Musique concrète (French for "concrete music") 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" (melody, harmony, rhythm, metre and so on). The theoretical underpinnings of the aesthetic were developed by Pierre Schaeffer, beginning in the early 1940s.

History[link]

Beginnings[link]

In 1928 the music critic Andre Coeuroy, wrote in the Panorama of Contemporary Music that "perhaps the time is not far off when a composer will be able to represent through recording, music specifically composed for the gramophone."^[1] In the same period the American composer Henry Cowell, in referring to the projects of Nikolai Loptatnikoff, believed that "there was a wide field open for the composition of music for phonographic discs." This sentiment was echoed further in 1930 by Igor Stravinsky, when he stated in the revue Kultur und Schalplatte that "there will be a greater interest in creating music in a way that will be peculiar to the gramophone record." The following year, 1931, Boris de Schloezer also expressed the opinion that one could write for the gramophone or for the wireless just as one can for the piano or the violin (Battier 2007, 190). Shortly after, Rudolf Arnheim discussed the effects of microphonic recording in an essay entitled Radio, published in 1936. In it the idea of a creative role for the recording medium was introduced and Amheim stated that: "The rediscovery of the musicality of sound in noise and in language, and the reunification of music, noise and language in order to obtain a unity of material: that is one of the chief artistic tasks of radio" (Battier 2007, 193).

Pierre Schaeffer and Studio d'Essai[link]

In 1942 the French composer and theoretician Pierre Schaeffer, began his exploration of radiophony when he joined Jacques Copeau and his pupils in the foundation of the Studio d'Essai de la Radiodiffusion Nationale. The studio originally functioned as a center for the Resistance movement in French radio, which in August 1944 was responsible for the first broadcasts in liberated Paris. It was here that Schaeffer began to experiment with creative radiophonic techniques using the sound technologies of the time (Palombini 1993, 14).

The development of Schaeffer’s practice was informed by encounters with voice actors and microphone usage and radiophonic art played an important part in inspiring and consolidating Schaeffer's conception of sound based composition (Dack 1994, 3–11). Another important influence on Schaeffer’s practice was cinema and the techniques of recording and montage, which were originally associated with cinematographic practice, came to "serve as the substrate of musique concrète." Marc Battier notes that, prior to Schaeffer, Jean Epstein drew attention to the manner is which sound recording revealed what was hidden in the act of basic acoustic listening. Epstein's reference to this "phenomenon of an epiphanic being", which appears through the transduction of sound, proved influential on Schaeffer’s concept of reduced listening. Schaeffer would explicitly cite Jean Epstein with reference to his use of extra-musical sound material. Epstein had already imagined that "through the transposition of natural sounds, it becomes possible to create chords and dissonances, melodies and symphonies of noise, which are a new and specifically cinematographic music" (Battier 2007, 191).

Halim El-Dabh's tape music[link]

At around the same time as Schaeffer was conducting his preliminary experiments into sound manipulation, the Egyptian composer Halim El-Dabh, then an a student in Cairo, was independently experimenting with tape music. He recorded the sounds of an ancient zaar ceremony using a cumbersome wire recorder and at the Middle East Radio studios processed the material using reverberation, echo, voltage controls, and re-recording. The resulting tape based composition, entitled The Expression of Zaar, was presented in 1944 at an art gallery event in Cairo. El-Dabh has described his initial activities as an attempt to unlock "the inner sound" of the recordings. While his early compositional work was not widely known outside of Egypt at the time, El-Dabh would eventually gain recognition for his influential work at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in the late 1950s (Holmes 2008, 156–57).

Club d 'Essai and Cinq études de bruits[link]

Following Schaeffer's work with Studio d'Essai at Radiodiffusion Nationale during the early 1940s he was credited with originating the theory and practice of musique concrète. The Studio d'Essai was renamed Club d 'Essai de la Radiodiffusion–Télévision Franglaise^{[citation needed]} in 1946 and in the same year Schaeffer discussed, in writing, the question surrounding the transformation of time perceived through recording. The essay evidenced knowledge of sound manipulation techniques he would further exploit compositionally. In 1948 Schaeffer formally initiated “research in to noises” at the Club d'Essai (Palombini 1993, 14) and on the 5th October 1948 the results of his initial experimentation were premiered at a concert given in Paris (Chion 1983). Five works for phonograph (known collectively as Cinq études de bruits—Five Studies of Noises) including Etude violette (Study in Purple) and Etude aux chemins de fer (Study of the Railroads), were presented.

Musique concrète[link]

By 1949 Schaeffer's compositional work was known publicly as musique concrète (Palombini 1993, 14). Schaeffer stated: "when I proposed the term 'musique concrète,' I intended … to point out an opposition with the way musical work usually goes. Instead of notating musical ideas on paper with the symbols of solfege and entrusting their realization to well-known instruments, the question was to collect concrete sounds, wherever they came from, and to abstract the musical values they were potentially containing" (Reydellet 1996, 10). According to Pierre Henry, "musique concrète was not a study of timbre, it is focused on envelopes, forms. It must be presented by means of non-traditional characteristics, you see … one might say that the origin of this music is also found in the interest in ‘plastifying’ music, of rendering it plastic like sculpture…musique concrète, in my opinion … led to a manner of composing, indeed, a new mental framework of composing" (James 1981, 79). Schaeffer had developed an aesthetic that was centred upon the use of sound as a primary compositional resource. The aesthetic also emphasised the importance of play (jeu) in the practice of sound based composition. Schaeffer's use of the word jeu, from the verb jouer, carries the same double meaning as the English verb play: 'to enjoy oneself by interacting with one's surroundings', as well as 'to operate a musical instrument' (Dack 2002).

Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète[link]

By 1951 the work of Schaeffer, composer-percussionist Pierre Henry, and sound engineer Jacques Poullin had received official recognition and The Groupe de Recherches de Musique Concrète, Club d 'Essai de la Radiodiffusion-Télévision Franglaise^{[citation needed]} was established at RTF in Paris, the ancestor of the ORTF (Lange 2009, 173). At RTF the GRMC established the first purpose-built electroacoustic music studio. It quickly attracted many who either were or were later to become notable composers, including Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Jean Barraqué, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Edgard Varèse, Iannis Xenakis, Michel Philippot, and Arthur Honegger. Compositional output from 1951 to 1953 comprised Étude I (1951) and Étude II (1951) by Boulez, Timbres-durées (1952) by Messiaen, Konkrete Etüde (1952) by Stockhausen, Le microphone bien tempéré (1952) and La voile d’Orphée (1953) by Henry, Étude I (1953) by Philippot, Étude (1953) by Barraqué, the mixed pieces Toute la lyre (1951) and Orphée 53 (1953) by Schaeffer/Henry, and the film music Masquerage (1952) by Schaeffer and Astrologie (1953) by Henry. In 1954 Varèse and Honegger visited to work on the tape parts of Déserts and La rivière endormie (Palombini 1999).

Between 1952 and 1956 Schaeffer's commitments to RTF led him to appoint Philippe Arthuys with responsibility for the GRMC, with Pierre Henry operating as Director of Works. Pierre Henry’s composing talent developed greatly during this period at the GRMC and he worked with experimental filmmakers such as Max de Haas, Jean Gremillon, Enrico Fulchignoni, and Jean Rouch, and with choreographers including Dick Sanders and Maurice Béjart (Gayou 2007, 206). Schaeffer returned to run the group at the end of 1957, and immediately stated his disapproval of the direction the GRMC had taken. A proposal was then made to "renew completely the spirit, the methods and the personnel of the Group, with a view to undertake research and to offer a much needed welcome to young composers" (Gayou 2007, 207).

Groupe de Recherches Musicales[link]

Following the emergence of differences within the GRMC Pierre Henry, Philippe Arthuys, and several of their colleagues, resigned in April 1958. Schaeffer created a new collective, called Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) and set about recruiting new members including Luc Ferrari, François-Bernard Mâche, Iannis Xenakis, Bernard Parmegiani, and Mireille Chamass-Kyrou. Later arrivals included Ivo Malec, Philippe Carson, Romuald Vandelle, Edgardo Canton and François Bayle (Gayou 2007, 207).

GRM was one of several theoretical and experimental groups working under the umbrella of the Schaeffer-led Service de la Recherche at ORTF (1960–74). Together with the GRM, three other groups existed: the Groupe de Recherches Image GRI, the Groupe de Recherches Technologiques GRT and the Groupe de Recherches Langage which became the Groupe d’Etudes Critiques (Gayou 2007, 207). Communication was the one theme that unified the various groups, all of which were devoted to production and creation. In terms of the question "who says what to whom?" Schaeffer added "how?", thereby creating a platform for research into audiovisual communication and mass media, audible phenomena and music in general (including non-Western musics) (Beatriz Ferreyra, new preface to Schaeffer and Reibel 1967, reedition of 1998, 9). At the GRM the theoretical teaching remained based on practice and could be summed up in the catch phrase ‘do and listen’ (Gayou 2007, 207).

Schaeffer kept up a practice established with the GRMC of delegating the functions (though not the title) of Group Director to colleagues. Since 1961 GRM has had six Group Directors: Michel Philippot (1960–61), Luc Ferrari (1962–63), Bernard Baschet and François Vercken (1964–66). From the beginning of 1966, François Bayle took over the direction for the duration of thirty-one years, to 1997. He was then replaced by Daniel Teruggi (Gayou 2007, 206).

Traité des objets musicaux[link]

The group continued to refine Schaeffer's ideas and strengthened the concept of musique acousmatique (Peignot 1960, 111–23). Schaeffer had borrowed the term acousmatic from Pythagoras and defined it as: "Acousmatic, adjective: referring to a sound that one hears without seeing the causes behind it" (Schaeffer 1966, 91). In 1966 Schaeffer published the book Traité des objets musicaux (Treatise on Musical Objects) which represented the culmination of some 20 years of research in the field of musique concrète. In conjunction with this publication, a set of sound recordings was produced, entitled Le solfège de l'objet sonore (Music Theory of the Acoustic Object), to provide examples of concepts dealt with in the treatise.

Technology[link]

The development of musique concrète was facilitated by the emergence of new music technology in post-war Europe. Access to microphones, phonographs, and later magnetic tape recorders (created in 1939 and acquired by the Schaeffer's Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (Research Group on Concrete Music) in 1952), facilitated by an association with the French national broadcasting organization, at that time the Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française, gave Schaeffer and his colleagues an opportunity to experiment with recording technology and tape manipulation.

Initial tools of musique concrète[link]

In 1948, a typical radio studio consisted of a series of shellac record players, a shellac record recorder, a mixing desk, with rotating potentiometers, a mechanical reverberation, filters, and microphones. This technology made a number of limited operations available to a composer (Teruggi 2007):

• Shellac record players: could read a sound normally and in reverse mode, could change speed at fixed ratios thus permitting octave transposition.
• Shellac recorder: would record any result coming out of the mixing desk.
• Mixing desk: would permit several sources to be mixed together with an independent control of the gain or volume of the sound. The result of the mixing was sent to the recorder and to the monitoring loudspeakers. Signals could be sent to the filters or the reverberation unit.
• Mechanical reverberation: made of a metal plate or a series of springs that created the reverberation effect, indispensable to force sounds to ‘fuse’ together.
• Filters: two kinds of filters, 1/3 octave filters and, high and low-pass filters. They allow the elimination or enhancement of selected frequencies.
• Microphones: essential tool for capturing sound.

