Hugh Le Caine - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Hugh Le Caine was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

physicist

Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

, composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, and instrument builder.

Le Caine was brought up in Port Arthur

Port Arthur, Ontario

Port Arthur was a city in Northern Ontario which amalgamated with Fort William and the townships of Neebing and McIntyre to form the city of Thunder Bay in January 1970. Port Arthur was the district seat of Thunder Bay District.- History :...

(now Thunder Bay) in northwestern Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

. After completing his Master of Science degree from Queen's University in 1939, Le Caine was awarded a National Research Council of Canada

National Research Council of Canada

The National Research Council is an agency of the Government of Canada which conducts scientific research and development.- History :...

(NRC) fellowship to continue his work on atomic physics

Atomic physics

Atomic physics is the field of physics that studies atoms as an isolated system of electrons and an atomic nucleus. It is primarily concerned with the arrangement of electrons around the nucleus and...

measuring devices at Queen's. He worked with the NRC in Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

from 1940 to 1974. During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, he assisted in the development of the first radar

Radar

Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...

systems. On an NRC grant he studied nuclear physics

Nuclear physics

Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei. The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons technology, but the research has provided application in many fields, including those...

from 1948 to 1952 in England.

At home he pursued a life-long interest in electronic music

Electronic music

Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...

and sound generation. In 1937, Le Caine designed an electronic free reed organ, and in the mid 1940s, he built the Electronic Sackbut

Electronic Sackbut

The Electronic Sackbut is an electronic instrument designed by Hugh Le Caine beginning in the 1940s.The Sackbut had a feature which resembles what has become the modulation wheel on today's synthesizers: The player used the left hand to modify the sound while the right hand was used to play the...

, now recognised to be one of the first synthesizer

Synthesizer

A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

s. After the success of public demonstrations of his instruments, he was permitted to move his musical activities to the NRC and to work on them full time in 1954. Over the next twenty years, he built over twenty-two different new instruments.

Between 1955 and his retirement from the NRC in 1973, Le Caine produced at least fifteen electroacoustical compositions and created a score of new devices and also presented his ideas and inventions to learned bodies and the general public. But while Le Caine did get excellent responses from both the learned bodies and the public, he did not get a satisfactory response from industry. Fortunately, a few people did eventually come into Le Caine's life to make him feel his efforts were of some value. One of these people was Israeli composer Josef Tal. In the summer of 1958, Tal had travelled to Ottawa under a Unesco grant to visit major electronic music studios. Tal grew very excited about the instruments that Le Caine had built, but he did not realize what this meant to Le Caine until the next day while Le Caine, Tal, and several technicians were having lunch in a small restaurant. Tal noticed that, not only had Le Caine been rather silent on this day, but on close inspection at the table, Le Caine had tears running down his cheeks and falling silently into his soup. When an opportunity arose, Tal delicately asked one of the technicians about this and was told that Le Caine had felt no composer in Canada had a use for his instruments and that Tal was the first composer who had shown any interest in his work.

In 1962 Le Caine arrived in Jerusalem to install his Creative Tape Recorder in the Centre for Electronic Music in Israel, established by Josef Tal. Le Caine also collaborated in the development of pioneering electronic music studios at the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

in 1959 and at McGill University

McGill University

Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...

in 1964.

He was married to Trudi Le Caine

Trudi Le Caine

Trudi Le Caine, CM was an arts patron involved with local and national arts initiatives in Ottawa, Canada....

, a notable supporter of the arts in Ottawa.

Though his composition output was small, Le Caine is remembered as one of the great pioneer composers of musique concrète
Musique concrète
Musique concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sounds derived from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical"...

, his best known work being Dripsody (1955), a piece of musique concrète based on the sound of a single drop of water that is permuted and contorted into a chorus of sounds.

Additional reading

Le Caine, Hugh. “A report from the International Conference of Composers, held at the Stratford Festival [1960].” The Modern Composer and his World. Edited by John Beckwith and Udo Kasemets. University of Toronto Press, 1961, pp. 109–116.

External links

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