''Scambi'' (Exchanges) is an

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electro ...

composition by the Belgian composer

Henri Pousseur Henri Léon Marie-Thérèse Pousseur (23 June 1929 – 6 March 2009) was a Belgian classical composer, teacher, and music theorist. Biography Pousseur was born in Malmedy and studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 1947 ...

, realized in 1957 at the

Studio di fonologia musicale di Radio Milano The was established 1955 in Milan following a joint initiative by Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna Bruno Maderna (21 April 1920 – 13 November 1973) was an Italian conductor and composer. Life Maderna was born Bruno Grossato in Venice but l ...

History

''Scambi'' is Pousseur's second electronic-music work, following ''Seismogramme I–II'' (Seismograms I–II)—one of the seven works which had been presented in October 1954 on the first concert of full-scale compositions produced in the Electronic-Music Studio of the NWDR. Pousseur at this time had obligations as a schoolteacher in

Malmedy Malmedy (; german: Malmünd, ; wa, Måmdiy) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. On January 1, 2018, Malmedy had a total population of 12,654. The total area is 99.96 km2 which gives a popula ...

and so could only come intermittently to work in the Cologne studio, where his friend

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groundb ...

helped carry out the technical realisation. His work on ''Scambi'' by contrast brought him into direct contact with the work of actually realising electronic music. In the summer of 1956, at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Pousseur met

Luciano Berio Luciano Berio (24 October 1925 – 27 May 2003) was an Italian composer noted for his experimental work (in particular his 1968 composition ''Sinfonia'' and his series of virtuosic solo pieces titled ''Sequenza''), and for his pioneering work ...

, who invited him to come to Milan to work at the Studio di fonologia musicale of Radio Milan. On his way to Milan on the train in the spring of 1957, Pousseur formulated two goals for his new work. First, he wanted to design the work in a way that permitted the listener to participate in its temporal formation, which meant it would be composed of a number of small elements which could be arranged in different ways. Second, it seemed necessary at that time to use material that avoided the periodic character of traditional music, including the internal structure of the sounds themselves. This meant starting from noise—

white noise In signal processing, white noise is a random signal having equal intensity at different frequencies, giving it a constant power spectral density. The term is used, with this or similar meanings, in many scientific and technical disciplines ...

—and filtering it to produce a range of noisy sounds with different degrees of relative pitch. This came as an extension of the post-Webernian goal of exploring structures opposed to traditional ones, especially in the area of harmony, so that, in place of the concepts of polarity and causality of traditional musical thinking, "" (everything should remain in suspension), as

Webern Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern (3 December 188315 September 1945), better known as Anton Webern (), was an Austrian composer and conductor whose music was among the most radical of its milieu in its sheer concision, even aphorism, and stead ...

put it. A third factor preoccupied Pousseur: the time available to carry out the work was relatively short. Consequently, it was necessary to find relatively quick methods for the generation and formation of the material. This was an important factor in deciding on techniques that deviated from the microstructural devices accepted almost exclusively in electronic composition until the present time. At the Studio di fonologia, Pousseur discovered a special

filter Filter, filtering or filters may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming * Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream * Filter (video), a software component tha ...

designed by Dr Alfredo Lietti, the technical director of the studio. This device enabled selecting, by setting the filter's threshold, material from a complex sound phenomenon, or the opposite, progressively increasing the attenuation. In other words, various more or less dense "skimmed off" bandwidths can be isolated from the same stockpile of sounds. Studio technician Marino Zuccheri assisted Pousseur in compiling a supply of suitable sounds for his composition.