The application of the above technologies in the creation of musique concrete led to the development of a number of sound manipulation techniques including (Teruggi 2007):

• Sound transposition: reading a sound at a different speed than the one at which it was recorded.
• Sound looping: composers developed a skilled technique in order to create loops at specific locations within a recording.
• Sound-sample extraction: a hand-controlled method that required delicate manipulation to get a clean sample of sound. It entailed letting the stylus read a small segment of a record. Used in the Symphonie pour un homme seul.
• Filtering: by eliminating most of the central frequencies of a signal, the remains would keep some trace of the original sound but without making it recognisable.

Magnetic tape[link]

The first tape recorders start arriving at ORTF in 1949; however, their functioning was much less reliable than the shellac players, to the point that the Symphonie pour un homme seul, which was composed in 1950–51, was mainly composed with records, even if the tape recorder was available (Teruggi 2007, 216). In 1950, when the machines finally functioned correctly, the techniques of musique concrete were expanded. A range of new sound manipulation practices were explored using improved media manipulation methods and operations such as speed variation. A completely new possibility of organising sounds appears with tape editing, which permits tape to be spliced and arranged with an extraordinary new precision. The ‘axe-cut junctions’ were replaced with micrometric junctions and a whole new technique of production, less dependency on performance skills, could be developed. Tape editing brought a new technique called ‘micro-editing’, in which very tiny fragments of sound, representing milliseconds of time, were edited together, thus creating completely new sounds or structures (Teruggi 2007, 217).

Development of novel devices[link]

During the GRMC period from 1951–1958 time Schaeffer and Jacques Poullin developed a number of novel sound creation tools including a three-track tape recorder, a machine with ten playback heads to replay tape loops in echo (the morphophone), a keyboard-controlled machine to replay tape loops at twenty-four preset speeds (the keyboard, chromatic, or Tolana phonogène), a slide-controlled machine to replay tape loops at a continuously variable range of speeds (the handle, continuous, or Sareg phonogène), and a device to distribute an encoded track across four loudspeakers, including one hanging from the centre of the ceiling (the potentiomètre d’espace) (Palombini 1999).

The phonogène[link]

The chromatic phonogène.

Speed variation was a powerful tool for sound design applications. It had been identified that transformations brought about by varying playback speed lead to modification in the character of the sound material:

• Variation in the sounds' length, in a manner directly proportional to the ratio of speed variation.
• Variation in length is coupled with a variation in pitch, and is also proportional to the ratio of speed variation.
• A sounds attack characteristic is altered, whereby it is either dislocated from succeeding events, or the energy of the attack is more sharply focused.
• The distribution of spectral energy is altered, thereby influencing how the resulting timbre might be perceived, relative to its original unaltered state.

The phonogène was a machine capable of modifying sound structure significantly and it provided composers with a means to adapt sound to meet specific compositional contexts. The initial phonogènes were manufactured in 1953 by two subcontractors: the chromatic phonogène by a company called Tolana, and the sliding version by the SAREG Company (Poullin 1999). A third version was developed later at ORTF. An outline of the unique capabilities of the various phonogènes can be seen here:

• Chromatic: The chromatic phonogène was controlled through a one-octave keyboard. Multiple capstans of differing diameters vary the tape speed over a single stationary magnetic tape head. A tape loop was put into the machine, and when a key was played, it would act on an individual pinch roller / capstan arrangement and cause the tape to be played at a specific speed. The machine worked with short sounds only (Poullin 1999).

• Sliding: The sliding phonogène (also called continuous-variation phonogène) provided continuous variation of tape speed using a control rod (Poullin 1999). The range allowed the motor to arrive at almost a stop position, always through a continuous variation. It was basically a normal tape recorder but with the ability to control its speed, so it could modify any length of tape. One of the earliest examples of its use can by heard in Voile d’Orphée by Pierre Henry (1953), where a lengthy glissando is used to symbolise the removal of Orpheus's veil as he enters hell.

• Universal: A final version called the universal phonogène was completed in 1963. The device's main ability was that it enabled the dissociation of pitch variation from time variation. This was the starting point for methods that would later become widely available using digital technology, for instance harmonising (transposing sound without modifying duration) and time stretching (modifying duration without pitch modification). This was obtained through a rotating magnetic head called the Springer temporal regulator, an ancestor of the rotating heads used in video machines.

The three-head tape recorder[link]

This original tape recorder was one of the first machines permitting the simultaneous listening of several synchronised sources. Until 1958 musique concrète, radio and the studio machines were monophonic. The three-head tape recorder superposed three magnetic tapes that were dragged by a common motor, each tape having an independent spool. The objective was to keep the three tapes synchronised from a common starting point. Works could then be conceived polyphonically, and thus each head conveyed a part of the information and was listened to through a dedicated loudspeaker. It was an ancestor of the multi-track player (four then eight tracks) that appeared in the 1960s. Timbres Durées by Olivier Messiaen with the technical assistance of Pierre Henry was the first work composed for this tape recorder in 1952. A rapid rhythmic polyphony was distributed over the three channels (Teruggi 2007, 218).

The morphophone[link]

This machine was conceived to build complex forms through repetition, and accumulation of events through delays, filtering and feedback. It consisted of a large rotating disk, 50 cm in diameter, on which was stuck a tape with its magnetic side facing outward. A series of twelve movable magnetic heads (one each recording head and erasing head, and ten playback heads) were positioned around the disk, in contact with the tape. A sound up to four seconds long could be recorded on the looped tape and the ten playback heads would then read the information with different delays, according to their (adjustable) positions around the disk. A separate amplifier and band-pass filter for each head could modify the spectrum of the sound, and additional feedback loops could transmit the information to the recording head. The resulting repetitions of a sound occurred at different time intervals, and could be filtered or modified through feedback. This system was also easily capable of producing artificial reverberation or continuous sounds (Teruggi 2007, 218).

Early sound spatialisation system[link]

At the premiere of Pierre Schaeffer's Symphonie pour un homme seul in 1951, a system that was designed for the spatial control of sound was tested. It was called a "relief desk" (pupitre de relief, but also referred to as pupitre d'espace or potentiomètre d'espace) and was intended to control the dynamic level of music played from several shellac players. This created a stereophonic effect by controlling the positioning of a monophonic sound source (Teruggi 2007, 218). One of five tracks, provided by a purpose-built tape machine, was controlled by the performer and the other four tracks each supplied a single loudspeaker. This provided a mixture of live and preset sound positions (Poullin, 1957). The placement of loudspeakers in the performance space included two loudspeakers at the front right and left of the audience, one placed at the rear, and in the centre of the space a loudspeaker was placed in a high position above the audience. The sounds could therefore be moved around the audience, rather than just across the front stage. On stage, the control system allowed a performer to position a sound either to the left or right, above or behind the audience, simply by moving a small, hand held transmitter coil towards or away from four somewhat larger receiver coils arranged around the performer in a manner reflecting the loudspeaker positions (Teruggi 2007, 218). A contemporary eyewitness described the potentiomètre d'espace in normal use:

One found one’s self sitting in a small studio which was equipped with four loudspeakers—two in front of one—right and left; one behind one and a fourth suspended above. In the front center were four large loops and an “executant” moving a small magnetic unit through the air. The four loops controlled the four speakers, and while all four were giving off sounds all the time, the distance of the unit from the loops determined the volume of sound sent out from each.
The music thus came to one at varying intensity from various parts of the room, and this “spatial projection” gave new sense to the rather abstract sequence of sound originally recorded. (Gradenwitz 1953)

The central concept underlying this method was the notion that music should be controlled during public presentation in order to create a performance situation; an attitude that has stayed with acousmatic music to the present day (Teruggi 2007, 218).

The Coupigny synthesiser and Studio 54 mixing desk[link]

After the longstanding rivalry with the "electronic music" of the Cologne studio had subsided, in 1970 the GRM finally created an electronic studio using tools developed by the physicist Enrico Chiarucci, called the Studio 54, which featured the "Coupigny modular synthesiser" and a Moog synthesiser with VCA (Gayou 2007, 208). The Coupigny synthesiser, named for its designer François Coupigny, director of the Group for Technical Research (Battier 2007, 200), and the Studio 54 mixing desk had a major influence on the evolution of GRM and from the point of their introduction on they brought a new quality to the music (Teruggi 2007, 220). The mixing desk and synthesiser were combined in one unit and were created specifically for the creation of musique concrète.

The design of the desk was influenced by trade union rules at French National Radio that required technicians and production staff to have clearly defined duties. The solitary practice of musique concrète composition did not suit a system that involved three operators: one in charge of the machines, a second controlling the mixing desk, and third to provide guidance to the others. Because of this the synthesiser and desk were combined and organised in a manner that allowed it to be used easily by a composer. Independently of the mixing tracks (twenty-four in total), it had a coupled connection patch that permitted the organisation of the machines within the studio. It also had a number of remote controls for operating tape recorders. The system was easily adaptable to any context, particularly that of interfacing with external equipment (Teruggi 2007, 219).

Before the late 1960s the musique concrète produced at GRM had largely been based on the recording and manipulation of sounds, but synthesised sounds had featured in a number of works prior to the introduction of the Coupigny. Pierre Henry had used oscillators to produce sounds as early as 1955. But a synthesiser with parametrical control was something Pierre Schaeffer was against, since it favoured the preconception of music and therefore deviated from Schaeffer's principal of ‘making through listening’ (Teruggi 2007, 219). Because of Schaeffer's concerns the Coupigny synthesiser was conceived as a sound-event generator with parameters controlled globally, without a means to define values as precisely as some other synthesisers of the day (Teruggi 2007, 219–20).

The development of the machine was constrained by several factors. It needed to be modular and the modules had to be easily interconnected (so that the synthesiser would have more modules than slots and it would have an easy-to-use patch). It also needed to include all the major functions of a modular synthesiser including oscillators, noise-generators, filters, ring-modulators, but an intermodulation facility was viewed as the primary requirement; to enable complex synthesis processes such as frequency modulation, amplitude modulation, and modulation via an external source. No keyboard was attached to the synthesiser and instead a specific and somewhat complex envelope generator was used to shape sound. This synthesiser was well-adapted to the production of continuous and complex sounds using intermodulation techniques such as cross-synthesis and frequency modulation but was less effective in generating precisely defined frequencies and triggering specific sounds (Teruggi 2007, 220).

The Coupigny synthesiser also served as the model for a smaller, portable unit, which has been used down to the present day (Battier 2007, 200).

