UNIVERSITÉ LIBRE DE BRUXELLES

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

Translate from French by Xavier Falques on February 2016

 Introduction

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.

The composers and their collaboration

Vladimir Ussachevsky (1911-1990)2

Vladimir Ussachevsky is a Russian- American composer and musical theorist, ,

considered as one of the first composers to undertake research about electronic music on the
American soil. He immigrated to United-States in the 1930’s and took musical courses in
different school, such as Eastman School of Music and Columbia University. Like many other
American composers, Ussachevsky does not take sides in the opposition between the German
elektronischemusikand the French musique concrete, but tends to apply synthesis of both
processes of creation (creation and modification of sounds), however his work seems to show a
larger interest in the process of modifying recorded sounds. To create his music, Ussachevsky
works directly on magnetic tapes, which is typical of American electronic music, better known as
Tape Music.

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(unpublished), before the most significant Imaginary landscapes by the same composer in 1952.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 (1900-1996)3

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)

Incantation composed in 1953, uses the compositional techniques of music concrete.

Therefore, the purpose of this composition is to create new sounds from recorded ones. The work
is based on the recording of five different sounds taken from three different instrumental sources.
As Brian Evans shows it in his analyse of the score5, Incantation is structured in five
parts, each responding to a different type of organization of the recorded sounds.
The A section starts with rising and descending glissandi played by the flute and for which the
speed and the pitch had been electronically modified. In the B section, Luening and Ussachevsky
introduce on one hand, a male voice singing melismatic lines and on which they add a reverb in
order to modify the timbre. On the other hand, they introduce a loop of one piano note, which
will fade in and out. In the C section, the glissandi from the A section will be associated with a
piano sound reminding a bell. This sound will be modified by the use of a fade out and will be
played backward. The fourth section, called by Evans as B(C) section, is actually using the
sounds exposed in B and C section, but in a different order. Finally, for the last section, we will
take our difference with Evan’s analyse for which he is recalling here the A section, where we
would analyse it as D section. The reason to call it D is that this section works as a synthesis in
which we can find elements from A, B and C section (the glissandi andthe two piano sounds), but
as well a new ascending flute notes in fade out.

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.

Recording used for the presentation:

- VariousArtists. An Anthology Of Noise & Electronic Music / Second A-Chronology 1936-2003.

Vol. 2. 7 vol. (coll. An Anthology Of Noise & Electronic Music). Belgium: Sub Rosa, 2003.