Leonard Bernstein Introduces the Moog Synthesizer to the International in 1969, Enjoying an Electrified Model of Bach’s “Little Fugue in G”

When Wendy Automobile­los launched Switched-On Bach in 1968, her “nice­est hits” com­pi­l. a.­tion of the Baroque composer’s tune, performed complete­ly at the Moog ana­log syn­the­siz­er, the album turned into an imme­di­ate hit with each clas­si­cal and pa audi­ences. No longer simplest used to be it “acclaimed as actual tune through musi­cians and the lis­ten­ing pub­lic alike,” as Bob Moog him­self has writ­ten, however “because of this, the Moog Syn­the­siz­er used to be sud­den­ly settle for­ed with open fingers through the tune busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.” There’s some exag­ger­a­tion right here. Stars just like the Doorways, the Mon­kees, and the Byrds had already listing­ed with Moogs the yr prior to. And a few clas­si­cal purists (and clas­si­cal Lud­dites) didn’t, if truth be told, hail Switched-On Bach as “actual tune.”

However at the complete, Carlos’s inno­v­a­tive demon­stra­tion of the elec­tron­ic tool’s capa­bil­i­ties (and her personal) marks a mile­stone in tune his­to­ry as the primary clas­si­cal album to head Plat­inum, and because the first intro­duc­tion of each Baroque tune and the Moog syn­the­siz­er to mil­lions of peo­ple unfa­mil­iar with both.

Have been it now not for Carlos’s “use of the Moog’s oscil­l. a.­tions, squeaks, drones, chirps, and oth­er sounds,” as Bruce Eder writes at All­mu­sic, it’s in contrast to­ly we might have the video clip above, of Leonard Bern­stein giv­ing his personal demon­stra­tion of the Moog (dig his hip “HAL” ref­er­ence from the pri­or yr’s 2001: A Area Odyssey), dur­ing considered one of his pop­u­lar tele­vised “Younger Other people’s Con­certs.”

Hav­ing simply begun mov­ing out of the stu­dio, the Moog used to be nonetheless a col­lec­tion of mod­u­lar field­es and patch cables—an engineer’s tool—and it takes 4 males to wheel it out on level. (The eas­i­ly moveable, self-con­tained Min­i­moog wouldn’t seem till 1970.) Maximum peo­ple had no thought what a Moog actu­al­ly gave the impression of. However, its for­bid­ding seem­ance apart, the sounds of the Moog have been each and every­the place.

Bern­stein males­tions Automobile­los, and the ones stuffy purists, and makes a couple of extra sci-fi jokes, then, as an alternative of sit down­ting on the key­board, hits play on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. This pre-record­ed ver­sion of Bach’s “Lit­tle Fugue in G” used to be actu­al­ly organized through Wal­ter Sear, and the listing­ing lacks one of the most panache of Carlos’s play­ing whilst the tin­new york play­again sys­tem makes it sound like 8‑bit online game tune. However for this audi­ence, the musi­cal wiz­ard­ly used to be nonetheless decid­ed­ly contemporary.

The selection of Bach as Moog mate­r­i­al used to be now not only a mat­ter of style—his tune used to be distinctive­ly go well with­ed for Moog adap­ta­tion. As Automobile­los explains, “it used to be con­tra­pun­tal (now not chords however musi­cal strains, just like the Moog professional­duced), it used blank, Baroque strains, now not call for­ing nice ‘expres­si­vo’ (a susceptible­ness within the Moog on the time), and it used to be neu­tral as to orches­tra­tion.” The Moog may additionally, it kind of feels, make Bach’s fugues fly at nearly tremendous­hu­guy speeds. Pay attention the “Lit­tle Fugue” performed at a a lot more state­ly tem­po, on a tra­di­tion­al pipe organ, fur­ther up, and listen to it ruin right into a run within the majes­tic according to­for­mance simply above.

Organs and harp­si­chords, strings and horns, those are nonetheless in fact the instru­ments we bring to mind once we bring to mind Bach. Regardless of Carlos’s inven­tive foray—and its fol­low-up, The Neatly-Tem­pered Syn­the­siz­er—the syn­the­siz­er didn’t rad­i­cal­ize the clas­si­cal tune global, although its avant-garde off­spring made a lot use of it. But it surely certain modified the sound of dad tune, and wowed the youngsters who noticed Bernstein’s professional­gram, a few of whom will have long gone directly to pop­u­lar­ize each elec­tron­ic instru­ments and clas­si­cal issues in prog-rock, dis­co, and sure, even online game tune.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How the Moog Syn­the­siz­er Modified the Sound of Track

A BBC Sci­ence Display Intro­duces the Moog Syn­the­siz­er in 1969

Bob Moog Demon­strates His Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Moog Mod­el D Syn­the­siz­er

Josh Jones is a author and musi­cian based totally in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness