BERK, ERNEST Electronic Music 1955-1984
Description
For decades, Berk's position as a 1950s pathfinderremained largely unrecognised, while his remarkablebody of electronic music — comprising more than 280 compositions — lay dormant and neglected.
Released in the Early Electronic Series
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Ernest Berk was a singular figure and a 1950s pathfinder in electronic music in Britain.With a background as a dancer and choreographer, he devoted much of his attentionto electronic music for dance. The music collected here spans almost twenty years andwas created across his three North London studios at Camden Road, Dorset Street,and the Diorama in Peto Place. In this particular combination of electronic compositionand contemporary dance, Berk had no direct counterpart in Britain, with the Americancomposer and choreographer Alwin Nikolais providing the closest parallel.
Berk's musical language evolved from early tape manipulation, microphone recordingsand radio interference towards electronically generated sounds produced with tone,pulse and white-noise generators. Throughout these technological changes, he maintaineda strict economy of means, often limiting himself to only a few carefully selected soundsources. Rhythm, pulse and percussive tape loops remained central to his compositions, reflecting his experience as both a dancer and percussionist. Gemini (Les Amies),Op. 52, in which recordings of a kettle lid grinding and spinning on various surfacesare juxtaposed with percussion loops, offers a striking example of this approach.
Berk also regularly returned to completed works, altering them, extracting sections andreusing recognisable motifs in new compositions. In Your Image, Op. 43 and No Fish(or Oh Mr. Bard), Op. 29 reveal this practice of self-quotation particularly clearly. Thelatter is presented here in an eleven-minute version preserved on one of a group oftapes that had disappeared from Berk's collection after his death and were thought lost,until Berk's friend and colleague Andreas Wirth revealed in 2024 that he held a numberof them.
Dance remained central to Berk's work. He composed fourteen works for dancer and choreographer Rebecca Wilson, their collaboration continuing until 1976, and in 1971 established the Dance Theatre Commune with his third wife, Ailsa Berk. Nocturne (WhileI was asleep), Op. 163, with its repeating looped sequences suggestive of breathing,also existed in an hour-long version created for the DTC's semi-dark, all-night 'Liberation'dance sessions.
One of his later works, Osterglocken, Op. 221 (1980), distils Berk's enduring interest inrestricted sound materials through subtle variations of timbre, gesture and pulse. Fordecades, Berk's position as a 1950s pathfinder remained largely unrecognised, while his remarkable body of electronic music — comprising more than 280 compositions — laydormant and neglected. This anthology forms part of the ongoing process of rediscoveringthis distinctive body of work.
Titles
01. Apparition, Op. 54 (1963) 03:54
02. 1936, In Commemoration of the Spanish Civil War, Op. 56 (1964) 05:47
03. No Fish (Oh Mr. Bard), Op. 29 (1963, extended version) 11:43
04. Gemini (Les Amies), Op. 52 (1962) 08:46
05. Plastic Wasteland, Op. 185 (1975) 05:13
06. Emanti, Op. 170 (1973) 06:52
07. Opus 201, Op. 201 (1976) 09:38
08. Me Me Me, Op. 167 (1973) 10:32
09. Ritual, Op. 204 (1976) 10:46
10. Dream Sequence, Op. 111 (1968) 16:30
11. In Your Image, Op. 43 (1963, extended version) 04:42
12. What's Up?, Op. 203 (1976) 13:48
13. Osterglocken, Op. 221 (1980, Bourges version) 15:34
14. 126, Op. 126 (1969) 03:25
15. Witches, no opus (1972) 06:11
16. Nocturne (While I was asleep), Op. 163 (1972) 13:42
