JohnBarbirolli's velvet touch with the Fifth's Adagietto in 1969 and Herbert vonKarajan's 1975 controlled Andante from the Sixth plus his take on `I Am Lost ToThe World' with Christa Ludwig, and finally Karl Rickenbacher's sonorous1989 interpretation of the Tenth's Adagio.ERIK SATIEThe father of modern Ambience and Minimalism, Erik Satie, in the years 1887-93changed the whole course of musical history with three sets of miniaturestitled Trois Sarabandes, Trois Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes. With their clearmelodic phrases, exquisite lightness and fresh texture, Satie literally blew awaythe pomp and rhetoric of the old order. Here was a music of repetition withstrong emphasis on chords which seemed simpler and more fitting to a new age.Not only did he influence the likes of Debussy and Ravel but he also impressedfigures such as Picasso and Cocteau. In fact all the way through the twentiethcentury musicians and composers have acknowledged his vision and rebelliousmodernity. Satie's life reads like a catalogue of controversy and recklessness. The son of ashipbroker but reared by a stepmother who was also a composer, Satie was bornin Honfleur in northern France in 1866. His entry into the Paris Conservatoirein 1879 led to expulsion in 1882 for absenteeism and laziness. Recognized asgifted, he just wouldn't conform. Private piano lessons exasperated teachers asSatie refused to sight-read. A spell in the army in 1886 led to bronchitis. With his father trying his hand at music publishing, Satie began to write inearnest. Trois Sarabandes (1887) was a short set of three dance pieces which usedunresolved chords to create a strange floating harmony. A certain tranquillityand slowness of movement, particularly in the first piece, would shape his styleand have immediate effect on the writing of Debussy and Ravel. The followingyear came the revolutionary Trois Gymnopédies, three slow pieces lastingtogether less than ten minutes which gracefully utilized delicate modal harmonyand gossamer-like transparency. Satie derived the name from an old Spartanritual of naked youths dancing around a statue of Apollo. A trip to the ParisExposition gave him a flavour for the Orient which infected his crowningachievement, the six Gnossiennes of 1890-3. In these pieces, named after theCretan palace of Knossos, Satie incredibly dispatched with bar lines and any kindof formal time signature. In their place on the score were strange instructionslike `be clairvoyant'. Still the ability of these beautifully riveting miniatures tocapture a sense of spiritual calm and induce quietude has made them famous theworld over. During this time Satie became a true Montmartre bohemian and officialcomposer of the Rosicrucians, a mystical sect. His Le fils des étoiles (The Son OfThe Stars), written in 1891 for their flamboyant leader, Sar Péladan, was an ambient`sound decor'. That year Satie also met Debussy, who would remain a friend fortwenty-five years. Soon afterwards Satie broke with Péladan and, attired in soft cap,corduroy and goatee, this young anarchist in his mid-twenties involved himselfwith duels, hard drinking, love affairs and even formed his own church. In 1893came Vexations, an eighteen-note minimalist piece that was scored to be repeated840 times. During the 1960s John Cage and John Cale would famously performthis in New York. By 1896 Debussy had orchestrated the clever Trois Gymnopédies. Having gone through a substantial legacy with which he bought, amongother things, twelve identical velvet suits, Satie moved in 1898 to the Parisiansuburb of Arcueil, where he would spend the rest of his life. He consideredhimself a radical socialist with an interest in the poor. Every day for fifteen yearshe walked to Montmartre to earn his living as a café and music-hall pianist. BothJe te Veux (I Want You) and Poudre d'Or (Golden Powder) from 1900-01 reflectgay Parisian life of the period. He wrote the strange Trois morceaux en forme depoire (Three Pieces In The Shape Of A Pear) for