Fontes Artis Musicae

Jennifer Iverson's Electronic Inspirationsfocuses on one decade, the early 1950s through the early 1960s, centered around Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), also known as the West German Radio studio in Cologne. Iverson traces three main themes. 'First, the WDR studio was absolutely central to the evolving Cold War musical ecosystem. Second, the WDR studio engendered a heterogeneous, laboratory-like working culture. Third, the WDR studio contributed to a cultural process of reclamation, which served to mitigate the Cold War's despairing, threatening shadows' (p. 2). Iverson goes on to argue that electronic studios were a place 'where wartime ideas were appropriated and technologies were repurposed' (p. 3).

Herbert Eimert, a composer and musicologist, was the director of the WDR electronic studio. Eimert collaborated with Werner Meyer-Eppler and Robert Beyer in founding WDR. As a scientist, Meyer-Eppler had expertise in acoustics, psychoacoustics, and experimental physics. Beyer, a composer and recording engineer, was also active in the development of electronic instruments. The electronic studio was funded in 1951 and ready for use in early 1953. Among the aims of the studio was to create a timbrel utopia, a place where 'composers could control every aspect of the sound' (p. 27). The founders were eager to reestablish Germany's reputation as a leader in music 'by being the first to advance technological and artistic progress by means of electronic music' (p. 8). However, they first needed to catch up with the French composer Pierre Schaeffer, who had an electronic music studio in Paris, Radiodiffusion Française (RDF) since the mid-1940s. The scope of this book is more than just WDR; as it covers a host of studios and composers from Europe and the U.S. who play various roles in avant-garde and electronic music.

As composers began to work with the studio equipment, they found it cumbersome and limiting. Many composers lacked the training to understand how to use the equipment. Beyer understood this problem and helped to create a host of technical collaborators who helped composers understand and learn to use these new machines and realise their compositions. Throughout the book, Iverson, in part, focusses on these invisible collaborators 'who make the creative work of the composer possible' (p. 29). In addition, Iverson presents various conversations and discourse among the multiple impresarios, composers, and technicians as they strive to solve problems related to compositional ideas, musical form, science, and the new technologies in the studio. There are various graphs, charts, and tables scattered throughout the book which, at times, can be cumbersome and difficult to read. The book consists of six chapters, an introduction, an epilogue, and a handy 'Glossary of Actors' (p. 241) to help you keep track of various individuals referenced in the book.

Chapter 1, Origins Creating a Laboratory. 'In 1948, Eimert began producing his famed Musikalisches Nichtprogramm, a bimonthly broadcast aimed at educating listeners on the concepts of the "new" music that had been suppressed or unknown during the war' (pp. 23–24). Through this radio broadcast, Eimert influenced what the German public learned about new music. A laboratory-like collaboration between composers, technicians, and the machines was what Eimert perceived as the best working environment. Harold Bode's Melochord, a dual-manual keyboard, was used in all the early experiments in 1952. Because of the sound produced for [End Page 370] radio plays (Hörespiel), Iverson argues that radio plays are the direct precursors of electronic music and that there is a substantial overlap between radio-play sound effects and high-art electronic music. Iverson makes a case that technician Heinz Schütz created the first composition (Morgenröte) at WDR that was cannibalised by Eimert and Beyer in their compositions.

Chapter 2, Kinship Cage, Tudor, and the New Timbral Utopia. John 'Cage and the Europeans repelled each other like oil and water because Cage's...