WDR/Arte

Electronic Vibrations – A Sound Changes the World

With the participation of: Jean-Michel Jarre, Eliane Radigue, Jan St. Werner, Simon Stockhausen, Jaqueline Schaeffer, Peter Baumann, Emil Schult, François Bonnet

Whether avant-garde, techno or hip hop – electronic music is now a driving force from contemporary classical music to pop. It has almost been forgotten that its sources can be found in Paris and Cologne, where, amongst others, the Studio d’Es-sai in Paris and later, the Electronic Studio under Karlheinz Stockhausen became centres of the avant-garde. This is the story of how rooms full of bizarre equipment were able to become miraculous places whose vibrations set the whole world abuzz.

In Paris and Cologne, immediately after World War II, the cornerstones were laid for a musical revolution whose ramifications are only now becoming recognisable in their full dimensions: Pierre Schaeffer’s musique concrète in the Club d’Essai and the WDR electronic music studio with its guiding light, Karlheinz Stockhausen.

The next generation of musicians listened attentively. In the 1970s, through the work of the Düsseldorf-based band Kraftwerk and the Berlin-based Tangerine Dream, the first purely electronic bands, that momentum spread further abroad. The artistic amalgamation of New Music, pop and the visual arts was historically unique and had a worldwide impact.