The Acousmonium[link]

Schaeffer presenting The Acousmonium.

In 1966 composer and technician François Bayle was placed in charge of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales and in 1975, GRM was integrated with the new Institut national de l'audiovisuel (INA - Audiovisual National Institute) with Bayle as its head. In taking the lead on work that began in the early 1950s, with Jacques Poullin's potentiomètre d’espace, a system designed to move monophonic sound sources across four speakers, Bayle and the engineer Jean-Claude Lallemand created an orchestra of loudspeakers (un orchestra de haut-parleurs) known as the Acousmonium in 1974. An inaugural concert took place at the Espace Pierre Cardin in Paris with a presentation of Bayle's Expérience acoustique (Gayou 2007, 209).

The Acousmonium is a specialised sound reinforcement system consisting of between 50 and 100 loudspeakers, depending on the character of the concert, of varying shape and size. The system was designed specifically for the concert presentation of musique-concrète-based works but with the added enhancement of sound spatialisation. Loudspeakers are placed both on stage and at positions throughout the performance space (Gayou 2007, 209) and a mixing console is used to manipulate the placement of acousmatic material across the speaker array, using a performative technique known as sound diffusion (Austin 2000, 10-21). Bayle has commented that the purpose of the Acousmonium is to "substitute a momentary classical disposition of sound making, which diffuses the sound from the circumference towards the centre of the hall, by a group of sound projectors which form an ‘orchestration’ of the acoustic image" (Bayle 1993, 44).

Other notable composers[link]

• Michel Chion
• Hugh Le Caine
• Delia Derbyshire
• Francis Dhomont
• Denis Dufour
• Jonty Harrison
• Robert Normandeau
• Eliane Radigue
• Denis Smalley
• Trevor Wishart
• Christian Zanesi

See also[link]

• Audium
• Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre
• Canadian Electroacoustic Community
• Computer music
• Experimental music
• Noise (music)
• Sound engineering
• Sound design
• Sound art
• Sound collage

References[link]

• Austin, Larry, and Denis Smalley (2000). "Sound Diffusion in Composition and Performance: An Interview with Denis Smalley". Computer Music Journal 24, no. 2 (Summer): 10–21.
• Battier, Marc (2007). "What the GRM Brought to Music: From Musique Concrète to Acousmatic Music". Organised Sound 12, no. 3 (December: Musique Concrète's 60th and GRM's 50th birthday—A Celebration): 189–02.
• Bayle, François (1993). Musique acousmatique, propositions ... positions. Paris: INA-GRM Buche/Chastel.
• Chion, Michel. (1983). Guide des objets sonores, Pierre Schaeffer et la recherche musicale, Ina-GRM/Buchet-Chastel, Paris.
• Dack, John (2002). "Technology and the Instrument". In Musik Netz Werke: Konturen der neuen Musikkultur, edited by Lydia Grün and Frank Wiegand, 39–54. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. ISBN 3-933127-98-X.
• Dack, John (1994). "Pierre Schaeffer and the Significance of Radiophonic Art." Contemporary Music Review 10, no. 2:3-11.
• Emmerson, Simon (2007). Living Electronic Music. Aldershot (Hants.), Burlington (VT): Ashgate. ISBN 0-7546-5546-6 (cloth) ISBN 0-7546-5548-2 (pbk).
• Gayou, Évelyne. (2007). "The GRM: Landmarks on a Historic Route". Organised Sound 12, no. 3):203–11.
• Gradenwitz, Peter (1953). "Experiments in Sound: Ten-Day Demonstrationin Paris Offers the Latest in 'Musique Concrète'". New York Times (9 August).
• Holmes, Thom (2008). Electronic and experimental music: technology, music, and culture (3rd ed.). Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-415-95781-8. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hCthQ-bec-QC&pg=PA156. Retrieved 2011-06-04. 
• Jaffrennou, Pierre-Alain. 1998. "De la scénographie sonore". In Le son et l'espace: 1ères Rencontres musicales pluridisciplinaires, Lyon, 1995, edited by Hugues Genevois and Yann Orlarey, 143–56. Musique et sciences. Lyon: GRAME & Aléas. ISBN 2-908016-96-6.
• James, Richard S. (1981). Interview with Pierre Henry, cited in "Expansion of Sound Resources in France, 1913–1940, and Its Relationship to Electronic Music". doctoral thesis, University of Michigan, note 91, p. 79.
• Lange, A. Musique concrète & Early Electronic Music in Young, Rob (ed.) The Wire Primers: A Guide To Modern Music. London: Verso, 2009. pp. 173–180
• Manning, Peter (1985) Electronic and Computer Music, Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-311918-8
• Palombini, Carlos (1999). "Musique Concrète Revisited". Electronic Musicological Review 4 (June): Federal University of Paraná, Brazil.
• Palombini, Carlos (1993). "Machine Songs V: Pierre Schaeffer: From Research into Noises to Experimental Music". Computer Music Journal 17, no. 3 (Autumn): 14-19.
• Peignot, J. (1960). "De la musique concrète à l'acousmatique". Esprit, No. 280.
• Poullin, Jacques (1957) The Application of Recording Techniques to the Production of New Musical Materials and Forms. Applications to ‘Musique Concrete’. National Research Council of Canada Technical Translation TT-646, Translated by D. A. Sinclair from the original in L’Onde Électrique 34, no. 324 (1954): 282–91. Ottawa: National Research Council of Canada.
• Poullin, Jacques (1999). "L’apport des techniques d’enregistrement dans la fabrication de matieres et de formes musicales nouvelles: applications à la musique concrete". Ars Sonora, no. 9. [this appears to be the text of the original 1954 article]
• Reydellet, Jean de (1996). "Pierre Schaeffer, 1910-1995: The Founder of 'Musique Concrete'". Computer Music Journal 20, no. 2 (Summer): 10-11.
• Schaeffer, Pierre (1952), A la recherche d’une musique concrète. Éditions du Seuil, Paris 1952
• Schaeffer, Pierre (1966), Traité des objets musicaux. Paris: Le Seuil.
• Schaeffer, Pierre, and G. Reibel (1967). Solfege de l'objet sonore, Reedition 1998, preface by Daniel Teruggi, Guy Reibel, and Beatriz Ferreyra. Paris: Coedition Ina-Publications.
• Teruggi, Daniel (2007). "Technology and Musique Concrete: The Technical Developments of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales and Their Implication in Musical Composition". Organised Sound 12, no. 3:213–31.

Further reading[link]

• Dack, John (1994). "Pierre Schaeffer and the Significance of Radiophonic Art". Contemporary Music Review 10, no. 2: 3–11.
• Dack, John (1993a). "La Recherche de l'Instrument Perdu". Electroacoustic Music: Journal of the Electroacoustic Music Association of Great Britain 7:^{[page needed]}.
• Dwyer, Terence (1971). Composing with Tape Recorders: Musique Concrète for Beginners. London and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-311912-9.
• Kane, Brian (2007). "L’Objet Sonore Maintenant: Pierre Schaeffer, Sound Objects and the Phenomenological Reduction". Organised Sound, 12, no.1:15–24.
• Schaeffer, Pierre (1952b). "L'objet musical". La Revue Musicale: L'œuvre du XXe siècle, no. 212: 65-76.
• Schaeffer, Pierre (1967). La musique concrète. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

External links[link]

• INA-GRM website
• musique concrète at Allmusic
• François Bayle's personal website
• Michel Chion official site
• Electroacoustic Music Studies Network
• Bernard Parmegiani's personal website
• ElectroAcoustic Resource Site at De Montfort University
• INA-GRM 31st Season (2008/2009). Multiphonies program of events.
• Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music and Technology.
• Audium A Theatre Of Sound-Sculptured Space

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Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (ⁱ/piːˈɛər ˈhɛnriː məˈriː ˈʃeɪfər/; 14 August 1910 – 19 August 1995) ^[1] was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist and acoustician of the 20th century. His innovative work in both the sciences —particularly communications and acoustics— and the various arts of music, literature and radio presentation after the end of World War II, as well as his anti-nuclear activism and cultural criticism garnered him widespread recognition in his lifetime.

Amongst the vast range of works and projects he undertook, Schaeffer is most widely and currently recognized for his accomplishments in electronic and experimental music,^[2] at the core of which stands his role as the chief developer of a unique and early form of avant-garde music known as musique concrète.^[3] The genre emerged out of Europe from the utilization of new music technology developed in the post-Nazi Germany era, following the advance of electroacoustic and acousmatic music.

Schaeffer's writings (which include written and radio-narrated essays, biographies, short novels, a number of musical treatises and several plays)^[1][3][4] are often oriented towards his development of the genre, as well as the theoretics and philosophy of music in general.^[5]

Today, Schaeffer is considered one of the most influential experimental, electroacoustic and subsequently electronic musicians, having been the first composer to utilize a number of contemporary recording and sampling techniques that are now used worldwide by nearly all record production companies.^[2] His collaborative endeavors are considered milestones in the histories of electronic and experimental music.

Life[link]

Early life and education[link]

Schaeffer was born in Nancy, in 1910.^[3] His parents were both musicians (his father a violinist; his mother, a singer),^[5] and at first it seemed that Pierre would also take on music as a career. However his parents discouraged his musical pursuits from childhood and had him educated in engineering.^[2] He studied at several universities in this inclination, the first of which was Lycée Saint-Sigisbert located in his hometown of Nancy. Afterwards he moved westwards in 1929 to the École Polytechnique in Paris ^[3][6][7] and finally completed his education in the capital at the École supérieure d'électricité, in 1934.^[7]

Schaeffer completed his education with a diploma in radio broadcasting from the École Polytechnique.^[8] He may have also received a similar qualification from the École nationale supérieure des télécommunications, although it is not verifiable as to whether he ever actually attended this university.^[8]

First experimentations and work in broadcasting and engineering; marriage and fatherhood[link]

Later in 1934 Schaeffer entered his first employment as an engineer, briefly working in telecommunications in Strasbourg.^[7][9] In 1935 he began a relationship with a woman named Elisabeth Schmitt, and later in the year married her and with her had his first child, Marie-Claire Schaeffer.^[7] He and his new family then officially relocated to Paris where he joined the Radiodiffusion Française (now called Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française; French for French Radio and Television Broadcasting) in 1936 and began his work in radio broadcasting and presentation.^[6] It was there that he began to move away from his initial interests in telecommunications and to pursue music instead, combining his abilities as an engineer with his passion for sound. In his work at the station, Schaeffer experimented with records and an assortment of other devices—the sounds they made and the applications of those sounds—after convincing the radio station's management to allow him to use their equipment. This period of experimentation was significant for Schaeffer's development, bringing forwards many fundamental questions on the limits of modern musical expression.^[6]

Schaeffer presenting the Acousmonium.