Analysis

The starting-point for ''Scambi'' is a collection of sound material that is globally statistical. By means of devices that enable transformation techniques, elements are selected from electronically generated white noise. Various frequency bands were isolated, each with a bandwidth of half an octave, and from each of these a sequence is filtered using an amplitude selector. The output is randomly determined by whichever sounds happen to emerge above the filter's threshold. These sequences, which already fluctuate in frequency around average values, are then made to centre on nine different pitch levels. On each one, a directed motion of change in density is imposed in which the direction is not linear, but rather travels in a spiral fashion. An acceleration machine is then used to give each sequence a rising or falling pitch tendency, within which the motion is not even, but is disturbed by small internal deviations in contrary directions. This material is then reduced to four basic structural types, each characterised by a double tendency: on the one hand, movement from high to low or from low to high, and on the other from fast to slow, or from slow to fast. Rhythms, too, are intentionally irregular and unpredictable. Details of the music are therefore "imprecise". On the whole, only general motions are heard—general speeds or changes of speeds—with abrupt breaks occurring even within these tendencies. A second structural level opposes this essentially discontinuous material with contrasting, long-sustained, continuous sounds, again in four types of shape. These two four-fold classes of structures are blended in various degrees to produce sixteen intermodulated structural types. Together with their retrogrades, a total of thirty-two sequences are generated: high-fast-discontinuous changing to high-slow-continuous, low-slow-discontinuous changing to low-fast-continuous, high -fast discontinuous changing to high-slow-discontinuous, and so on. Once having produced these thirty-two sequences, Pousseur regarded the work as complete, though with an enormous number of possible realisations—an aleatory principle which had been intended from the outset. ''Scambi'' is unusual for an electronic work in having a mobile structure. It consists of sixteen pairs of segments (called "layers" by Pousseur) that may be assembled in many different ways. Pousseur's original idea was to supply these layers on separate reels of tape, so that the listener could assemble his own version. When first created, several different versions were realized, two by Luciano Berio, one by Marc Wilkinson, and two by the composer himself—a longer one of about six-and-a-half minutes and a shorter one lasting just over four minutes. One of Berio's versions is shorter still at 3:25.) Pousseur established two principles for linking the segments together. The first is that there should be as complete a conformity in character as possible between the end of one segment and the beginning of the next, with the objective of accomplishing transitions as imperceptible as possible. The second is that the formal course should be marked by the successive dominance of the different characters. The process of assembly was complicated by the fact that the sequences were not all the same length, but it was not required that all thirty-two segments necessarily appear in all versions. Though Pousseur followed these rules himself, he regarded them only as suggestions, and Berio and Wilkinson did not conform to them when making their versions. Berio's structures, for example, are marked by an even distribution of the various characters, while Wilkinson's connections emphasize effects of contrast.

Reception

Initially, ''Scambi'' was not met with universal acclaim, even within Pousseur's immediate circle of colleagues.

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mo ...

attended a concert of electronic music from Milan, given at Darmstadt on 26 July 1957, in which two versions of ''Scambi'' were presented, along with ''Mutazione'' and ''Perspectives'' by

and ''Notturno'' by

Bruno Maderna Bruno Maderna (21 April 1920 – 13 November 1973) was an Italian conductor and composer. Life Maderna was born Bruno Grossato in Venice but later decided to take the name of his mother, Caterina Carolina Maderna.Interview with Maderna‘s th ...

. In a letter to his friend Stockhausen, Boulez reported: In his influential early book ''Opera aperta'',

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of th ...

, on the other hand, cites ''Scambi'', together with Stockhausen's '' Klavierstück XI'', Berio's ''

Sequenza I ''Sequenza I'' is a composition written in 1958 by Luciano Berio for the flutist Severino Gazzelloni. It was first published by Suvini-Zerboni, but the notation was revised much later and this version published by Universal Edition in 1992. It i ...

'', and Boulez's Third Piano Sonata, as musical exemplars of the "open work", alongside the literary models of Verlaine's ''Art Poétique'',

Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typi ...

's ''

The Trial ''The Trial'' (german: Der Process, link=no, previously , and ) is a novel written by Franz Kafka in 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously on 26 April 1925. One of his best known works, it tells the story of Josef K., a man arrested and p ...

'' and '' The Castle'', and

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the Modernism, modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important ...

's '' Ulysses'' and ''

Finnegans Wake ''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish writer James Joyce. It is well known for its experimental style and reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the Western canon. It has been called "a work of fiction which combines a bod ...

