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The History of Electroacoustic Music in the Czech and Slovak Republics Author(S): Libor Zajicek Source: Leonardo Music Journal, Vol

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The History of Electroacoustic Music in the Czech and Slovak Republics Author(S): Libor Zajicek Source: Leonardo Music Journal, Vol The History of Electroacoustic Music in the Czech and Slovak Republics Author(s): Libor Zajicek Source: Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 5 (1995), pp. 39-48 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1513160 Accessed: 30/08/2008 11:33 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ABSTRACT The History of ElectroacousticMusic Thehistory of electroacoustic musicin the Czech and Slovak Re- publicsbegan with simple experi- in the Czech and Slovak Republics mentsundertaken bycomposers inthe 1950s. Increasing activity andinterest throughout the 1950s andearly 1960s led to theFirst Seminarof ElectronicMusic in the Libor formerCzechoslovakia, which was Zajicek heldat theRadio Broadcast Sta- tionin Plzen in 1964. Four govern- ment-sanctionedelectroacoustic musicstudios were established in the1960s under the auspices of existingradio and television sta- It is extremely to view the entireelectroacoustic [mu- titions, including the Italian nions.Al omnervenues ror eiec- important troacousticproduction were clan- as it was the condi- Radio's Prix d'ItaliaRadio'sdI i Prix as well as sic] development influencedby ideological destine;however, even the official tions in our countryat that time.It may bepossible that this is competitions held in Palermo, studioswere obliged to restrain in the view of the Westa completelyforeign experience;but the Paris, Ghent and Bourges. Re- and/ordisguise composition-for existing consciousnessthat creating electroacousticmusic is markably, all of this activity origi- bothpolitical and economic rea- that it is as an "anti-state"and "anti-re- nated from a handful, at best, sons--throughoutsons-throughouttheir history. prohibited, classified only nt frmoy Thefall of thetotalitarian regime gime"activity, is a big stimulusfor the creationand aesthetic of centers and their studios. in1989 replaced political ob- of electroacousticmusic [in Czechoslovakia][1]. In fact, facilities established for stacleswith economic ones. Elec- the production of electroacoustic troacousticmusic in the Czech The despondent situation described in this statement by and hasnever- music in only four Czechoslova- SovakRepublics Slovakian Roman Berger was referred to by each of . thelesssurvived and continues to composer kian kian.c' Brno,B o Brati-Brai develop. the 24 other I interviewed in the Czech and Slovak cities-Plzefi, develop. people slava and been the the summers of 1993-1994 [2]. The totali- Prague-have Republics during force behind the tarian that controlled the former Czechoslo- major driving political regime of electroacoustic vakia what it as "social realism" in development supported only interpreted music in the two As was the case in other the arts. Electroacoustic music was considered a Republics. many corruptive, the studios in these four cities out of Western art form that had to be How- countries, grew early constantly suppressed. in electroacoustic in the ever, if officials were to claim that Communism experiments composition recording government studios of radio and television broadcast stations. was the savior and supporter of the people, Communists Czechoslovakia's web of government-controlled radio broad- could not completely "shut down" and forbid the production cast stations was directed by officials of the Czechoslovakian of electroacoustic music; if they had, they would not have Radio, located in Prague. Although conflicting versions of the been supporters of the people. facts and varying titles held by unofficial studios can some- Over the past 50 years, the political history of the former times indicate otherwise, only three official studios-i.e. stu- Czechoslovakia has been marked by alternation, with each suc- dios established for the purposes of realizing commissioned, cessive decade, between relativelystrict and liberal leaderships. autonomous electroacoustic compositions-were established The totalitarian 1950s gave way to the freer conditions of the in the former Czechoslovakia: the Experimental Studio at the 1960s. The 1970s, as a result of the displacement of the liberal- Radio Broadcast Station in Plzeni, the Experimental Studio at Party Chairman, Alexandr Dubcek, and the invasion thinking the Radio Broadcast Station in and the Audio Stu- of the WarsawPact armies under Soviet in the late Bratislava, leadership dio at the Radio Broadcast Station in All other studios 1960s, were a decade of renewed constrictive rule, while the Prague. were classified as unofficial; in other words, these were studios better years of the 1980s ended with the decisive overthrow of in which the production of autonomous (i.e. not as Communism during the November 1989 Revolution (as it is composed accompaniment for other media) electroacoustic known in the Czech and Slovak Republics). composi- tions was not the primary objective, and composers had to These conditions are reflected in the history of electroa- work in semi-secrecy [4]. However, all electroacoustic coustic music. Although political obstacles are this produc- apparent, tion had to be or restrained to remains rich. In 1971, for Czech musi- cleverly disguised prevent gov- history quite example, ernment closure of even the official studios. cologist Dr. Eduard Herzog had already translated Pierre Schaeffer's La Musique concreteinto Czech under the title Konkretnihudba (Musique concrete) [3]. Festivalsof new music GENESIS were also in the late 1960s, with the International organized Electroacoustic music in the Czech and Slovak Seminars on New Music and the of Republics un- Exposition Experimental in the of Music and forums for the dissemi- officially originated private experiments mathemati- providing superb important cian Antonin Svoboda in the nation of new domestic as well as international electroacoustic years immediately following World War II. his return from visits to the United music. Czechoslovakian music competitions such as Musica Upon States, Svoboda became interested in unifying early Nova (1969-1970) were extremely important, encouraging not comput- only friendly competition for better compositions but also a Iibor Zajicek (musicologist), San Jose State University, School of Music, One Washing- ton San CA 95192, U.S.A. slowly emerging respect for electroacoustic music on the part Square, Jose, of radio-station officials. Internationally, too, Czechoslovakian Received 10 January 1994. solicited by Larry Wendt. electroacoustic compositions have fared well in many compe- Manuscript ( 1995 ISAST LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Xol. 5, pp. 39-48, 1995 39 ers with music. Specifically, he was inter- portant tasks Lebl and Kabelai took on Lebl inaugurated the seminar with a ested in automated music such as was the aggressive pursuit of all poten- statement defining its vision, which was Mozart's Musikalisches Wiirfelspiel (Musi- tial relationships between the Commis- to focus on "the elementary methods of cal Dice Game), K. 516f, in which mea- sion and government-controlled radio electronic music." Lebl continued: "In- sures can be freely interchanged to or television stations. tentionally, we want to avoid the prob- produce a stylistically coherent perfor- In addition, Kabelac gave ongoing lems of aesthetics. We do not want the mance [5]. Although Svoboda's experi- presentations at Commission meetings seminar to be a speed-course on practi- ments did not immediately yield tan- based on his findings from visits to cal applications, nor an academic dis- gible results, a more significant offshoot Pierre Schaeffer's studio in Paris during cussion, but [we do want it to be] about came to fruition with the formation of the 1950s [10]. These presentations fu- the unification of elementary technical professional relationships between eled further discussion and debate. and problematic issues, and . it Svoboda and the musicians and techni- In early 1963, Lebl was elected Chair- [should] focus on questions of method- cians he worked with, who were also per- man of the Cybernetic Commission. At a ology" [14]. sonal acquaintances. Svoboda, compos- meeting held on 11 February 1963-and The seminar was organized according ers Miloslav Kabelac and Jan Rychlik, at subsequent meetings in the early part to presentations on specialized subjects. and musicologist Vladimir Lebl [6] of that year-the members of the Com- Attendees gave the following lectures formed a union that would eventually mission reached agreements about the (in the order in which
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