In these experiments, Pierre tried playing sounds backwards, slowing them down, speeding them up and juxtaposing them with other sounds,^[10] all techniques which were virtually unknown at that time.^[6] He had begun working with new contemporaries whom he had met through RTF, and as such his experimentation deepened. Schaeffer's work gradually became more avant-garde, as he challenged traditional music style with the use of various devices and practices. A unique variety of electronic instruments—ones which Schaeffer and his colleagues created, using their own engineering skills—came into play in his work, like the chromatic, sliding and universal phonogenes, Francois Bayle's Acousmonium and a host of other devices such as gramaphones and some of the earliest tape recorders.^[10]

Beginnings of writing career[link]

In 1938 Schaeffer began his career as a writer, penning various articles and essays for the Revue Musicale, a French journal of music. His first column, Basic Truths, provided a critical examination of musical aspects of the time.

A known ardent Catholic, Schaeffer began to write minor religiously-based pieces, and in the same year as his Basic Truths published his first novel: Chlothar Nicole — a short Christian novel.

Club d'essai & the origin of musique concrète[link]

By that time in his life, Schaeffer had co-founded La Jeune France, which had interests in theatre and the visual arts, as well as in music and certain aspects of mysticism. In 1942, he created the Studio d'Essai (later known as the Club d'Essai), which played a role in the activities of the French resistance during World War II, and later became a center of musical activity. It was from d'Essai that he successfully recorded his first work, which itself appeared on Dix ans d'essais radiophoniques du Studio au Club d'Essai: 1942–1952, a compilation of his personal concrète, along with many other artists' experimental pieces, released later in his life – 1953.^{[citation needed]} The compilation has since become valued as a notable publication of the experimental music genre.^{[says who?]}

With the rise of nuclear power after World War II, Pierre became a notable activist in the anti-nuclear movement, one of the main factors associated with his personal life, other than his work in the field of music.

Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète[link]

In 1949, Schaeffer met the percussionist-composer Pierre Henry, with whom he collaborated with on many different musical compositions, and in 1951, he founded the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC) in the French Radio Institution. This gave him a new studio, which included a tape recorder. This was a significant development for Schaeffer, who previously had to work with phonographs and turntables to produce music. Schaeffer is generally acknowledged as being the first composer to make music using magnetic tape. His continued experimentation led him to publish À la Recherche d'une Musique Concrète (French for "In Search of a Concrete Music") in 1952, which was a summation of his working methods up to that point. His only opera, Orphée 53 (Orpheus 53), premiered in 1953.

Schaeffer left the GRMC in 1953 and reformed the group in 1958 as the Groupe de Recherche Musicale[s] (GRM) (at first without "s", then with "s"), where he briefly mentored the young Jean Michel Jarre, among other students. His last "etude" (study) came in 1959: the "Study of Objects" (Etudes aux Objets).

In 1954 Schaeffer founded traditional music label Ocora ("Office de Coopération Radiophonique") alongside composer, pianist and musicologist Charles Duvelle, with a worldwide coverage in order to preserve African rural soundscapes. Ocora also served as a facility to train technicians in African national broadcasting services. Today, it is still run by Duvelle.

In 1988, Schaeffer appeared in a New York Times article on the 1988 Spitak earthquake. Schaeffer had led a 498-member rescue team in Leninakan to help find survivors in the aftermath of the quake.

Later life & death[link]

Schaeffer became an associate professor at the Paris Conservatoire from 1968 to 1980 after creating a "class of fundamental music and application to the audiovisual." ^[1] He suffered from Alzheimer's disease later in his life, and died from the condition in Aix-en-Provence in 1995. He was 85 years old.

Schaeffer was thereafter remembered by many of his colleagues with the title, "Musician of Sounds".

Legacy[link]

Musique concrète[link]

Schaeffer often created his "concrete music" with real-world sounds. The notable Railroad Study (French: "Étude aux chemins de fer"), for instance, featured recordings of the noises made by trains running along railroad tracks.

The term musique concrète (French for "real music", literally "concrete music"), which was coined by Schaeffer in 1948,^[11] can be misunderstood as simply referring to music made from "real-world" audibles or other naturally occurring sounds that do not include an instrumental/human interface. While this aspect of musique concrète is a major factor according to how Schaeffer had developed it, it should predominantly be seen as a term describing more than simply the recording and manipulation of everyday noises. In a broader sense, the phrase embodies new sensibilities of musical expression and entails a reconceptualized framework for the long-established "organized" sound of the world, one that does not rely on familiar descriptors of rhythm and timbre, or tone and tempo. Schaeffer believed traditionally classical (or as he called it, "serious") music begins as an abstraction (musical notation) that is later produced as audible music. Musique concrète, by contrast, strives to start with the "concrete" sounds that emanate from base phenomena and then abstracts them into a composition. The term musique concrète is then, in essence, the breaking down of the structured production of traditional instruments, harmony, rhythm, and even music theory itself, in an attempt to reconstruct music from the bottom up.

From the contemporary point of view, the importance of Schaeffer's musique concrète is threefold. He developed the concept of including any and all sounds into the vocabulary of music. At first he concentrated on working with sounds other than those produced by traditional musical instruments. Later on, he found it was possible to remove the familiarity of musical instrument sounds and abstract them further by techniques such as removing the attack of the recorded sound. He was among the first musicians to manipulate recorded sound for the purpose of using it in conjunction with other sounds in order to compose a musical piece. Techniques such as tape looping and tape splicing were used in his research, often comparing to sound collage. The advent of Schaeffer's manipulation of recorded sound became possible only with technologies that were developed after World War II had ended in Europe. His work is recognized today as an essential precursor to contemporary sampling practices. Schaeffer was among the first to use recording technology in a creative and specifically musical way, harnessing the power of electronic and experimental instruments in a manner similar to Luigi Russolo, whom he admired and from whose work he drew inspiration.

Furthermore, he emphasized the importance of "playing" (in his terms, jeu) in the creation of music. Schaeffer's idea of jeu comes from the French verb jouer, which carries the same double meaning as the English verb play: 'to enjoy oneself by interacting with one's surroundings', as well as 'to operate a musical instrument'. This notion is at the core of the concept of musique concrète, and reflects on freely improvised sound, or perhaps more specifically electroacoustic improvisation, from the standpoint of Schaeffer's work and research.

Influences on music[link]

This section requires expansion.

Pierre's aforementioned student in GRM, Jean Michel Jarre, went on to great international success in his own musical career. Jarre's 1997 album, Oxygene 7-13, is dedicated to Schaeffer. Pierre Henry also made a tribute to the man, composing his Écho d'Orphée, Pour P. Schaeffer alongside him for Schaeffer's last work and second compilation, L’Œuvre Musicale. His other notable pupils include Joanna Bruzdowicz, Bernard Parmegiani, Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux, Armando Santiago, Elzbieta Sikora.

Research legacy[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

The writers Martial Robert and Carlos Palombini have mentioned Schaeffer frequently in their works, and have penned a number of books on or referring to his life and legacy. Schaeffer being a writer himself, he coauthored several works with a number of his colleagues, such as Sophie Brunet, Marc Pierret and Michel Chion, among others. Today Schaeffer's work is still being published. Many of Schaeffer's works have become rarities. As recently as 2006 a coauthored work of his, Sur les traces de Pierre Schaeffer, was published post-mortem.

Other[link]

Today, in his honor, the Qwartz Electronic Music Awards has named several of its past events after Schaeffer. Pierre himself was a prize winner at the awards more than once.

Works[link]

Music[link]

All of Schaeffer's musical compositions (concrète or otherwise) were recorded before the advent of the CD, either on cassettes or a more archaic form of magnetic tape (therefore the term "discography" cannot be appropriately used here; rather his music in general). Mass-production for his work was limited at best, and each piece was, by Schaeffer's terms, intended to be released foremost as an exposé to the masses of what he believed was a new and somewhat revolutionizing form of music. The original production of his marketed work was done by the "Groupe de Recherches Musicales" (a.k.a. GRM; now owned and operated by INA or the Institut National de l'Audiovisuel), the company which he initially had formed around his creations. Other music was broadcast live (Pierre himself being notable on French radio at the time) and/or done in live "concert". Some individual tracks even found their way into the use of other artists, with Pierre's work being fronted in mime performances and ballets. Now after his death, various musical production companies, such as Disques Adès and Phonurgia Nova have been given rights to distribute his work.

Below is a list of Schaeffer's musical works, showing his compositions and the year(s) they were recorded.

• Concertino-Diapason (1948; collaboration with J.J. Grünewald)
• Cinq études de bruits (1948)
• Suite pour 14 instruments (1949)
• Variations sur une flûte mexicaine (1949)
• Bidule en ut (1950; collaboration with Pierre Henry)
• La course au kilocycle (1950; radio score, collaboration with Pierre Henry)
• L'oiseau r.a.i. (1950)
• Symphonie pour un homme seul (1950; collaboration with Pierre Henry; revised versions in 1953, 1955, and 1966 (Henry))
• Toute la lyre (1951; pantomime, collaboration with Pierre Henry. Also known as Orphée 51)
• Masquerage (1952; film score)
• Les paroles dégelées (1952; music for a radio production)
• Scènes de Don Juan (1952; incidental music, collaboration with Monique Rollin)
• Orphée 53 (1953; opera)
• Sahara d'aujourd'hui (1957; film score, collaboration with Pierre Henry)
• Continuo (1958; collaboration with Luc Ferrari)
• Etude aux sons animés (1958)
• Etude aux allures (1958)
• Exposition française à Londres (1958; collaboration with Luc Ferrari)
• Etude aux objets (1959)
• Nocturne aux chemins de fer (1959; incidental music)
• Phèdre (1959; incidental music)
• Simultané camerounais (1959)
• Phèdre (1961)
• L'aura d'Olga (1962; music for a radio production, collaboration with Claude Arrieu)
• Le trièdre fertile (1975; collaboration with Bernard Durr)
• Bilude (1979)

Broadcasted narratives[link]

Apart from his published and publicized music, Schaeffer conducted several musical (and specifically musique concrète-related) presentations via French radio. Although these broadcasts contained musical pieces by Schaeffer they cannot be adequately described as part of his main line of musical output. This is because the radio "essays", as they were appropriately named, were mainly narration on Schaeffer's musical theories philosophies rather than compositions in and of themselves.

Schaeffer's radio narratives include the following:

• The Shell Filled With Planets (1944)
• Cantata to Alsace (1945)
• An Hour of the World (1947)
• From Claudel to Brangues (1953)
• Ten Years of Radio Essays by the Studio at Club Essay: 1942-1952 (1955)

Selected bibliography[link]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Pierre Schaeffer

Schaeffer's literary works span a range of genres, both in terms of fiction and non-fiction. He predominantly wrote treatises and essays, but also penned a film review and two plays. An ardent Catholic, Schaeffer wrote Chlothar Nicole (French: Clotaire Nicole; published 1938)—a Christian novel or short story—and Tobias (French: Tobie; published 1939) a religiously-based play.