''. For Eco, ''Scambi'' represents a "fresh advance" by pointing within the category of "open" works to a narrower category of "works in movement" consisting of "unplanned or physically incomplete structural units", related to products of visual art like Alexander Calder's mobiles and Mallarmé's ''Livre''. It is evident from the vocabulary used by Eco that it is Pousseur's work that had the greatest impact on his thinking. ''Scambi'' was the first open-form work of electronic music—a mobile of electronic sounds.

Legacy

Beginning in 2004, the Scambi Project, directed by John Dack at the

Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts The Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts was a research centre at Middlesex University in North London, England. It played a significant role in the early development of computer graphics and continued to innovate in interactive media, sonic arts a ...

Middlesex University Middlesex University London (legally Middlesex University and abbreviated MDX) is a public research university in Hendon, northwest London, England. The name of the university is taken from its location within the historic county boundaries ...

, has focussed on this work and its multiple possibilities for realization.

Discography

* ''Panorama des musiques expérimentales''. Works by

Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; el, Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης, ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde c ...

, , François Dufrêne, Herbert Eimert,

Pierre Henry Henry at his home (January 2008) Pierre Georges Albert François Henry (; 9 December 1927 – 5 July 2017) was a French composer and pioneer of musique concrète. Biography Henry was born in Paris, France, and began experimenting at the age of ...

György Ligeti György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the twentieth century ...

Luc Ferrari Luc Ferrari (February 5, 1929 – August 22, 2005) was a French composer of Italian heritage and a pioneer in musique concrète and electroacoustic music. He was a founding member of RTF's Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRMC), working alongsid ...

Mauricio Kagel Mauricio Raúl Kagel (; 24 December 1931 – 18 September 2008) was an Argentine-German composer. Biography Kagel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, into an Ashkenazi Jewish family that had fled from Russia in the 1920s . He studied music, his ...

André Boucourechliev André Boucourechliev (28 July 1925 – 13 November 1997) was a French composer of Bulgarian origin. Born in Sofia, Boucourechliev studied piano at the Conservatory there. Subsequently, he studied in Paris at the École Normale de Musique de Paris ...

, and Henri Pousseur. LP recording, 2 discs: 33⅓ rpm, stereo, 12 in. Philips A 00565 L and A 00566 L. Amsterdam, Philips, 1966. Reissued as ''Panorama of Experimental Music''. Mercury SR-2-9123 (set); SR 90478—SR 90479;

nited States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Mercury, 1968. ousseur's long version (6:22) of ''Scambi'' Second disc (including ''Scambi'') reissued separately as ''Panorama electronique'' / ''Electronic Experimental Music''. LP recording 1 sound disc: analog, 33⅓ rpm, stereo, 12 in. Limelight LS-86048. .l. Limelight, n.d. * ''Acousmatrix—History of Electronic Music 4'': Henri Pousseur: ''Scambi'' ousseur's long version (6:27) ''Trois visages de Liège'' ; ''Paraboles-mix''. CD recording, 1 sound disc: digital, 4¾ in. BV Haast Records CD 9010. Also issued as part of the 9-CD boxed set, ''Acousmatrix: The History of Electronic Music''. BV Haast 0206. Amsterdam: BV Haast Records, 1996. Reissued 2006. Same version of ''Scambi'' reissued with other material on ''An Anthology of Noise and Electronic Music. Volume #1''. With music by Luigi Russolo;

Tony Conrad Anthony Schmalz Conrad (March 7, 1940 – April 9, 2016) was an American video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Active in a variety of media since the early 1960s, he was a pioneer of both ...

;

John Cale John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various sty ...

;

Otomo Yoshihide is a Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist. He mainly plays guitar, turntables, and electronics. He first came to international prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the experimental rock group Ground Zero, and has since worked i ...

;

Martin Tétreault Martin Tétreault (born 1957 in Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Quebec, Canada) is a free improvisation musician and visual artist. Often using the turntable as the basis for his experimental music, he has over 60 releases, featuring him solo or in collabora ...

;

Antonio Russolo Antonio Russolo (1877–1943) was an Italian Futurist composer and the brother of the more famous Futurist painter, composer and theorist Luigi Russolo. He is noted for composing pieces made with the intonarumori and, together with his brother, i ...