four-handed piano and enrolled inthe Schola Cantorum in 1905 for a diploma course. Though he was outwardlythe eccentric, Satie's humour always hid an insecurity about his lack of formaleducation. In 1908 he graduated with a diploma in fugue and counterpoint. By1911 both Debussy and Ravel were performing his music to enthusiasticaudiences. Satie's music continued to be best in miniature, the serene secondpart of 1914's Trois Valses (Three Waltzes) or the Idyll To Debussy from thefollowing year's Avant-dernières pensées (Second To Last Thoughts). By now an omnipresent Parisian figure with his bowler hat and umbrella,Satie began an association with the poet, playwright and film director JeanCocteau which would make him famous after the war. In 1917 a huge scandalerupted over Parade, a ballet on which Satie worked with Cocteau, PabloPicasso and Francis Picabia. Full of Satie's piano style, the show included thesounds of pistol shots, a siren and a typewriter. Critics were outraged; Satieinsulted them and received a jail sentence and a fine (later quashed). In 1918came the strange cantata Socrate (Socrates), which many believe to be the zenithof his search for a `music of bare bones'. Based on the dialogues of Plato, thepiece has a religious plainchant flavour with unadorned, almost free-flowingpiano. A year later came Cinq nocturnes (Five Nocturnes) and in 1920 Satie'sfamous `furniture music', background Ambience for boring intervals in concertmusic. His last scandal came in 1924 with Relâche (Relax) another ballet withPicabia, with the highly surrealistic René Clair film Interval inserted in themiddle. Years of heavy drinking had led to illness. Friends put Satie up in hotels but in1925 his liver gave out and he died. Afterwards associates like Darius Milhaudfound piles of manuscript in his bare rooms in Arcueil — testament to hisdedication to a music `conceived in a spirit of humiliation and renunciation'. The bizarre titles of Satie's pieces (no less humorous in English), such asDreamy Fish, Cold Pieces or Four Veritable Flabby Pieces For A Dog, hid a talentwhich Ravel considered to be one of a genius completely ahead of its time.Satie's very nature blueprinted the free-flowing creative spirit of the twentiethcentury, his ability to shock coinciding with the true artist's ability to producetimeless creations. His pellucid music is the essence of Ambience. Satie's interest in symmetrical repetition is the essence of Minimalism. Theeasy swing and luminous texture can be traced right down to 1990s Housemusic. Edgard Varèse, John Cage and even Brian Eno owe him an enormousdebt. During the 1980s his music inspired the New Age movement in America,one famous pianist, George Winston, recording an album of the Frenchman'smusic for the Windham Hill label. A veritable Neoclassicist, Erik Satie took agreat risk. History has served him well.LISTENINGErik Satie — Anne Queffélec (Virgin 1988)Erik Satie: Socrate (Wergo 1991)Satie: Piano Works — Daniel Varsano and Philippe Entremont (Sony 1992)Erik Satie: Early Piano Works — Reinbert De Leeuw (Philips Duo 1998)Piano Dreams — The Erik Satie Collection — Pascal Rogé (Decca 1997)The practical difficulty with Satie's piano music, particularly Trois Gymnopédies,is that it is often played too fast. Reinbert De Leuuw's performance over threediscs recorded in the late 1970s has never been equalled: it is, exactly as per thecomposer's instructions, exquisitely slow. The Philips Duo reissue of thisrecording is simply superb. Wergo's disc of Socrate pairs Satie with piano musicfrom his inheritor John Cage. The Queffélec disc combines the Gnossiennes witha range of quirky pieces such as Embryons desséchés (Dried Embryos), Vieux séquinset vieilles cuirasses (Old Sequins And Armour) and Sonatine bureaucratique (BureaucraticSonatina). The Varsano and Entremont performance recorded in a Parischurch in 1979 is the most economical entry point as it combines the best of theearly pieces with the café music and the later work, including a sample of