The story of post-war West German radio and modern music

[Pianorak]

R3 - Sun 11/02/2018 18:45 - 19:30

Robert Worby tells the fascinating story of how post-war West German radio, and modern music, was conscripted to win the cultural cold war, often juggling political, economic and cultural forces outside of their control. . . In the process West German Radio led the world in the promotion, commissioning and broadcasting of new music, which became an important part in rehabilitating German cultural identity after years of Nazi censorship, and bolstered their anti-fascist and anti-communist credentials. . .

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r3qjb

[MrGongGong]

Worth a listen indeed
I've been meaning to read this for a while as well

http://grantabooks.com/Who-Paid-The-Piper

[Serial_Apologist]

I'd overlooked this programme, so thanks, Pianorak.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'd overlooked this programme, so thanks, Pianorak.

[DracoM]

Fascinating and v.well researched.

[Serial_Apologist]

Fascinating and v.well researched.

By concentrating on the circumstances that gave rise to Germany playing the leading role in electronic music in the post WWII period, the motivation of its broadcasting programmers and the reaction of the German public, the programme approached its subject rather differently from those I have heard in the past which concentrated on the well-known personalities of new German music, including Stockhausen, Henze and Zimmermann.

[Bryn]

A very fine presentation of the history. Sorry if it seems rather too diversionary, but I could not help being reminded of Spike Milligan's comment on hearing some musique concrète,i.e. that the Goons had been doing that for ages, with the help of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

[Stanfordian]

I found it very disappointing, with music that has never caught on, and as you infer the music sounded very BBC Radiophonic Workshop-ish; almost Dr. Who.

In truth I would have been more enamoured by how the Allied forces straight after the war promoted Radio in Germany to ensure the nature of the content.

[Bryn]

I found it very disappointing, with music that has never caught on, and as you infer the music sounded very BBC Radiophonic Workshop-ish; almost Dr. Who.

In truth I would have been more enamoured by how the Allied forces straight after the war promoted Radio in Germany to ensure the nature of the content.

Actually, the inference I was aiming at was to question why Germany has come to be regarded as the country where radio gave thrust to the development of electronic music while the Radiophonic Workshop offered similar facilities in the UK. The role of the CIA et al in German cultural renewal was rather underplayed, I thought.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was created in 1958 - towards the end of the run of Goon Show: Spike had been creating his own library of sound effects (some including custard in socks) for some years before then.

Interesting that Music that "never caught on" should be used in a popular television series for thirty years.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Actually, the inference I was aiming at was to question why Germany has come to be regarded as the country where radio gave thrust to the development of electronic music while the Radiophonic Workshop offered similar facilities in the UK.

See my previous, Bryn; the Radiophonic Workshop only came into existence about ten years after pioneering work in Germany.

(And they had Stockhausen, too, of course!)

[Bryn]

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was created in 1958 - towards the end of the run of Goon Show: Spike had been creating his own library of sound effects (some including custard in socks) for some years before then.

Interesting that Music that "never caught on" should be used in a popular television series for thirty years.

And that it gave rise to a great deal of today's popular music technology. Some of Daphne Oram's work on 'sound effects' presaged the 1958 founding of the Radiophonic Workshop. Not sure whether she had any 'behind the scenes' role in the Goons prior to the official founding of the workshop. She started audio work at the Beeb during WWII.

[Stanfordian]

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was created in 1958 - towards the end of the run of Goon Show: Spike had been creating his own library of sound effects (some including custard in socks) for some years before then.

Interesting that Music that "never caught on" should be used in a popular television series for thirty years.

Why resort to sarcasm Host?

When I say not caught on, actually I'm referring to the school of electronic music in the post WWII period that has not caught the imagination of the public in the concert hall.

[Richard Barrett]

And that it gave rise to a great deal of today's popular music technology.

Indeed. Far from "not catching on", the influence of what was done at the Cologne studio especially is still widening and deepening. For example, the early electronic music composers were convinced that the most appropriate way to explore the new sonic domains opened up by even the primitive equipment they had in the electronic studio (basically consisting of recording devices and various kinds of measuring and calibration equipment) was to use their knowledge of serial composition techniques to systematise their researches. When, a little later, purpose-built electronic studio equipment began to be made in the form of modular voltage-control systems, these too were an embodiment of the "parametric" organisation of serial music; and, in the later 1960s, when this technology was industrialised by engineers Robert Moog, Don Buchla and Peter Zinovieff, this kind of architecture remained the most logical way to conceive electronic music technology, and the same remains true to a great extent in the way programming environments like Max and Reaktor work to this day. So it would be true to say that the early electronic music at the WDR "caught on" to a greater extent than almost any other innovation in twentieth-century music. Not only that, but the most important of those early works like Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge are still regularly presented in concerts, broadcasts and releases, and are still held in great reverence by electronic-music composers of all the succeeding generations including the youngest. (Claiming that this music hasn't "caught the imagination of the public in the concert hall" betrays a rather parochial view of what goes on in concert halls!) I find it a shame that the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was so exclusively oriented towards functional music when it could have done so much more to nurture the artistic aspirations of composers like Daphne Oram and Delia Derbyshire.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Why resort to sarcasm Host?

When I say not caught on, actually I'm referring to the school of electronic music in the post WWII period that has not caught the imagination of the public in the concert hall.

But much of that repertoire isn't intended for the "concert hall", Stanf - any more than is Gagaku.

Outside the concert hall, Electronic music was enormously popular in the UK during the '60s, with home-made radio enthusiasts buying tape recorders and other equipment and becoming amateur composers. Not quite flourishing as much as Astronomers or Gardeners, but still sufficient to inspire books and magazines aimed at these enthusiasts.

The advent of the Cassette tape recorder in the early '70s (together with rising costs of other equipment) brought an end to most of this activity - but it is as factually inaccurate to claim that it never caught on as it would be to suggest that the Bassoon never caught on.