Invisible Collaboration: The Dawn and Evolution of elektronische Musik

This article analyzes the earliest pieces of electronic music produced at the WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) studio in Cologne between 1951 and 1954. The aesthetic foundations of the studio, as articulated by Meyer-Eppler, Eimert, and Beyer, prized timbral innovation. Two analytical vignettes provide a window onto the studio’s earliest artistic achievements, which required a host of collaborators to produce. These early works include several incarnations of the studio’s “piece zero” Morgenrӧte and a set of related additive synthesis compositions by Goeyvaerts, Stockhausen, Gredinger, and Pousseur. The analyses reveal that the WDR machines, technicians, and affiliated scientists had profound and lasting effects on the sonic works, as the studio’s aesthetic evolution was deeply tied to scientific and psychoacoustic solutions to technical problems. Furthermore, this article shows, through a sociological lens, that “to compose” electronic music is to engage in an inescapably collaborative process. The analysis presented here begins to make visible (audible) a collaborative network that enabled the creative work of the studio.