theNocturnes of 1919. Piano Dreams — The Erik Satie Collection (subtitled `25Hypnotic Tracks') boasts crystalline performances, recorded during the 1980sand 1990s, by the renowned French interpreter Pascal Rogé.CLAUDE DEBUSSYFor many modern music began with Debussy and the `voluptuous ambience' ofhis Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Faun),composed in 1894. Here was an orchestral music that simultaneously rejectedthe huge symphonic form of German music, the traditional classical expositionof Mozart and reliance on strong melodic development. In their place, over acompact eleven minutes, was a single series of, according to its author, `discreet'sound events for flute, harp and coloured orchestra, Through his fame, hiswritings and his uncompromising nature Debussy (even more than Satie andRavel) was able to raise the flag for total innovation and mesmerically succeed.He once said: `As there are no precedents I must create anew.' And just astellingly: `The century of aeroplanes deserves a music of its own.' Unlike most schooled musicians, Debussy was a pure artist whose academicability had little or no bearing on his eventual winding path towards creativebrilliance. Born in 1862, he was brought up in Paris and the South of France bya maternal aunt. Initially he dabbled in art before succumbing to the piano at theage of ten. One of his teachers being related to Verlaine, it is certain that theyoung Debussy met the bohemian poet's hash-smoking friend the poetic geniusRimbaud. By eleven Debussy was studying at the Paris Conservatoire, where hisbizarre chordings, strange tonalities and love of improvisation caused disconcertion.Yet by eighteen Tchaikovsky's wealthy patroness wanted him as herhousehold piano teacher. In 1884 he effortlessly won the Prix de Rome andspent the next three years in the Italian capital. Here Debussy was to live and write music. He met Liszt, whose spatial pedaltechnique would be discernible in Debussy's later piano scores. Fascinated bySymbolist poetry and the Pre-Raphaelites, he wrote a piece for submission tothe Conservatoire called La Damoiselle élue (The Blessed Damozel), based on apoem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Its wistful aspect, use of harp and woodwinds,wave-like motions and shimmering beauty in one unified block of sound causedhis teachers to gasp. They considered Debussy to be afflicted with a disease thatmade him write music that was `bizarre, incomprehensible and impossible toexecute', which they also dubbed `vague impressionism', thus giving Debussyand his followers in 1887 a perfect moniker to hang their art on. In the second half of the nineteenth century Paris was awash with the dreamycreations of Impressionism and Symbolist poets and painters. The iridescence ofMonet, Manet, Degas and Renoir was paralleled by the darker, more evocativeworlds of Baudelaire and Rimbaud and the work of the artists Moreau andRedon. At twenty-five Debussy threw himself into this `dream within a dreamworld', hung out in the salon of the poet Mallarmé, read Poe's story `The Fall ofThe House of Usher' and Huysmans's brilliantly decadent novel À rebours(Against Nature), which he described as a `symphony of odours'. He took upwith Gaby Dupont, lived in a garret and went to Bayreuth to hear Wagner, acomposer he would later disown. It was Debussy's visit to the CentennialExposition Universelle of 1889 (celebrating the Revolution) in Paris thatsparked the greatest change in him. The start of the Belle Époque with theopening of the Eiffel Tower saw the composer tour the folk-music pavilions tohear the music of Africa, Arabia and Russia and especially the gamelan orchestrasof Bali and Southeast Asia. The elusive melodies and harmonies of the latter andthe black-keyed scales of traditional Chinese and Irish folk musics turned hishead. After that he stated: `I should prefer the creation of a type of music that hasneither motifs nor themes, a more universal music.' Both Clair de Lune (Moonlight) and the first of