The “Switched-On Bach” Story

Wendy (Walter) Carlos at her Moog synthesizer.

A 1969 article telling the story of Wendy Carlos’ “Switched-On Bach” seminal album. A collection of pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach performed on the Moog modular synthesizer, “Switched-On Bach” legitimized the electronic synthesizer as a real musical instrument and changed forever the public perception of electronic music, showing that it could be something very different from ” the academy approved ‘ugly’ music, “as Carlos put it.