1964 Early Czech essays on electronic and concrete music

Ladislav Janík Prostor a reprodukce zvuku [The Space and Reproduction of Sound]/Vladimír Lébl způsoby zápisu elektronické a konkrétní hudby [Ways of Recording Electronic and Concrete Music]. Sborník přednášek o problémech elektronické hudby [Collection of Lectures on Electronic Music Matters), These two essays appeared together in Sešit I of the Sborník přednášek o problémech elektronické hudby (Collection of Lectures on Electronic Music Issues), published by Panton in 1964. First issue (Sešit I) in a series of lectures focused on electronic music. Janík, a physicist active in the Institute for Musicology at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, wrote about stereophonic transmission and reproduction of music. His contribution addresses the technical and perceptual aspects of how space and sound delivery systems shape the listening experience— a pioneering topic in the mid‑1960s context of developing audio technologies. Vladimír Lébl was a prominent Czech musicologist who specialized in contemporary music, and from 1963 worked at the Institute for Musicology, contributing to the field of electronic music both analytically and institutionally. In this essay, he examines notations and transcription methods for electronic (tape‑based) and musique concrète. Lébl discusses the challenges posed by sound materials that cannot be captured by traditional musical notation—how to represent tape manipulations, sonic textures, spatialisation, duration, timbre transformations, and other non‑pitched or non‑metrical sound parameters. The two essays reflect early Czech engagement with cutting‑edge international developments in electronic and concrete music. They show attempts to connect technical, aesthetic, and compositional concerns in a serious academic framework. Lébl’s broader 1966 book Elektronická hudba elaborates on these ideas, contextualising them historically and methodologically, and confirms his earlier thinking in the 1964 essay. Inv. H7 shop