Fiction[link]

Novels and short stories[link]

• Chlothar Nicole (1938)
• The Guardian of The Volcano (1969)
• Prelude, Chorale and Fugue (1981)

Plays[link]

• Tobie (1939)
• Secular Games (1946)

Non-fiction[link]

• America, We Ignore You (1946)
• The Non-Visual Element of Films (1946)
• In Search of a Concrete Music (1952)
• Music and Acoustics (1967)

Further reading[link]

• (French) Pierre Schaeffer (1966). Traité des objets musicaux (Treatise on Musical Objects). Paris, France: Le Seuil. ISBN 978-2-02-002608-6. 
• (French) Martial Robert (1999). Communication et musique en France entre 1936 et 1986. Paris, France: L'Harmattan. ISBN 2-7384-7975-8. 
• Pierre Schaeffer (1987). Interview with Pierre Schaeffer. London, U.K.: Rer Quarterly Vol 2,1, 1987. http://www.timhodgkinson.co.uk/articles.html. 

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pierre Schaeffer

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Pierre Schaeffer

• PierreSchaeffer.com — Official website
• Le Groupe de Recherches Musicales at the Institut national de l'audiovisuel (French)
• Club d'Essai — Unofficial website of Club d'Essai (Portuguese)
• Les Machines à Communiquer — Unofficial website by French historian Elizabeth Antebiel (French)
• Pierre Schaeffer at the online alumni community of the École Polytechnique (French)
• Pierre Schaeffer at the Electronic Music Foundation
• Pierre Schaeffer at Allmusic
• Pierre Schaeffer at Last.fm
• Pierre Schaeffer at BBC Music
• Pierre Schaeffer at Discogs
• Pierre Schaeffer at Artistdirect

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Luc Ferrari (February 5, 1929 - August 22, 2005) was of an Italian heritage but French born composer, particularly noted for his tape music.

Biography[link]

Luc Ferrari was born in Paris, and was trained in music at a very young age, studying the piano under Alfred Cortot, musical analysis under Olivier Messiaen and composition under Arthur Honegger. His first works were freely atonal. A case of tuberculosis in his youth interrupted his career as a pianist. From then on he mostly concentrated on musical composition. During this illness he had the opportunity to become acquainted with the radio receiver, with pioneers such as Schönberg, Berg, and Webern.

In 1954, Ferrari went to the United States to meet Edgard Varèse, whose Déserts he had heard on the radio, and had impressed him. This seems to have had a great effect on him, with the tape part in Déserts serving as inspiration for Ferrari to use magnetic tape in his own music. In 1958 he co-founded the Groupe de Recherches Musicales with Pierre Schaeffer and François-Bernard Mâche. He taught in institutions around the world, and worked for film, theatre and radio. By the early 1960, Ferrari had begun work on his Hétérozygote, a piece for magnetic tape which uses ambient environmental sounds to suggest a dramatic narrative. The use of ambient recordings was to become a distinctive part of Ferrari's musical language.

Ferrari's Presque rien No. 1 'Le Lever du jour au bord de la mer' (1970) is regarded as a classic of its kind. In it, Ferrari takes a day-long recording of environmental sounds at a Yugoslavian beach and, through editing, makes a piece that lasts just twenty-one minutes. It has been seen as an affirmation of John Cage's idea that music is always going on all around us, and if only we were to stop to listen to it, we would realise this. Ferrari continued to write purely instrumental music as well as his tape pieces. He also made a number of documentary films on contemporary composers in rehearsal, including Olivier Messiaen and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

The Concepts[link]

Another turn in his music was for Ferrari: Presque Rien ou le lever du Jour au Bord de la Mer - almost nothing or daybreak at the sea -. This piece illustrates or rather suggests unconsciously a minimalist process, about which one will speak much in the following years.

Concept of the Unit[link]

Indeed, Presque Rien ou le lever du Jour au Bord de la Mer, from between 1967 and 1970, is a composition which materializes the break with the practices of the classical electro acoustics. Still more directly than what was called after Hétérozygote, anecdotic music, he requires for himself clearly the continuous sequence and the fixed sound image - like a slide - offering a slice of real as a work method and as means to escape from the habits. " « At the beginning the concept Presque Rien does not have anything to do with the music. One must carry oneself back into the time; in the sixties one said: noises on a side, music on the other one. » " Ferrari did not get involved in this play. He was concerned with making something coming from a deep desire without worrying whether this something fits into a category. The concept in his opinion cannot be defined as genre, as aesthetics or as technology, but only as idea. That means that the concept at the beginning cannot be seized physically, but rather as a general impression, which one lends to a body. This concept consists of: only one place - only one time - a certain acoustics - components, which he continues to develop from one Presque Rien to the other.

[edit] Concept of narration (Presque Rien No. 2 - ainsi continue la Nuit dans ma Tête multiple) - and the night continues in my numerous head -

One of the main characteristics of the Presque Rien is the narration, Not in the sense to tell a story, rather to make observable the time suggesting that something occurs in a place. Against the sound landscapes, where the place is perceptible, the elements he uses, and which he calls everyday life sounds should, by the concept of a minimal and not eventful story stimulate to a journey in the time; the coincidence of the everyday life noises belonging to the daily gestures and consisting of substance, is the element that constructs the time. The intention to tell is there, but remains blurred.

[edit] Concept of the Lie or the Perversion (Presque Rien avec filles) - almost nothing with girls

The concept of the lie stimulates Ferrari, and to name it, is almost a provocation. He uses the term of the perversion precisely in this sense. A concept is relatively abstract, however it becomes alive with the change of time. This is exactly, what he calls Perversion. But since it’s his invention, he has no reason to remain loyal to his concept. If loyalty should be, so only that of the search for certain acoustics.

[edit] Concept of the Beauty (Presque Rien No. 4)

Ferrari believed for a long time, and the time helping, that beauty was a concept of the past, like a somewhat mallow and superfluous attribute. He believes from now on in the contrary that we should be concerned with the beauty, that it is indispensable for our reflection. Or don't we have the time any more to be in charge of beauty because hideousness exasperates us? He lived since some years in a suburb, where everything is ugly, inharmonious and wrong on its place, thus the harmony and the beauty appear to him as a necessity and not at all a trifle or a secondary matter.

[edit] Concept of the Disappearance (Presque Rien No. 5, - almost nothing with instruments -)

Indeed, the Presque Rien are in search of the beauty of the sound, the harmony of the sound. In the search for the harmony of relations and the times. Disappears the narration. Disappears the recording as memory of a place or a situation. Remains a kind of report, the presentation of some fewer elements, like a dilution and, how these find their place in the time. The matter In Presque Rien No. 5 is the play of the objets musicaux - musical objects -.

[edit] Exploitation of the Concepts

« Since autumn 99, I have undertaken the composition of a new series of pieces with the general title Exploitation of the concepts. My purpose is to use those concepts I experimented in the course of my life as a composer and to use them in all possible directions. »

• Archives sauvées des Eaux (2000)

Exploitation of the concepts 1 - archives saved from the flood - (for 2 CD and Vinyls - 48 ') "The thought to use my archives resulted from the necessity, to update my tapes of these memories - which suffered in my studio a damage caused by water -. I have indeed analogue tapes with all recordings I made since 1960, and which I have used or not. While copying this material on CD I felt the need to convert this boring work into creative work. And instead of copying I began to compose with them. "

• Cycle des souvenirs (1995–2000) - cycle of the memories -

Exploitation of the concept 2 (installation with 6 CD and 4 video projectors) - (duration: endless) "To use the memories is not new to me, who are always backdue regarding the autobiographies.What is different here is to manage together as well the sound as the picture. In the same way as I am a sound taker-composer, I am a here a picture taker-composer. Also the cycle of the memories means that all components are structured in cycles, which produce random encounters by their overlay. Therefore everything is rotating. "

• Archives Génétiquement Modifiées (2000)

Exploitation of the concepts 3 - Genetically Modified Archives (memorized sounds) - (25') "While listening to my recordings from the seventies I suddenly felt the need, without nostalgia and without allegiance on the past, to make new from it. Also I took very large freedom and easiness concerning the concepts while exploiting them. Indeed, if I speak of it, the question is not to make recognizable the concept, as that was usual at that time, rather to recover this idea thirty years later, how it rubs against the other earlier experiences, how it deforms or takes differently form. Or disappears. Perhaps I like also to use the word „exploitation“ in a provocative sense - although a little frivolously - as a concept. Also I claim the right to use my ideas exactly the same way as my sounds. I listen and I make from it a present that is rich of memory.Thus these archives are fundamentally and even perhaps genetically modified."

• Tautologies et Environs (2000–2001) - Tautologies and environments -

Exploitation of the Concepts 4 For 14 sound-amplified instruments and memorized sound (25 ') The Exploitation of concept 1. 3 and 4 use the same elements for the memorized material, but differently assembled and deeply changed. Here the composition for orchestra, using the ideas of the tautology, gives a completely new aspect to the memorized sound. Also one encounters as new the idea of the tautology used in the composition for orchestra, particularly if one refers to the earlier Tautologos."

• Exploitation of the concept of the Autobiography

"Since the beginning I composed as many works for instruments or orchestra as electroacoustic or acousmatic pieces. In other words and, in order to approach more precisely my topic, I would speak here only of the electroacoustic pieces or those developed with technology. First unconsciously, then more and more aware came up to me that I worked on the field of the autobiography. Thus I can only retrospectively speak about the time that led me to this concept. This happened about 1962, while I worked on the project of an electroacoustic piece: Hétérozygote. I thus want to try to explain, how significant the simple gesture was to go out from the studio searching sounds outside. I went out with portable utensils, which were my property, i.e. with my microphones and my tape recorder. This was my equipment, and it was I.Whether one wants or not, I was here in an original situation of presence and instrumental recognition making of me without being conscious, a manufacturer of the autobiography. I was present, I held my microphone, I put on my tape recorder as soon as I considered it was good, I took the sound that occurred front of me at the time I decided. This sound was my choice, my moment of the life stored on my equipment. In other words, should the last sentence not be clear, this compositional gesture in the recognition of the even indistinct sound, recognizing the found object as the first condition of an emotional attitude, was the inevitable introduction of the composer’s present in real time and thus as an autobiographer. " In this sense were realized the radio compositions for the German broadcasts Südwestfunk and Hessischer Rundfunk,

Death[link]

Luc Ferrari died in Arezzo, Italy on 22 August 2005, at age 76.

