13 Radiophone Texte

Ernst Jandl CD cover

Delia is credited with music for a radio programme German Concrete Poetry (Ernst Jandl) produced by George MacBeth. The notes to its Radiophonic Database entry for tape TRW 6496, dated 1st June 1966, read: "Laut Und Luise" - Poems of Ernst Jandl, where Laut Und Luise is a book of Ernst Jandl's poems published in 1966.

The piece also gets called Jandl.

In the late '60s, Jandl was given the chance to experiment with recording equipment. In "13 Radiophone Texte" and "Das Röchelm der Mona Lisa," the poet's voice is multi-tracked, processed (speed variation, reverb, ring modulation, etc.), and edited into impressive sound pieces that still pack some shock value decades later. The 13 radio texts were produced at the BBC in 1966. [...] They consist of phonetic explorations of simple phrases and make stunning use of extended vocal techniques. The 13 vignettes total 27 minutes in duration.

At the great poetry reading at the Albert Hall on June the 11th, 1965 the most popular event of all was a reading by the Austrian poet Ernst Jandl of a number of his sound poems [...] due to [...] the very intense emotive power of language used in the border area between poetry and music. The BBC Radiophonic Workshop has already experimented in this area with recent programmes of sound poems by Bob Cobbing and orchestrations of poetry with electronic sounds under the direction of Rosemary Tonks.
   Well, this evening you're going to hear perhaps the most extreme development of this technique so far. Ernst Jandl has been working for several days with a team of people at the Radiophonic Workshop on a sound treatment of a sequence of his poems in the original German.

Track list

As this is a recent CD release, I have included only the most Delianly interesting_ those most treated or multitracked. For the whole kebosh, go buy the CD.

• 00 Introduction: Spoken intro to the radio broadcast

• 01. Auf Dem Land (In the Countryside): Many-voiced multitracking with speeded/slowed versions

• 02. Sehnsucht (Longing) 2-voice multitracking with bandpass filtered versions
• 03. Schmerz Durch Reibung (Pain Through Friction): Speed changing
• 04. Niagaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa (Niagara Falls): Endless echo tape loop creating harmonic sequences

• 05. Im Reich Der Toten (In the Realm of the Dead): Reverb
• 06. Der Bettler (The Beggar): 2-track overdubbing
• 07. Ja (Prayer): 2-track overdubbing, then fast loop echo
• 08. Emzeinkeit (Loneliness): Reverb
• 09. SCHTZNGRMM (The Trenches: A war poem): Reverb then loop echo

• 10. Ode Auf N (Ode to N, on hero worship): Overdubbed in parts, then fading loop echo and variable-rate speed changing

• 11. Talk: Overdubbing with speed-changed versions

• 12. Strickleiter (Rope Ladder, the story of an escape): Reverb & speedups
• 13. Amt Mit Schwalben (Office with Swallows: A study in bureaucracy): Speedups, harmonic overdubbing & synth overtones at the end

Availability

• Broadcast on 13th December 1966 at 10.05pm on the BBC's Third Programme.
• Broadcast on 25th September 1968 at 8.40pm on BBC Radio 3.
• In the BBC Sound Archive on tapes TRW 6496 and TRW 6931.
• An excerpt is on TRW 7059.
• A copy of the poem Niagara Falls is on tape TRW 5.
• Published on audio cassette and on CD, e.g. on abebooks.co.uk or on Amazon
• Published in 2002 by Intermedium on CD Ernst Jandl: 13 Radiophone Texte & Das Roecheln der Mona Lisa.
• On radioartnet.bandcamp.com