Edgard Varèse (b. 1883, France – d. 1965, USA)
Poème électronique, 1958

Peter Weibel in “Sound Art” (ZKM / MIT Press, 2019) points out Varèse as progenitor of sound spatialisation – he “literally expanded music into space; he understood music as movement in space and called it ‘spatial music'”. As spatialized sound compositions is a focal area of my engagement with sound art, I just had to include Varèse on my list.

However, I do like his Poème électronique for its formal qualities as well. Its combination of field recordings along with electronically generated sounds has affinities with some of my sound pieces, like “Birds and knobs” project. And the fact that it was written for – and performed in – Philips Pavilion with 425 loudspeakers leaves me in a highly spatialized awe…