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Boris Blacher: Skalen 2:3:4 (1964)

From the album 50 Years Studio TU Berlin

This is the second installment in a two-part series on the experimental music of German composer Boris Blacher. See my previous post on Blacher’s Abstract Opera No. 1.

Beginning in 1958, Blacher worked as a composer in residence at the electronic music studio of the Technical University of Berlin. The first such space to be established in the German capital, the TU studio was founded earlier in the decade through the collaboration of music historian Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt and acoustician Fritz Winckel.

In 1964 Blacher composed the quadrophonic tape piece Skalen 2:3:4. (The title refers to the ratios of the smallest intervals of the three tuning systems used simultaneously in the composition: semi-tones, third-tones, and quarter-tones.) Blacher’s composition, the first standalone electronic piece created at the TU studio, was presented as part of the “Week of Experimental Music” festival in October 1964.

In terms of compositional process, the work demonstrates one of the many new working configurations made possible by electronic music technology. The composition began as a rather loose sketch, which Blacher presented to studio technician Rüdiger Rüfer. The two then collaboratively realized the piece, Rüfer operating the studio equipment and Blacher guiding the formal development.

Blacher took a relatively modest view of the electronic medium, viewing it as an extension of traditional means of composing, rather than the basis for a paradigm shift in musical aesthetics: “Electronic music, in my opinion, signifies no new world compared to, say, a conventionally composed piano sonata. Electronic experiments are notable only in that they help to clarify problems of form.” Unlike much electronic music, the interest of the piece lies less in the exploration of new sonic territory than in the precise coordination of pitch/time relationships. 

This music has a certain statistical charm, a quality of gently directed chaos. The beauty of such music is bound up with its historical condition. A decent computer musician today could cook up an algorithm in MAX/MSP or the like and create similarly weird music in half an hour or less. But hearing Blacher’s music, one feels both the constraints imposed by the period’s technology and the sense of experimentation in the new medium. Together, these confer an almost childlike innocence that helps take the edge off the music’s abrasive sound quality. 

For more information, check out this web history of the TU studio (mostly in German, but with summaries in English).

To save money, the studio had this mixing board built from spare parts in 1959

July 19, 2011, 12:42pm