Continuing to plunder the junk of World War II.
Delia Derbyshire, Keith Salmon and Brian Hodgson in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, 1965 Photo: Richard Swayne, courtesy of Brian Hodgson.
In this episode...
Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna and the new studio at Italian Radio;
Tristram Cary, Peter Zinovieff and Robert Moog talk about finding cheap electronics by the warehouse-full and fashioning it into new-fangled sound devices;
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop: Dr Who and other highjinks;
Interviews with Brian Hodgson and Mark Ayres;
The iconic Delia Derbyshire;
Her collaboration with Brian Hodgson and Peter Zinovieff, Unit Delta Plus;
The virtuosity of John Baker;
And as a prelude to Episode 4, we look at rock ’n’ roll effects: tape delay, tape loops and feedback.
Explore more of These Hopeful Machines
Written and presented by James Gardner, produced by Tim Dodd and James Gardner.
Scroll down for handy links and a bibliography.
Grateful thanks for help in the production of this episode go to:
Jeremy Ansell; Mark Ayres, archivist of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop; Mark Brend; David Butler and the Delia Derbyshire Archive at the University of Manchester, for the excerpt from the Unit Delta Plus music for Macbeth;
Claire Harris, (producer of the documentary What The Future Sounded Like) and Porthmeor Productions, for Tristram Cary interview material; Penny Lomax of the ABC programme The Music Show, for further Tristram Cary interview material; Ian Helliwell; Brian Hodgson, for the interview and for providing us with his copy of the out-of-print Wavemaker LP; National Public Radio (USA), for the interview with Bob Moog; Morton Subotnick;
Peter Zinovieff.
Links
- Demonstration video from the RAI Studio of Musical Phonology Studio in Milan (in Italian)
- The RAI Studio, now at the Museum of Musical Instruments in Castello Sforzesco, Milan
- Researcher Laura Zattra talks about early Italian electronic music
- Raymond Scott
- A Delia Derbyshire wiki
- An overview of Delia Derbyshire’s work by David Butler
- Podcast about the Delia Derbyshire archive
- Brian Hodgson’s memoir: ‘My Years in the Mildewed Wedding Cake’
- Ian Helliwell’s podcast about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
- Daphne Oram
- BBC Radiophonic Workshop Picture Gallery
Bibliography
Louis Niebur
Special Sound: The Creation and Legacy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Oxford University Press 2010
http://global.oup.com/ushe/product/special-sound-9780195368406?cc=nz&lang=en&
Ian Helliwell
Tape Leaders: A Compendium Of Early British Electronic Music Composers (2nd ed.)
Velocity Press 2021
https://velocitypress.uk/product/tape-leaders-book/
David Butler
Whatever Happened to Delia Derbyshire?
Delia Derbyshire, Visual Art, and the Myth of her Post-BBC Activity
https://www.britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/issue-index/issue-12/whatever-happened-delia-derbyshire
Johann Merrich
Pioneering Italian Women in Electronic Music
https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/09/pioneering-italian-women-in-electronic-music
Mark Brend
The Sound Of Tomorrow: How Electronic Music Was Smuggled Into the Mainstream
Bloomsbury 2012
https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/sound-of-tomorrow-9780826424525/
