Werner Dafeldecker, Valerio Tricoli: Williams Mix Extended

Paranoia. Grenzerfahrungen elektronischer Musik im Kontext von
Iannis Xenakis’ Schaffen | Symposium


Thu May 31, - Jun 02, 2012


Together with “Cinq études de bruits” (1948), by Pierre Schaeffer
and Karlheinz Stockhausen‘s “Studie II” (1954), “Williams Mix”
(1952/53) by John Cage, belongs among the key works of early
audiotape music. During these early years, in which the
appearance of the synthesizer and sequencer were still a long way
off, electro-acoustic music was produced directly on audiotape in
what was then the newly-founded studios: by recording existing
sounds (environmental noises, voices, music instruments, etc.),
the generation of electroacoustic sounds by the simplest of means
(vibration and noise generators, beat buzzers, etc.), processing
through filtering, transformation of the replay speed and
direction and, finally, by the temporal sequence and overlapping
of material.


Although John Cage left the score of “Williams Mix” with his
publisher C.F. Peters New York, so that other artists could
produce new pieces, this opportunity has yet to be exploited. In
this sense, Werner Dafeldecker’s and Valerio Tricoli’s project of
once again realizing “Williams Mix” represents a premiere. Its
significance not only lies in the digital appropriation of analog
production methods by contemporary artists, in the sense of a
historical practice of performance, but far more in the
redemption of John Cage’s demand which was to understand
audiotape music as a living part of musical encounter and
analytical interpretation, and to accordingly update it by way of
the new technologies.