Discography[link]

• Acousmatrix

Petite symphonie intuitive pour un paysage de printemps (1973-74)

Strathoven (1985)

Presque rien avec filles (1989)

Hétérozygote (1963-64)

BVHAAST 9009 Acousmatrix 3 - 1990

• Unheimlich schön

Unheimlich schön (1971)

Coll. Cinéma pour l'oreille

Metamkine MKCD008 1993

• L'Escalier des aveugles

Patajaslotcha (1984)

L'Escalier des aveugles (1991)

Xavier Legasa / Donatienne Michel-Dansac / Michel Musseau (song)

Ensemble Le Banquet, Dir. Olivier Dejours

Ina-grm ina c 2008/Musidisc 201302 - 1993

• Presque rien

Music promenade (1964-69)

Presque rien n°1 - le lever du jour au bord de la mer (1967-70)

Presque rien n°2 - ainsi continue la nuit dans ma tête multiple (1977)

Presque rien avec filles (1989)

Ina-grm 245172 - 1995

• Piano-piano

Suite pour piano (1952)

Antisonate (1953)

Suite hétéroclite (1955)

Visage I (1956)

Fragments du journal intime (1980-82)

Comme une fantaisie dite des réminiscences (1989-91)

Christine Lagniel / Michel Maurer (Piano)

Auvidis Montaigne MO 782110 - 1997

• Cellule 75

Cellule 75 (1975)

Place des Abbesses (1977)

Chris Brown (Piano), William Winant (Perc.)

Tzadik USA - TZ 7033 - 1997

• Interrupteur / Tautologos III

Interrupteur (1967)

Tautologos III (1970)

Ensemble de musique vontemporaine de Paris, Dir. Konstantin Simonovitch

Blue Chopsticks USA BC1, distrib. France : Chronowax – 1999

• Chansons pour le corps - Et si tout entière maintenant

Chansons pour le corps

Elise Caron (Song), Carol Mundinger / Sylvain Frydman (Clar.), Christine Lagniel (Perc.), Michel Maurer (Piano.), Michel Musseau (Synthesizer)

Et si tout entière maintenant (1986-87)

Symphonic story. (Prix Italia 1987) – Text by Colette Fellous

Anne Sée (Voice), Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique, Dir. Yves Prin.

Mode Records USA MODE 81 - 1999

• Danses Organiques cinéma pour l’oreille

Danses organiques (1971-73)

Elica mpo-3340 - 1999

vinyle LP Elica 4VL 3704 – 2003

• Far-West news

Far-West news episode n°1 (1998-99)

Histoire du plaisir et de la désolation (1979-81)

Nouvel orchestre de France, Dir. Michael Luig.

Signature, France ASIN : B00005Q4KU – distribution Harmonia Mundi – 1999

• Cycle des souvenirs - Exploitation des concepts n°2

Cycle des souvenirs - Exploitation des concepts n°2 (1995-2000)

Blue Chopsticks USA BC8, distrib. France : Chronowax - 2002

• Tautologos and other early electronic works

Étude aux accidents (1958)

Étude aux sons tendus (1958)

Visage V (1958/59)

Tête et queue du dragon (1959-60)

Tautologos I (1961)

Tautologos II (1961)

Und so weiter for piano and tape (1965-66)

(works from 1959 to1966) EMF and GRM

Gérard Frémy (Piano)

EMF CD 037 - 2003

• Comedia dell'amore 224 (1992)

Performers and composers : Jean-Jacques Birgé, Francis Gorgé, Bernard Vitet and Luc Ferrari

Un Drame musical instantané "Opération Blow up" GRRR 2020 - distrib. France : Orkhêstra / Les Allumés du Jazz - 1992

• Impro-micro-acoustique (2001)

Performers and composers : Noël Akchoté, Roland Auzet and Luc Ferrari

Blue Chopsticks, USA BC12 - distrib. France : Chronowax - 2004

• Collection

Collection de petites pièces ou 36 Enfilades pour piano et magnétophone (1985)

Jeu du hasard et de la détermination (1999)

Michel Maurer (Piano.), Françoise Rivalland (Perc.).

Les empreintes digitales, France – distribution Abeille Musique (Nocturne) ED13171 – 2004

• Les Anecdotiques

Les Anecdotiques - Exploitation des Concepts N°6 (2002)

SUB ROSA SR 207 – 2004

Grand Prix 2005 Charles Cros In Memoriam

• Archives sauvées des eaux

Archives sauvées des eaux - Exploitation des concepts n°1 (2000)

Version for plastic, Milan 2004. By Luc Ferrari and Erikm

Angle Records, Italie CD 0008 – 2004

Grand Prix 2005 Charles Cros In memoriam

• Son mémorisé

Presque Rien N°4 (1990-98)

Promenade symphonique dans un paysage musical ou Un jour de fête à El Oued en 1976 (1976-78)

Saliceburry cocktail (2002)

Sub Rosa, SR252 - 2006

• Far-West news episodes 2 and 3

Far-West news episodes 2 (May 1999)

Far-West news episodes 3 (June 1999)

Blue Chopsticks BC16 CD September 2006

• Et tournent les sons

Et tournent les Sons dans la Garrigue - Réflexion sur l'écriture n°1 (1977)

Archives sauvées des eaux - Exploitation des concepts N°3 (2000)

By the Ensemble Laborintus and Erikm

Césaré 06/03/4/2/1 France septembre 2006. Distr. Metamkine

• Les ProtoRythmiques

Les ProtoRythmiques (2007)

EriKm (Luc Ferrari) and Thomas Lehn

Room40 RM417/ May 2007

• Didascalies

Rencontres fortuites (2003) for viola, piano and memorized sounds.

Didascalies (2004) for viola and piano

Tautologos III (1969)

By Vincent Royer and Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven

Luc Ferrari facing his tautology – 2 days before the end, a film by Guy Marc Hinant and Dominique Lohlé

Sub Rosa SR261 luc ferrari "didascalies" / cd+ dvd / May 2007

• Sonopsys

Passage pour mimes (1959)

J'ai été coupé (1960-69)

Selbstportrait oder Peinture de sons ou bien Tonmalerei (1996-97)

Sonopsys 4 - Cahiers musique concrète/acousmatique. May 2007

• in OHM: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music / 1943 - 1980

Ellipsis arts…… EA500-4 USA

• in Asia - Trio d'argent

Madame de Shanghaï (1996)

Michel Boizot / François Daudin Clavaud / Xavier Saint-Bonnet (Flutes)

Musique d'Aujourd'hui 9701 MDA M7 847 – 1997

• in An anthology of noise & electronic music / vol. #2

Visage V (1958-59)

Sub Rosa SR200 – 2003

• in Early modulations : vintage volts

Tête et queue du dragon (1959-60)

Caipirinha CP219 USA - 2000

• in Archives GRM – CD 2/5

Étude aux sons tendus (1958)

Étude floue (1958)

Étude aux accidents (1958)

Ina c 1032(2004) ADD – 750 - 276522

• Chantal, or the portrait of a villager (1977–78)

stereo tape.

in collaboration with Brunhild Meyer.

Digital on-line edition 2008

Room 40

• Archives Génétiquement Modifiées (2000) – mémorized sound
• Société II (1967)

for four soloists and sixteen instruments (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, 4 violins, 2 violas, 2 violoncellos, 1 contrabass. Soloists: 1 piano, 3 percussions.) recording from 1968 by the EIMCP dir. Konstantin Simonovich.

Robot Records, USA

• À la recherche du rythme perdu

for piano and memorized sound. by Wilhem Latchoumia

In Wilhem Latchoumia – piano & electronic sounds

Sisyphe 013

• Madame de Shanghaï (1996)

for 3 flutes and memorized sound

In Manuel Zurria repeat !

Die Schachtel, Zeit C01

• Archives sauvées des eaux - Luc Ferrari with Otomo Yoshihide.

Bonus-track (CD extra) for the first 2000 copies : « Slow landing » Luc Ferrari with Otomo Yoshihide, Camera: Miyaoka Hideyuki and Nishihara Tazz Miyaoka

Disc Callithump CPCD-001

• Labyrinthe de violence

Danse

LP Alga Marghen

Disque vinyle PLANA-F alga027 - 2009

• Sexolidad (1982–83)
• Dialogue Ordinaire avec la Machine (1984)

Elica mpo-4301 – 2009

• INA-GRM Box (2009)

in partnership with La muse en circuit,

contains 10 CD Luc Ferrari’s works for memorized sound as well as film music.

• Chantal (2009)

stereo tape (1977-78)

in collaboration with Brunhild Meyer.

Ohm/Avatar

ohm 051

CD + DVD releases[link]

• Didascalies

Rencontres Fortuites (2003) pour alto, piano et SM.

Didascalies (2004) pour alto et piano

Tautologos 3 (1969)

by Vincent Royer, viola and Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven, piano

+ DVD

Luc Ferrari face à sa tautologie - 2 jours avant la fin

Film by Guy-Marc Hinant and Dominique Lohlé

French version, with English sub-titles, recorded while the rehearsal of Tautologos III.

"that would be Luc’s last one in this beginning of July 2005.

Sub Rosa SR261 luc ferrari "didascalies" / cd+ dvd / mai 2007

This Box was rewarded with the « Coup de Coeur Charles Cros - musique contemporaine printemps 2008 » and the Grand Prix from the festival "Filmer à tout prix", Brussels in 2008

• Presque rien avec Luc Ferrari

Film by Jacqueline Caux and Olivier Pascal – with Elise Caron – eRikm – Christof Schläger . 2004.

ELICA VPO-4290

Robot Records 2008

Forced Exposure; Métamkine, Fr.; Die Schachtel, It.; Mimaroglu Music Sales; Die Stadt, Germ.; A-Musik, Cologne, Germ.; Empreintes Digitales, Montreal Can.; Disk Union, Tokyo, Jap.

• Les Archives sauvées des Eaux

Luc Ferrari with Otomo Yoshihide.

« Slow Landing » Luc Ferrari with Otomo Yoshihide, Camera: Miyaoka Hideyuki and Nishihara Tazz Miyaoka

Disc Callithump CPCD-001

Recent book releases[link]

• Presque rien avec Luc Ferrari

book by Jacqueline Caux, translation in Japanese by Ryosuke Shiina (Tokyo, 2006)

• Sonopsys N° 4 Luc Ferrari

Cahiers Musique Concrète / Acousmatique, édité par Licences (ouvrage bilingue)

By Alexandre Yterce and Florence Gonot - www.revuelicences.com

• Luc Ferrari Portraits polychromes

augmented edition by GRM / INA

Bibliography[link]

1959 Luc Ferrari: STAGES OF THE VISION/STAGES OF THE PRODUCTION In Expériences musicales - Concrete music - exotic Electronics Revue Musicale N° 244, Paris 1959, p. 8 - 10

1967 LUC FERRARI by Pierre Schaeffer In La Musique Concrète QUE SAIS-JE Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1967, p. 108 - 113

1970 LUC FERRARI. Interview by Denys Lémery In Actuel N° 12, 1970, p. 14 - 18

1971 Luc Ferrari - FÜR WEN KOMPONIEREN SIE EIGENTLICH? (For whom do you actually compose?) By Hansjörg Pauli Ed. S. Fischer - Frankfurt 1971, p. 37 - 59

1972 Discussion with Luc Ferrari by François-Bernard Mâche In Nouvelle Revue Française N° 232, 1972

1973 Luc Ferrari LES DANSES ORGANIQUES Remarks collected by Daniel Caux in Art Vivant - Le Corps (The body) 2, N° 41, July 1973, p. 30 - 32