the Deux arabesques (TwoArabesques) from this period are limpid piano pieces, flush with sensual delight asif the finger-runs, with their changing tempi, are playing a hazy summerreflection. In 1891 Debussy met Erik Satie in Montmartre and the two becamelifelong friends. Satie purged Debussy of any liking for German music and spokefamously of a desire for `music without sauerkraut'. After two years' work Debussy produced his masterpiece, Prélude à l'après-midid'un faune, based on Mallarmé's erotic poem. At thirty-two he became instantlyfamous with a work which for many benchmarked an entire century of music.Gossamer-like, this short but intensely beautiful orchestral work glided acrossthe senses, individual tones flowing out, silence slowly alternating with fantasticsonorities, Eastern and exotic timbres and moods hanging within the sound ofclarinets, harp, flute and delicate strings. In 1894 no one had heard anything likeit. The critics dubbed it superficial and indefinite. Personally Debussy entered into a period of confusion. He had many affairsand was for a short time engaged. He worked relentlessly on an opera, Pelléas etMélisande, based on a play by the Belgian Symbolist Maeterlinck. His perfectionismmeant it took him eight years to complete. He was in London for OscarWilde's trial, a writer he admired enormously. Publishers' advances kept him inan extravagant lifestyle. His love of women led to Gaby Dupont's attemptedsuicide in 1897. By 1899 he had married a Burgundy dressmaker, Rosalie `Lily'Texier, with Satie as witness, and the same year he produced the allusiveNocturnes for orchestra. Nuages (Clouds), from this set of three pieces, was anexquisite example of Debussy's precious art. Legal disputes about monies for Pelléas et Mélisande dogged the composer, yethe lived and worked in a handsome green study with Chinese cats andornamental silks. In 1903 came Estampes (Engravings), three piano pieces fullof Spain. In 1904 he met Fauré's former mistress, Emma Bardac, who wasmarried to a rich banker. After Debussy and Emma had an affair on the ChannelIsles, Lily shot herself but recovered in hospital. Debussy scandalously refused tosee his wife or pay her medical bills. Many friends turned away from him but hepoured his turbulent emotions into the symphonic La Mer (The Sea) (1905),which was also inspired by the world-famous wave paintings of the Japaneseartist Hokusai. Now living in the Bois de Boulogne, Debussy settled down to his last phase:one of domestic bliss, increased fame and growing illness. His new wife, Emma,bore him Chou-Chou, his beloved only daughter, for whom he wrote hisfamous Children's Corner piano suite. Of more import were two sets of Images(1905-7), results of what he termed `experiments with musical chemistry'. Inavoiding major and minor tonalities Debussy effortlessly conjured up reflectionsin water, church bells heard through rustling leaves and the quietude ofmoonlight. By 190 The Ambient Century Reveals The Drift In Twentieth-century Music. From Composers To Non-musicians. From Strict Rules To No Rules. From The Single Note To The Sample. From The Expanding Classical Horizons Of Mahler, Satie And Debussy To The Revolutions In Electronic Music Inaugurated By Stockhausen And Cage. From The Indian-influenced Minimalism Of Philip Glass And Terry Riley To The 'unlocking' Sound Worlds Of Brian Eno And Arvo Parti Through The Epoch-defining Music Of Rock Maestros The Beatles And Jimi Hendrix Down To The Pure Electronic Creations Of Kraftwerk, Goldie And Trance - This Drift Through Technology, Minimalism, The Rock Era And Techno Is Earthed By The Development In Ambient Sound, To The Author The Most Important Breakthrough In Music Of The Past One Hundred Years. Aided By Electronics, New Ideas And Mass Consumption, Ambient Has Established Itself Beyond Question As 'the Classical Music Of The Future.'