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ITHACA JOURNAL

Saturday, February 16, 1974
The Moog Asks: After Bach, Then What?
By JOSEPH MCLELLAN
The Washington Post

"Switched-On Bach," Walter Carlos's first record of Bach on the Moog synthesizer, was an immediate hit upon its first appearance more than five years ago and went onto become one of the bestsellers in the history of recording.
It was a natural, with a broad spectrum appeal that attracted at least three different kinds of listeners:
-Bach fans amazed and ambivalently delighted to see the giant in a new light.
-Pop fans drawn by the music's bright color and suddenly aware that classics can be kicky.
-And, perhaps, most enthusiastically of all, the soundhounds-pure audio enthusiasts transfixed by the strange vibes agitating their woofers and tweeters.
Now, we have "Switched-On Bach II" (Columbia KM 32659)- at least as good as its predecessor musically and sonically, thought it lacks the shock value of sheer newness-and its appearance, combined with the time lag since the first "Switched_on Bach," raises a few interesting and perhaps uncomfortable points.
The real significance of the first record in this series was that it announced to the general public the arrival of what may be the ultimate musical instrument. The Moog synthesizer usually looks like a mating between a piano keyboard and a telephone switchboard, and it can produce electronically any sound a composer may want or a performer may imagine.
If you want to hear banjo or a brass band, the right combination of buttons on the Moog will make the proper noise for you. But it doesn't merely duplicate what any other instrument can do; it can also produce entirely new combinations of pitch, overtones, attack and sound-decay - odd colorations, weird glissandos or, if you will, the sound of an explosion.
Are you after a sound never heard before?
The only problem is learning how to ask the Moog to produce it.
It means that all of a sudden the limiting factor under which composers have always chafed, the restricted abilities of available instruments, has passed into oblivion.
The innovation and perfection of the Moog was a microcosm of the larger, slower revolution that had been taking place in music since the beginning of electronic composition - the development of an unlimited palette for the composer. And the result has been curious, though I suppose we should have expected it.
We have discovered that when the sky is the limit technically, a new limiting factor, a more painful one, comes to the fore: The limited daring and imagination of the composers. The Moog in particular and electronic music generally are marking time, awaiting the arrival of the genius who will know what to do creatively with the unlimited musical resources now available.
In this perspective, "Switched-On Bach II" is a bad reminder that, five years after the Moog's spectacular debut, the musical minds of our time have found nothing better to do with this marvelous new instrument than to rehash the works of a composer dead for more than two centuries.
We should be grateful, of course, for what we have: A marvelous collection of bright sounds that shed new light on some of the most delightful music ever written.

 

There is a reading of the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto that is quite perfect in its balance and coloration, its choice of tempos and its springy rhythms. There are three movements from the delightful Suite No. 2 for orchestra (beginning, for some odd reason, with its breathless Las Movement), a couple of two-part inventions, the ever-popular "Sheep May Safely Graze" and four charming miniatures from the Anna Magdalena Notebook.
It is a lovely record, a tribute to Carlos's ingenuity and musical integrity and a fully worth sequel to the first "Switched-On Bach."
The only trouble-no reflection, really, on Walter Carlos or this charming bagatelle- is that we're still waiting for someone to come along and produce some new music worthy of this dazzling new instrument.