User:Techn0logist/List of electronic music works before 1940

Notes to self:
 * Perhaps it's better to look at pre-1945. Holmes essentially divides into two genreations: those where composers focused mostly on electronic performance instruments (<1945) and when they began focusing on electronic recording techniques (>1945).

Trautonium

 * References to the Trautonium often note that the instrument also attracted the attention of Richard Strauss and Werner Egk, but Strauss used it only to emulate the sound of a gong in his 1940 Japanese Festival Music, and Egk apparently used it only for special effects in scores for radio plays and in operas that he conducted, after 1937, at the Berlin Staatsoper.

Novachord

 * Kammersinfonie op. 69 (1940)
 * Heitor Villa-Lobos - Symphony No. 7 (1945) includes a part for Novachord
 * Vera Lynn - We'll Meet Again (1939 Novachord Version)

Theremin

 * It appears to be an urban legend that the theremin was used in the scores of King Kong (1933) and Bride of Frankstein (1935), although it is possible it was used as a sound effect.

Ondes Martenot

 * One source indicates that the Martenot was used by Shostakovich in 1932 film Counterplan, but this is highly unlikely. It is doubtful that there were any Ondes Martenots in Russia at the time, and there is little reason he would choose such a difficult option when the Theremin would have been available (and he had used it before). In addition, sources indicate that the original scores for Counterplan do not mention any electronic instrument. It is possible that the source suggesting the Ondes Martenot was used is referring to a later edited score. It is worth watching to find out, though I'm not sure if the original soundtrack is preserved.
 * Allegedly, there is an Ondes Martenot in Pygmalion (1938), composed by Arthur Honegger, during the scene where the speech apparatus is being demonstrated . Although this would be expected for Honegger, I have watched the scene, and cannot hear any electronic instrument (though it is fairly experimental for the time).
 * "Honegger composed for "Pygmalion" (1938) one of the most successful noise-music sequences to date. This is the sound track for the scene in which the speech expert is demonstrating his apparatus. Percussive devices, claquettes, tuning-forks, the whir of machinery, and tones of the "Ondes Martenot" are orchestrated with such rhythmic brilliance that a non-melodic musical composition, perfectly proportioned to the screen image, impels the closest attention of the auditor-spectator."
 * Apparently the directors Abel Gance, Fritz Lang, André Cayate, Julien Duvivier, Marcel Carné, Laurence Olivier have all used the Martenot in their films, though it is not clear which films and composers this text means.

Trautonium

 * It was used in 1934 to produce what Sala termed the "Zaubermelodien" (Sala, "My Fascinating Instrument," 85) composed by Georg Häntzschel for Hanneles Hummelfahrt
 * According to German-language source, German electronic instruments like Trautonium were rarely used in film, though it notes that this would be difficult to prove.

Novachord

 * 1939: Gone with the Wind, a Novachord was used for intermission music. Composed by Max Steiner
 * 1940: Rebecca, composer Franz Waxman. Every time Rebecca is spoken about, the Novachord is there
 * 1941: The Maltese Falcon. Bogey wakes from a drug induced sleep and looks in the mirror. think this is it.
 * 1941: The Seawolf
 * 1941: Topper Returns. The Novachord accompanies ghostly events.
 * 1942: Cat People
 * 1942: Frankenstien meets the Wolfman
 * 1943: Northern Pursuit
 * 1944: The Mask of Dimitrios
 * 1944: House of Frankenstien

Sound collage & musique concrete

 * " Pudovkin's Deserter (1933), which included experiments such as running the soundtrack backwards, or inscribing and designing the sound so that it could be cut to change or even be warped"
 * Rapt (1934) runs the soundtrack backwards at around 1:01:41 for musical effect. There is a more impressive use of sound-on-film techniques earlier on the film, but it is used for wind sound effects.
 * Song of Ceylon (1934) is apparently of note, but I'm not sure yet

German drawn sound compositions

 * The five films by Rudolph Pfenniger were compiled as "Tönende Handschrift" in 1932, and this is still available and reasonably widespread, though I'm having a hard time tracking it down. It appears that 3 are on this DVD.
 * Please note that the experiments by Oskar Fischinger and László Moholy-Nagy were not compositional, but just experiments with different sounds/images
 * "Germany would quickly cease to be the fertile ground for work on synthetic film sound that it had been for the previous few years." (in other words, 1930-1933 was the peak period)

Russian drawn sound: ornamental sound

 * Multzvuk group: experimental films ‘Ornamental Animation’, ‘Marusia Otravilas’, ‘Chinese Tune’, ‘Organ Chords’, ‘Untertonikum, Prelude’, ‘Piruet’, ‘Staccato Studies’, ‘Dancing Etude’ and ‘Flute Study’.
 * The group making productions in this format closed in 1934, and around 1936-1938 most of the archives were burned in an accident. If I hear right from Smirnov, the only thing still preserved is the "Drawn Sound of Siren".

Russian drawn sound: variophone

 * Very useful: https://archive.org/details/SmirnovPart03Compress
 * "Several dozen of his movies ... were shown for the first time at the animated film festival in Utrecht in November 2008"

Russian drawn sound: paper sound

 * Began work in 1931, dismissed in 1936
 * "Four of his [Voinov] films are preserved in the Russian film archives"
 * "Animated cartoons with synthetic sound tracks, including Barynia (1931)" ... "About a Pig's Snout and a Soviet Kitchen Garden (1933)", ... "and Zones, Safety Lines (1934)"
 * http://2011.russiancinema.ru/index.php?e_dept_id=2&e_movie_id=19405, http://2011.russiancinema.ru/index.php?e_dept_id=2&e_movie_id=3762, http://2011.russiancinema.ru/index.php?e_dept_id=2&e_movie_id=18605, http://2011.russiancinema.ru/index.php?e_dept_id=2&e_movie_id=18607, http://2011.russiancinema.ru/index.php?e_dept_id=2&e_movie_id=18610

US drawn sound

 * The documentary Book Bargain (1937) allegedly uses drawn sound techniques by Norman McLaren, but according to one source, these were proposed by McLaren and not actually accepted. Further, if they are in the film, they will likely be used as sound effects. I need to track down the film.
 * A single drawn sound of the notes of the overtone series, which produce a phantom fundamental, is featured in the score by Bernard Herrmann for The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941).