--jacket. The Electronic Landscape -- Gustav Mahler -- Erik Satie -- Claude Debussy -- Maurice Ravel -- Frederick Delius -- Charles Griffes -- Charles Ives -- Iberian Sounds -- William Duddell -- Thaddeus Cahill -- Lee De Forest -- Luigi Russolo -- Leon Theremin -- Maurice Martenot -- Jorg Mager -- Friedrich Trautwein And Oskar Sala -- Arnold Schoenberg -- Alban Berg And Anton Webern -- Leopold Stokowski -- Edgard Varese -- Percy Grainger -- Olivier Messiaen -- Paul Bowles -- Pierre Schaeffer And Pierre Henry -- John Cage -- Otto Luening And Vladimir Ussachevsky -- Karlheinz Stockhausen -- Miles Davis -- Daphne Oram -- Raymond Scott -- Gyorgy Ligeti -- Pierre Boulez -- Iannis Xenakis -- Morton Feldman -- Morton Subotnick -- Wendy Carlos -- Toru Takemitsu -- Kaija Saariaho -- Electronic Media -- Records -- Magnetic Tape -- Keyboards, Synthesizers And Computers -- Compact Disc -- Minimalism, Eno And The New Simplicity -- La Monte Young -- Terry Riley -- Steve Reich -- Brian Eno --^ Philip Glass -- Ecm -- Windham Hill And New Age Music -- Harold Budd -- Jon Hassell -- Michael Nyman -- John Adams -- Arvo Part -- Henryk Gorecki -- John Tavener -- Other Minimalists -- Ambience In The Rock Era -- Innovators -- Leo Fender -- Les Paul -- Joe Meek -- The Beatles -- Bob Dylan -- The Beach Boys -- Jimi Hendrix -- Ravi Shankar -- The Velvet Underground, Nico And John Cale -- Simon & Garfunkel -- The Rolling Stones -- Marvin Gaye And Van Morrison -- David Bowie -- Psychedelia -- The Byrds -- Love And The Doors -- The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band -- Neil Young, Buffalo Springfield And Crosby, Stills & Nash -- Spirit -- Tim Buckley -- The Grateful Dead -- Country Joe And The Fish -- H.p. Lovecraft -- Quicksilver Messenger Service -- The Steve Miller Band -- Santana -- Folk Ambience -- Rock Evolves -- Pink Floyd -- Keith Emerson, King Crimson And Yes -- Led Zeppelin -- Mike Oldfield -- The German Scene -- Can -- Faust -- Neu! -- Tangerine Dream -- Popol Vuh --^ Roedelius, Cluster And Harmonia -- Manuel Gottsching And Ash Ra Tempel -- Kraftwerk -- Klaus Schulze -- Holger Czukay -- Synthesizer Music -- Beaver & Krause -- Tonto's Expanding Headband -- Tim Blake -- Jean-michel Jarre -- Vangelis -- The Indie Wave -- Cabaret Voltaire -- New Order And Joy Division -- The Durutti Column -- Colin Newman -- The Cocteau Twins -- Sonic Youth -- Dead Can Dance -- Spacemen 3, Sonic Boom And Spiritualized -- Individualists -- Ennio Morricone -- Todd Rundgren -- John Mclaughlin -- Robert Fripp -- Peter Gabriel -- Bill Nelson -- Laurie Anderson -- Ryuichi Sakamoto -- Seigen Ono -- David Sylvian -- Michael Brook -- U2 -- Daniel Lanois -- Enya -- House, Techno And Twenty-first-century Ambience -- Donna Summer And Giorgio Moroder -- New York Garage And Electro -- Chicago House And Acid House -- Derrick May And Detroit Techno -- Ann Dudley And The Art Of Noise -- 808 State -- A Guy Called Gerald -- Ecstasy And The New Rave Psychedelia -- The Klf --^ The Stone Roses And Primal Scream -- Orbital -- Enigma And Spiritual House -- The Orb And Ambient House -- Mixmaster Morris -- The Future Sound Of London -- Aphex Twin -- Pete Namlook And Ambient Techno -- Bill Laswell And Collision Music -- William Orbit -- Scanner, Biosphere And Isolationism -- Massive Attack, Tricky And Trip-hop -- Coldcut -- Dj Shadow And Dj Spooky -- Goldie And Ambient Drum And Bass -- Courtney Pine And Trip Jazz -- Talvin Singh And Anokha -- Dub Reggae -- Trance -- The Chemical Brothers And Rock Techno -- Air -- Twentieth-century Ambience -- The Essential 100 Recordings. Mark Prendergast. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [477]-482), Discographies (p. [474]-476), And Index. Contents Acknowledgements Foreword Book 1. The Electronic Landscape Gustav Mahler Erik Satie Claude Debussy Maurice Ravel Frederick Delius Charles Griffes Charles Ives Iberian Sounds William Duddell Thaddeus Cahill Lee de Forest Luigi Russolo Leonn Theremin Maurice Martenot Jorg Mager Frierich Trautwein and Oskar Sala Arnold Schoenberg Alban Berg and Anton Webern Leopold Stokowski Edgard Varèse Percy Grainger Olivier Messiaen Paul Bowles Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry John Cage Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky Karlheinz Stockhausen Miles Davis Daphne Oram Raymond Scott György Ligeti Pierre Boulez Iannis Xenakis Morton Feldman Morton Subotnick Wendy Carlos Toru Takamitsu Kaija Saariaho Electronic Media Records Magnetic Tape Keyboards, Synthesizers and Computers Compact Disc Book 2. Minimalism, Eno and the New Simplicity La Monte Young Terry Riley Steve Reich Brian Eno Philip Glass ECM Windham Hill and New Age Music Harold Budd Jon Hassell Michael Nyman John Adams Arvo Pärt Henryk Gorecki John Tavener Other Minimalists Book 3. Ambience in the Rock Era Innovators Leo Fender Les Paul Joe Meek The Beatles Bob Dylan The Beach Boys Jimi Hendrix Ravi Shankar The Velvet Underground, Nico and John Cale Simon & Garfunkel The Rolling Stones Marvin Gaye and Van Morrison David Bowie Psychedelia The Byrds Love and the Doors The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band Neil Young, Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash Spirit Tim Buckley The Grateful Dead Country Joe and the Fish H. P. Lovecraft Quicksilver Messenger Service The Steve Miller Band Satana Folk Ambience Rock Evolves Pink Floyd Keith Emerson, King Crimson, Yes Led Zeppelin Mike Oldfield The German Scene Can Faust Neu! Tangerine Dream Popol Vuh Roedelius, Cluster, Harmonia Manuel Göttsching and Ash Ra Tempel Kraftwerk Klaus Schulze Holger Czukay Synthesizer Music Beaver & Krause Tim Blake Jean-Michel Jarre Vangelis The Indie Wave Cabaret Voltaire New Order and Joy Division The Durutti Column Colin Newman The Cocteau Twins Sonic Youth Dead Can Dance Spacemen 3, Sonic Boom, Spiritualized Individualists Ennio Morricone Todd Rundgren John McLaughlin Robert Fripp Peter Gabriel Bill Nelson Laurie Anderson Ryuichi Sakamoto Seigen Ono David Sylvian Michael Brook Daniel Lanois Enya Book 4. House, Techno and Twenty-First-Century Ambience Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder New York Garage and Electro Chicago House and Acid House Derrick May and Detroit Techno Anne Dudley and The Art of Noise 808 State A Guy Called Gerald Ecstasy and The New Rave Psychedelis The KLF The Stone Roses and Primal Scream Orbital Enigma and Spiritual House The Orb and Ambient House Mixmaster Morris The Future Sound of London Aphex Twin Pete Namlook and Ambient Techno Bill Laswell and Collison Music William Orbit Scanner, Biosphere and Isolationism Massive Attack, Tricky and Trip-Hop Coldcut DJ Shadow and DJ Spooky Goldie and Ambient Drum and Bass Courtney Pine and Trip Jazz Talvin Singh and Anokha Dub Reggae Trance The Chemical Brothers and Rock Techno Moby Afterword Twentieth-century Ambience – the Essential 100 Recordings Bibliography Index A comprehensive and absorbing look at the music of the twentieth century, with an introduction by Brian Eno. The 20th Century saw two revolutionary changes in music. First music was deconstructed from its previously strict form, moving from formal constraints to more accessible melodies. Second, the way in which music was generated radically changed as new electronic equipment inspired experiments with sound divorced from traditional acoustic instruments. More and more, innovative musical ideas became intertwined with technological change. Multi-track recording, editing, and improved microphones allowed for quieter, experimental elements to gain prominence. And with the advent of digital synthesizers, new music could be made by anyone and sound like almost anything. The Ambient Century is the definitive chronicle of a century of musical change. It reveals the drift from composers to non-musicians, from the single note to the sample. Encyclopedic, yet with a strong narrative, The Ambient Century covers hundreds of artists, including such diverse artists as Gustav Mahler (the pioneer of modern music), Phillip Glass, New Order, and Moby. Lively, compelling, and authoritative-and boasting an unmatched discography. The Ambient Century is a treat for music lovers of all kinds.