1974 Tibor Kneif: Types of the « Entsprachlichung » in the new music 1 Stephan, Rudolf (Hg.): About music and language. SEVEN ATTEMPTS ABOUT THE NEWER VOCAL MUSIC Mainz (Schottt) 1974, p. 30 – 31

1974 Luc Ferrari. INTERRUPTEUR, TAUTOLOGOS 3, Ensemble Instrumental de Musique Contemporaine de Paris, Konstantin Simonovitch By Klaus Stahmer In Melos Heft IV, July–August 1974, p. 242 - 244

1975 ALLO, ICI LA TERRE... (Hello, the Earth is speaking) by Luc Ferrari In Art Vivant - La Mort, (The Death) N° 54, January 1975, p. 22 - 23

1977 Luc Ferrari - FÜR WEN KOMPONIEREN SIE EIGENTLICH? For whom do you actually compose? By Hansjörg Pauli Reproduction in Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft, Heft 4, 1977, p. 260 - 269

1977 Luc Ferrari. Discussion with David Jisse In Unison N° 3 Paris, May 1977, p. 14 - 16

1977 Reflections by Luc Ferrari on DOES THE MUSIC OF FUTURE HAVE A FUTURE? In Cahiers Recherche/Musique, INA-GRM, 1977, p. 77 - 79

1978 François-Bernard Mâche: LES MAL ENTENDUS. Composers of the 70s In Revue musicale N° 314, 1978, p. 65 - 69

1978 - SREFACIO A... Y REFLEXION SOBRE... por Luc Ferrari - UN PUEBLO NUMERO 11350 por Luc Ferrari In Arte Nuevo 1, Universidad Veracruzana 1978, p. 10 - 13

1979 Luc Ferrari ERUDITE CULTURES AND POPULAR CULTURES Interview by Catherine Millet In Art Press International, N° 26, March 1979, p. 18

1981 Luc Ferrari - dossier "En attendant Enée" In Cahier de l'animation musicale, N° 19, June 1981, p. 11 - 12

1981 Discussion with Luc Ferrari. Remarks collected by Francis Hofstein Jazz magazine – 1981, p. 26 - 29

1981 Discussion with Luc Ferrari by Denis Levaillant In L'Improvisation Musicale, Editions J.C. Lattès 1981, p. 4 - 7

1983 Luc Ferrari THE MUSIC IS ALSO WORD. JOURNAL INTIME –(DIARY) Interview by Michel Giroud In Canal, N° 54, November 1983, p. 19

1983 Luc Ferrari. SOCIÉTÉ 1 text-score In Chemin de Ronde, Vol. 3, 1983,

1985 Luc Ferrari. About the pleasure of the desire - HISTOIRE DU PLAISIR ET DE LA DÉSOLATION By Klaus Hinrich Stahmer In Melos, N° 4, 1985, p. 19 - 33

1986 Luc Ferrari. Moderato ma non troppo by P. Minod In Restons Simples (Creativ Media), N° 2, January 1986, p. 68 - 69

1989 Hörspiel - Création radiophonique – Radio Art JE ME SUIS PERDU - ABYRINTHE PORTRAIT from Luc Ferrari by Michel Dumont In magazine kanal, N° 42, April 1989, p. 60 - 61

1990 Luc Ferrari. Interview by Stephane Ollivier In Revue et Corrigée, N° 5, Spring 1990, p. 4 - 7

1990 COMPOSERS AND RHETORIC, Discussion between François Delalande and Luc Ferrari In 20 Analyse Musicale, Paris June 1990, p. 47 – 49

1993 ÇA FROTTE – (It brushes) by Luc Ferrari In L'Evidence, N° 2, Autumn 1993, p. 24 - 27

1993 Analyse – Journal (Analysis Diary) by Luc Ferrari In Musiques d'Aujourd'hui Conseil Général de la Creuse - December 1993, p. 69 - 77

1995 Luc Ferrari PRESQUE RIEN By Jérôme Noetinger In Revue et Corrigé, N° 26, December 1995, p. 35

1996 Discussion with Luc Ferrari - by Ch. Zanesi In Ars Sonora, N° 3, March 1996, p. 7 - 15

1996 Discussion with Luc Ferrari - by Danielle Cohen-Levinas In La Règle du Jeu – 1996

1996 Luc Ferrari in: RECHERCHES SUR LA TRANSFORMATION DU TEMPS MUSICAL SOUS L’ANGLE DE LA PHILOSOPHIE JAPONAISE (Research on the transformation of musical time under the angle of Japanese philosophy) by Ryôsuke SHIINA, Université de Lille III, 9, rue Auguste Angellier, 59046 Lille Cedex

1996 JE COURAIS TANT DE BUTS DIVERS... (I was running in so many different directions...) (Contemporary music review Vol. 15 In G+B Arts International, London, p. 95 - 104

1997 Sandeep Bhagwati: TWO FRENCH COMPOSERS (Georges Aperghis and Luc Ferrari) In Jahrbuch der Bayrischen Akademie der Schönen Künste 11. 1997, p. 391 – 399

1997 Luc Ferrari in THE ART OF THE FIXED SOUNDS, by Jean-Noël von der Weid, In La musique du XXe siècle Editions Hachette (Pluriel), p. 221 - 223

1997 Luc Ferrari. Interview by Haruyuki Suzuki In Eigageijutsu, N° 383, Japan 1997

1998 MINIMAL OR NOT Luc Ferrari. Interview by Karen Tanaka In Musée - a shape of miles - Tower records - Vol. 12, Japan, March, 1998, p. 14

1998 Luc Ferrari in: ASPECTS DE LA NOTATION VERBALE ESSAI DE TAXINOMIE DES PROPOSITIONS VERBALES DES ANNÉES SOIXANTE ET SOIXANTE-DIX. Mémoire du DEA (Essay on taxonomy of the verbal proposals of the Sixties and seventies) Memory of the DEA by Radosveta Kouzmanova Bruzaud U.F.R. de Musique et Musicologie du XXe siècle – Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne, Oct.1998

1998 Luc Ferrari - INTERVIEW WITH AN INTIMATE ICONOCLAST by Brigitte Robindoré In Computer Music Journal, Vol. 22, Nr. 3 – Autumn, p. 8 - 16

1999 Luc Ferrari. Remarks collected by Dan Warburton Peace Warriors Nr. 10 - January

1999 Luc Ferrari in: LA NOTATION VERBALE AU SERVICE DU RITUEL (the verbal notation with the service of the ritual) Colloquia „Musique et Rites“ 17–19 May 1999 by Radosveta Bruzaud

1999 SERIAL DEVIANT by Dan Warburton The Wire – April, p. 26 - 28

1999 Luc Ferrari FAR-WEST NEWS In Soundscapes - VPRO Hilversum – NL, November 1999, p. 20 - 21

1999 LOTS OF LUC FERRARI by John Palmer In 20th Century Music, San Anselmo CA., USA, December, p. 3 - 10

1999 LUC FERRARI'S ART OF TAUTOLOGY Vous plairait-il de tautologuer avec moi? (Would you like to tautologize with me?) Interview by Jacqueline Caux - French / English In Art Press International, Nr. 252 - December 1999, p. 49 - 52

2000 Luc Ferrari in conversation with J. Palmer In SAN Journal of electroacoustic music, London, p. 36 - 44

2000 Luc Ferrari. About the publication of the CD: CHANSONS POUR LE CORPS AND ET SI TOUT ENTIÈRE MAINTENANT by Ryosuke Shiina In Musée - sacrifice fly - Tower records - Vol. 23, Japan, January, p. 93 - 107

2000 11. Karl-Sczuka-Preis 1972, p. 99-101 PORTRAITSPIEL 27. Karl-Sczuka-Preis 1988, p. 184-190 VERIRRT. EIN LABYRINTH In Akustische Spielformen SWR Schriftenreihe « Grundlagen 1 » Spring 2000

2000 Luc Ferrari in: LE CONCERT ENJEUX, FONCTIONS, MODALITÉS JEU DE SOCIÉTÉ OU LA THEATRALISATION DU CONCERT (Stakes, functions, methods parlour game or the THEATRALISATION in the concert by Radosveta Bruzaud Harmattan – Logique Sociale, p. 137 – 174

2000 Luc Ferrari. Remarks collected by Ryosuke Shiina In Poetry and criticism: Eureka 5 / 2000, p. 39 - 51

2001 Luc Ferrari. PORTRAITS POLYCHROMES Co-Edition Cdmc, Ina Groupe Edition-Documentation 2001-06-13

2001 Luc Ferrari in DIE KUNST DER FIXIERTEN KLÄNGE (The art of the fixed sounds) by Jean-Noël von der Weid, In Die Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts Insel-Verlag, Leipzig, p. 332 - 335

2002 PRESQUE RIEN AVEC LUC FERRARI (Almost nothing with Luc Ferrari) 260 pages with photographs. Author: Jacqueline Caux. Discussions with Jacqueline Caux Publication January 2001 Editions Main d’Oeuvre, Nice Tel./Fax 04 93 92 42 49

2002 LUC FERRARI, OR MEMORY AS NON-„MUSIC“ par Ryosuke Shiina In « Bulletin of Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture » Vol.19 Doshisha Women’s College, Japan, March 31/2002

2002 Cinéma pour les oreilles about Almost Nothing with Luc Ferrari by Jacqueline Caux In Les Inrockuptibles August 14 to 20, 2002 N° 351, p. 58 - 59

2003 T. Möller: Luc Ferrari, in: Komponisten der Gegenwart, (composers of the present) 26. Subsequent edition 12/03.

2003 Luc Ferrari: IMPRO-MICRO-ACOUSTIQUE by Noël Akchoté in skug N° 57– Austria, p. 49

2004 Luc Ferrari in: LE MOT DANS LA PARTITION AU VINGTIÈME SIÈCLE (THE WORD IN THE SCORE AT THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Thesis of Doctorate of Music and Musicology of the XXe century by Radosveta Kouzmanova Bruzaud U.F.R. de Musique et Musicologie - Université de Paris IV – Sorbonne, December. 2004

2004 LA MUSIQUE ET SON DEHORS – RE LA MUSIQUE ANECDOTIQUE À L’ARYTHMIE (Music and its outside - Anecdotic Music with the Arrhythmia) by David Sanson et Pierre Yves Macé. In Mouvement N° 30, p. 48-59

2004 Luc Ferrari tasted by Dan Warburton INVISIBLE JUKEBOX in THE WIRE N° 242 April 2004, p. 20-23

2005 L'ESCALIER DES AVEUGLES: a Hörspiel from Luc Ferrari (The staircase of the blinds). By Andrea Cohen in Les compositeurs et l'art radiophonique (The composers and the radiophonic art) thesis of Doctorate. Sorbonne-Paris IV 2005

2005 L’Eloge de l’Arythmie. LE HASARD AVEC DÉTERMINATION. (The Praise of the Arrhythmia The chance with determination. For his 75th birthday… By David Sanson et Pierre Yves Macé In Mouvement Musique Action, Cahier Spécial, May 18–29, 2005, p. 10-12

2005 Luc Ferrari CYCLES DES SOUVENIRS - EXPLOITATION DES CONCEPTS (Cycle of memories - Exploitation of the Concepts From the “Diary in disorder or the pursuit of the daily life sounds” In: TEMPORALE Edizioni Studio Dabbeni - Lugano - N° 60-61 - 2005 "Joueurs Aspendiens" a cura di Gabiele Bonomo, p. 56-60

2005 Page of the score TAUTOLOGIES ET ENVIRONS – EXPLOITATION DES CONCEPTS N° 4. 2000-2001 in Sound Visions p. 91, Pfau-Verlag, Saarbrücken, Editors Möller/Shim/Stäbler.

