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. . . The score of [the Illiac
Suite for String
Quartet] was published in 1957 [by Presser]. After several brief
preliminary
reports concerning the experimentation that went into producing it, a full
account of its preparation appeared in the book, Experimental
Music . . . published by Leonard Isaacson and
myself in 1959. . . . An article derived
from the book was published in Scientific
American. . . .
The first three movements of the Illiac Suite were played in Urbana in 1956. It has since been played a number of times and twice recorded. The WQXR String Quintet first recorded it in a recording session sponsored by Max Mathews of Bell Telephone Laboratories. One excerpt from this recording appears in a record album issued by Bell some years ago [titled Music from Mathematics]. . . . In its Jan. 4, 1960, issue, Newsweek said of the Illiac Suite: “Premiered in Chicago, the stilted, lifeless performance aroused curiosity but not much envy from flesh-and-blood composers.” This was, of course, not the first performance. Unfortunately, just before the concert in question, the quartet engaged to play the Illiac Suite refused to do so, declaring it unplayable. So a tape recorder was placed on the stage to play a tape of the 1956 performance for the assembled audience. The existence of the Illiac Suite, plus the growth of interest in musical applications of electronic computers in general, has stimulated the writing of numerous articles on the subject of computer music in many types of media. Several somewhat more extended articles have appeared in various periodicals, including articles primarily intended for students, for nontechnical readers or for readers principally interested in computer applications. In addition, there exist in European journals two rather thorough commentaries on the work that produced the Illiac Suite. Finally, as a consequence of publicity about the Illiac Suite, in 1959, I received from its author a copy of a short story, “Das Zwölftonwunder” originally published in Switzerland in 1952. The plot of the story revolved around the idea that a professor at an American university programmed a computer to turn out a piece of music—actually a piece of twelve-tone music—and won a prize with it. . It is curious to note how many computer pieces have been written for string quartet—our own Illiac Suite, Tenney’s Stochastic String Quartet, Xenakis’ ST4, and Champernowne’s Music from Edsac, particularly since string-quartet performers seem to be among the least receptive to newer compositional ideas such as computer music.
Lejaren Hiller
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