Wendy Carlos’s music of the spheres

This is a pretty in-depth article. (Though the intro could have been far less long-winded IMO.)

By the summer of 1969, it was a gold record, ascending the pop charts to outsell the Who’s Tommy and Johnny Cash at San Quentin.

Wow! I didn't realize it was that popular. I think my oldest brother had a copy of it in the mid 1970s, and he was not a classical listener by any stretch, so it makes sense.

In Manhattan’s West Village, Stevie Wonder knocked on Carlos’s door one day, hoping to try out a Moog for himself. She hid from him, afraid that her voice might betray the fact that she had begun taking estrogen.

Oh god, that just breaks my heart! If Stevie freaking Wonder showed up at my door, there's not much you could do to make me tell him to go away. I can't imagine how she must have felt.

And, like the harpsichord, the keyboard wasn’t touch sensitive, making it difficult to assert the sort of hierarchical relationships between melodic lines that a pianist does instinctively. In this way, it was a perfect machine for generating true counterpoint, something we associate with Bach almost metonymically.

FWIW, it's also what gave a lot Vince Clark's early work with Depeche Mode and Yazoo its feel. A lot of those pieces bare a striking similarity to a Bach 4 part chorale. (Every time I hear "Just Can't Get Enough" in my head, it turns into a barbershop quartet singing all the parts.)

Anyway, this was a really interesting read. Thanks for posting it!