;

Walter Ruttmann Walter Ruttmann (28 December 1887 – 15 July 1941) was a German cinematographer and film director, an important German abstract experimental film maker, along with Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling and Oskar Fischinger. He is best known for dire ...

;

Pierre Schaeffer Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (English pronunciation: , ; 14 August 1910 – 19 August 1995) was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist, acoustician and founder of Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC). His inno ...

;

Gordon Mumma Gordon Mumma (born March 30, 1935, in Framingham, Massachusetts) is an American composer. He is known most for his work with electronics, many devices of which he builds himself, and for his performances on horn. Biography Mumma entered the Univer ...

;

Angus MacLise Angus William MacLise (March 14, 1938 – June 21, 1979) was an American percussionist, composer, poet, occultist and calligrapher, known as the first drummer for the Velvet Underground who abruptly quit due to disagreements with the band ...

; Philip Jeck; Konrad Boehmer;

Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super h ...

;

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading f ...

;

Edgard Varèse Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; he coine ...

;

; Paul D. Miller;

Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center ...

;

Ryoji Ikeda Ryoji Ikeda (池田亮司 ''Ikeda Ryōji'', born 1966) is a Japanese visual and sound artist who currently lives and works in Paris, France. Ikeda's music is concerned primarily with sound in a variety of "raw" states, such as sine tones and n ...

. CD recording, 2 sound discs: digital ; 4 3/4 in. Sub Rosa SR190; Sub Rosa EFA 27682-2. Brussels: Sub Rosa, 2002. * ''Forbidden Planets: Music from the Pioneers of Electronic Sound''. nknown version of ''Scambi'', probably the same as on ''Acousmatrix'' 4 With music by Robert Beyer,

Bebe and Louis Barron Bebe Barron ( – ) and Louis Barron ( – ) were two American pioneers in the field of electronic music. They are credited with writing the first electronic music for magnetic tape composed in the United States, and the first entirely elec ...

Miklós Rózsa Miklós Rózsa (; April 18, 1907 – July 27, 1995) was a Hungarian-American composer trained in Germany (1925–1931) and active in France (1931–1935), the United Kingdom (1935–1940), and the United States (1940–1995), with extensi ...

Bernard Herrmann Bernard Herrmann (born Maximillian Herman; June 29, 1911December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely r ...

, Herbert Eimert,

Paul Gredinger Paul Gredinger (27 July 1927 – 6 October 2013) was a Swiss architect. Gredinger was one of the leading figures in the German advertising scene.

Hermann Heiss Hermann Heiss (29 December 1897 – 6 December 1966) was a German composer, pianist, and educator. His work was part of the Art competitions at the 1932 Summer Olympics#Music, music event in the Art competitions at the 1932 Summer Olympics, art com ...

Dick Raaijmakers Dick Raaijmakers (Maastricht, 1 September 1930 – The Hague, 4 September 2013), also known as Dick Raaymakers or Kid Baltan, was a Dutch composer, theater maker and theorist. He is considered a pioneer in the field of electronic music and tape mu ...

Tom Dissevelt Thomas Dissevelt (4 March 1921, Leiden – 1989) was a Dutch composer and musician. He is known as a pioneer in the merging of electronic music and jazz. He married Rina Reys, sister of Rita Reys, in 1946. Tom Dissevelt was also known as bass ...

, and

Henk Badings Henk Badings (hĕngk bä'dĭngz) (17 January 190726 June 1987) was an Indo-Dutch composer. Early life Born in Bandung, Java, Dutch East Indies, as the son of Herman Louis Johan Badings, an officer in the Dutch East Indies army, Hendrik Herman Ba ...

. CD recording, 2 sound discs: digital, 4¾ in. Chrome Dreams CDCD5033. New Malden, Surrey, UK, 2009.

References

Sources * * * * * * * * *

External links

The Scambi Project

{{Authority control Compositions by Henri Pousseur 20th-century classical music 1957 compositions Electronic compositions Serial compositions