The first two articles in this issue reflect the theme “Spatialization Then and Now.” Leo Izzo has uncovered formerly unknown or neglected source material concerning Edgard Varèse’s historic composition Poème électronique. Stored at the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, Switzerland, this material consists of Varèse’s own sketches for the piece as well as engineers’ complete instructions for spatializing the piece at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. Among other contributions, Izzo’s article provides insights into the spatialization and a new analysis of the piece’s form based on these sources.
Varèse’s electronic music was, of course, a fixed-media composition, whose spatialization was implemented by routing three channels of analog audio from tape to a large set of loudspeakers. These days, real-time computer music is commonplace, using tools such as Max for digital sound synthesis and sometimes for spatialization. The article by David Schnug describes his approach to spatial composition. He designed...