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Intoroduction To Luening and Ussachevskys Incantation PDF
Intoroduction To Luening and Ussachevskys Incantation PDF
Seminary of contemporary
music
An Introduction to Luening and Ussachvevsky’s
Incantation
Xavier Falques
Text from the oral presentation of the 3rd of March 2015
For this small presentation, we will introduce you to a fruitful association of two
composers, pioneers of the electronic music on the American soil. In the first part, we will
present you a short summary of their musical biography, in order to understand what could bring
them to work on a common project for approximately a decade. In the second part, we will focus
on the first work created from their association: Incantation. The goals aimed by this presentation
will be to give you keys to listen and comprehend electronic music by a small analysis. In the
same way, the analysis will confront to one of the methods of notation related to electronic
music, which will serve our purpose to introduce some structure and processes in use in a specific
type of electronic music: the tape music1.
1
The uses of tape in American music is initiated by John Cage in 1950 for the score of the movie Works of Calder
(unpublished), before the most significant Imaginary landscapes by the same composer in 1952.
James Pritchett, Laura Kuhn, et Charles Hiroshi Garrett, « Cage, John », in Grove Music Online, consulted online on
the 26th of January 2015, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/A2223954.
2
Charles Wuorinen and Carl Rahkonen, « Ussachevsky, Vladimir », inGrove Music Online,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/28866, consulted online on the 25th of January
2015.
Then, in the 1970’s Ussachevsky opens his compositions to mixed music, creating music on tape,
associated with live instruments.
Otto Luening is an American flutist, conductor and composer. Born in a musician family,
Luening started his career precociously. He wrote his first composition at the age of six and first
conducted an orchestra at the age of 20. During his young years he would travel between the
United-States, Germany and Switzerland, countries in which he would follow university and
conservatory programs. In 1944 he joined Columbia University as opera director, where he
opened the seminary of composition. In the 1950’s he started exploring electronic music in order
to find new timbre. As Ussachevsky, Luening composed with the processes of Tape Music,
however he would rather modify existing sounds too, sometimes recorded from his own
instrument, as we can hear it in Incantation. Despites his research about electronic music,
Luening moved to another repertoire in the 1960’s, concentrating on compositions in chamber
music.
Their collaboration
It was in 1944 that these two composers first met in Columbia University. For a period of time
they composed on their own, but in 1953 with Incantation they would sign their first work in
association, which consists more of sharing sound resources than in a four hands compositions4.
On the 28th of October of the same year (1953), Ussachevsky and Luening presented their first
electronic music concert in the Museum of Modern Arts of New-York. Then in 1959 they created
the Electronic Music Centre of Columbia University, in association with Milton Babbitt and
Roger Sessions. Subsequently, together they would expand electronic music repertoire and its
influence on the American soil, but also contribute to the knowledge of creating and modifying
sounds by both composing and writing texts, explaining their own researches.
3
Lester Trimble andSeverine Neff, « Luening, Otto », inGrove Music Online, consulted online on the 25th of January
2015, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/17140.
4
Wuorinen andRahkonen, « Ussachevsky, Vladimir ».
Incantation for tape (1953)
In conclusion, we can realise that the piece is created with recorded, cut and paste sounds
in order to create an autonomous work. Finally, the almost systematic uses of fade in and fade out
give to the work an effect of undulation which combined with the melismatic voice, gives to the
work a particular mood.
5
Brian Evans, The Graphic Design of Musical Structure: Scores for Listeners: Incantation and
MortuosPlango,VivosVoco (Montréal: Electroacoustic Music Studies Network, 2005).
Score analysed by Brian Evans
Bibliography
- Evans, Brian. The Graphic Design of Musical Structure: Scores for Listeners: Incantation and
MortuosPlango,VivosVoco. Montréal : Electroacoustic Music Studies Network, 2005.
- Hartsock,Ralph and Carl John Rahkonen. Vladimir Ussachevsky: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood
Publishing Group, 2000.
- Kennedy, Michael (dir.). « Electronic Music ». In The Oxford Dictionary of Music, consulted
online on the 17th of February 2015,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t237/e3341.
- Patterson, Nick. « The Archives of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center ». Notes 67,
no 3 (2011): 483-502.
- Trimble, Lester and Severine Neff. « Luening, Otto ». In Grove Music Online, consulted online on
the 25th of January 2015,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/17140.
- Ussachevsky,Vladimir. « Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center ». Revue belge de
Musicologie / Belgisch TijdschriftvoorMuziekwetenschap 13, no 1/4 (janvier 1, 1959) : 129-131.
- Wuorinen, Charles et Carl Rahkonen. « Ussachevsky, Vladimir ». In Grove Music Online,
consulted online on the 26th of January 2015,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/28866.