2005 Möller, Torsten: PLEASE, JUST GO YOUR WAY... - Luc Ferrari died in the Italian Arrezzo at the age of 76 years In: NZfM 6., p. 42-43

2005 Möller, Torsten: ZUM TOD VON LUC FERRARi, (Luc Ferrari died) in: Dissonanz/Dissonance 92 (December 2005), p. 43

2005 Luc Ferrari in MusikTexte Heft 107, November 2005 « ALWAYS UNCONVENTIONAL» Remembering Luc – Peter-Michael Hamel. « THE COMPOSER, RADIO PLAY AND FILM PRODUCER LUC FERRARI » Tatjana Böhme-Mehner. « AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE OPERA. LUC FERRARI ABOUT MUSIC THEATER » - Jacqueline Caux. « SOUNDS, SOUNDS… THE PIECES OF ALMOST NOTHING» from Luc Ferrari – Daniel Teruggi. « THE DRAMA OF EVEN THE LIFE». Luc Ferrari’s « Cellule 75 » - Monika Lichtenfeld. « WHAT WOULD BE, IF? STRAVINSKY MEETS BEETHOVEN IN LUC FERRARI’S STUDIO» - Klaus Mehner. « THE TRUE OR UNTRUE STORY OF CAHIER DU SOIR» (1991–1992) » - Luc Ferrari. « EACH TIME… », « THE CITY OF THE FUTURE», Autobiographies from Luc Ferrari. In memory of Luc Ferrari. « “Committed observer of the reality, Luc Ferrari » - Daniel Caux.

2005 Luc Ferrari in: La musique du XXe siècle. - Jean Noël von der Weid. Hachette. ISBN 20122359485. 2005. P. 359-363

2005 THE LESSON OF FREEDOM - REMEMBERING LUC FERRARI (1929–2005) By John Palmer - Guilherme Vaz - Hildegard Westerkamp In Soundscape Vol. 6 Nr. 1

2006 K.T. Goldbach: Akusmatisches und ökologisches Hören in Luc Ferraris Presque rien avec filles, (acousmatic and ecologic listening in Luc Ferrari’s Presque rien avec filles) in: Zeitschrift der GMTH 3, H. 1

2006 Böhme-Mehner, Tatjana: HE ALWAYS COMPOSED… UNTIL HIMSELF. THE COMPOSER, ELECTROACOUSTICIAN AND FILM PRODUCER LUC FERRARI In: Dissonanz/Dissonance 93 (March 2006), p. 4-9

2006 Random Notes – Luc Ferrari 1929–2005 by David Cotner in SIGNAL TO NOISE Winter 2006 issue #40 operations@signaltonoisemagazine.com

2006 SALUT LUC By Carole Rieussec, David Grubbs, Alessandro Bosetti, Li Ping Ting, Jean-Christophe Camps, Jérôme Noetinger, Chantal Dumas, eRikm, Jean-Baptiste Favory In revue & corrigée N° 67, March 2006

2006 ALMOST NOTHING WITH LUC FERRARI Book by Jacqueline Caux. Discussions with Jacqueline Caux Published in January 2001 Editions Main d’Oeuvre, Nice Tel./Fax 04 93 92 42 49 Published in Japanese by Ryosuke Shiina, Tokyo, March 2006

2007 SONOPSYS N° 4 Luc Ferrari Cahier Musique Concrète / Acousmatique by Florence Gonot and Alexandre Yterce, Edition LICENCES. Publication at the moment of the premiere of Morbido Symphonie in Paris on May 11, 2007. Art-book with CD.

2007 Luc Ferrari – PORTRAITS POLYCHROMES, Published by INA/GRM, Collection directed by Evelyne Gayou. New increased edition

2007 ALMOST NOTHING WITH LUC FERRARI By Toshiharu Osato in "nobody", critic film-, music-, literature-review Published May–June 2007 N° 25, Japan. Pages 47–57:

External links[link]

• Luc Ferrari official website of the composer.
• Luc Ferrari official blog of the composer.
• Paristransatlantic.com: Luc Ferrari Interview by Dan Warburton, July 22, 1998
• Otherminds.org: Luc Ferrari
• The online music review La Folia has review articles about Ferrari: "Presque Fin": Ferrari Almost Final and Luc Ferrari, Head and Tail

Pierre Henry in January 2008.

Pierre Henry (born 9 December 1927) is a French composer, considered a pioneer of the musique concrète genre of electronic music.

Biography[link]

Pierre Henry was born in Paris, France, and began experimenting at the age of 15 with sounds produced by various objects. He became fascinated with the integration of noise into music. He studied with Nadia Boulanger, Olivier Messiaen, and Félix Passerone at the Paris Conservatoire from 1938 to 1948 (Dhomont 2001).

Between 1949 and 1958, Henry worked at the Club d'Essai studio at RTF, which had been founded by Pierre Schaeffer in 1943 (Dhomont 2001). During this period, he wrote the 1950 piece Symphonie pour un homme seul, in cooperation with Schaeffer; he also composed the first musique concrète to appear in a commercial film, the 1952 short film Astrologie ou le miroir de la vie. Henry has scored numerous additional films and ballets.

Two years after leaving the RTF, he founded with Jean Baronnet the first private electronic studio in France, the Apsone-Cabasse Studio (Dhomont 2001).

Among Henry's works is the 1967 ballet Messe pour le temps présent (Dhomont 2001), a collaboration with choreographer Maurice Béjart that debuted in Avignon (Rubin 2001,^{[page needed]}). In 1970 Henry collaborated with British rock band Spooky Tooth on the album Ceremony (Rubin 2001, 308).

Composer Christopher Tyng was heavily inspired by Henry's "Psyché Rock" when writing the theme to the popular animated cartoon show Futurama. The theme is so reminiscent of the Henry's song, it is considered a variation of the original (Cohen 2001).

Discography[link]

• 1950 Symphonie pour un homme seul (in collaboration with Pierre Schaeffer)
• 1951 Le microphone bien temperé

Musique sans titre

Concerto des ambiguities mit Klavier

• 1952 Erste Filmmusik in musique concrete für Jean Gremillons Film Astrologie
• 1953 Orphèe 53, Experimentaloper für die Donaueschinger Musiktage, erstes Bühnenstück in musique concrète (zusammen mit Pierre Schaeffer)
• 1955 Arcane (Ballett)
• 1956 Haut voltage (Ballett)
• 1959 Coexistence

Investigations

• 1960 La noir a soixante
• 1962 Le voyage (Limelight Records)
• 1963 La Reine Verte (Ballett)
• 1967 Messe pour le temps présent (in Zusammenarbeit mit Michel Colombier)
• 1968 L’apocalypse de Jean (Die Apokalypse des Johannes) mit gesprochenen Text
• 1969 Ceremony (with Spooky Tooth)
• 1971 Nijinsky, clown de dieu (Ballett)
• 1973 Kyldex I (kybernetisches Ballett)
• 1975 Futuriste, zur Erinnerung an den italienischen Futuristen Luigi Russolo
• 1979 La Dixième Symphonie, Hommage an Ludwig van Beethoven
• 1986 La Dixième Symphonie De Beethoven
• 1990 Le livre des morts égyptien (Das ägyptische Totenbuch)
• 1997 Interieur/Exterrieur

Documentaries/Films[link]

• French director Jérémie Carboni is filming a documentary on a story of musique concrète including Pierre Henry (Anon. n.d.).

References[link]

• Anon. n.d. Jérémie Carboni. Zerkalo Production website (Accessed 16 August 2011).
• Clark, Philip. 2009. "Interior Designs: An Interview with Pierre Henry". The Wire (July): 36–39.
• Cohen, David X. 2001. Commentary track to Futurama, Season 1 (television series, 13 episodes). 3 DVD set. Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.^{[Need quotation to verify]}
• Dhomont, Francis. 2001. "Henry, Pierre". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
• Chion, Michel. 2003. Pierre Henry, new, revised edition. Paris: Fayard. ISBN 2-213-61757-0.
• Kennedy, Michael. 2006. The Oxford Dictionary of Music. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-861459-4
• Rubin, Don. 2001. The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: Europe. Taylor & Francis.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pierre Henry

• Pierre Henry at Allmusic
• (French) A biography of Pierre Henry, from IRCAM's website.
• Discography of vinyl records.
• Live in Berlin 2008

Iannis Xenakis in his studio in Paris, c. 1970 (photograph by Michèle Daniel).

Iannis Xenakis (Greek pronunciation: [ˈʝanis kseˈnakis], Greek: Γιάννης Ξενάκης) (May 29, 1922 – February 4, 2001) was a Greek composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. After 1947, he fled Greece, becoming a naturalized citizen of France. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers.^[1][2] Xenakis pioneered the use of mathematical models in music such as applications of set theory, stochastic processes and game theory and was also an important influence on the development of electronic music. He integrated music with architecture, designing music for pre-existing spaces, and designing spaces to be integrated with specific music compositions and performances.

Among his most important works are Metastaseis (1953–4) for orchestra, which introduced independent parts for every musician of the orchestra; percussion works such as Psappha (1975) and Pléïades (1979); compositions that introduced spatialization by dispersing musicians among the audience, such as Terretektorh (1966); electronic works created using Xenakis's UPIC system; and the massive multimedia performances Xenakis called polytopes. Among the numerous theoretical writings he authored, the book Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition (1971) is regarded as one of his most important. As an architect, Xenakis is primarily known for his early work under Le Corbusier: the Sainte Marie de La Tourette, on which the two architects collaborated, and the Philips Pavilion at Expo 58, which Xenakis designed alone.

Life[link]

1922–1947: Early years in Greece[link]

Xenakis was born in Brăila, Romania. He was the eldest son of Klearchos Xenakis, a Greek businessman from Euboea, and Fotini Pavlou from Lemnos. His parents were both interested in music, and it was Fotini who introduced the young Xenakis to music. Her early death, when the boy was only five years old, was a traumatic experience that, in his own words, "deeply scarred" the future composer.^[3] He was subsequently educated by a series of governesses, and then, in 1932, sent to a boarding school on the Aegean island of Spetsai, Greece. He sang at the school's boys' choir, where the repertoire included works by Palestrina, and Mozart's Requiem, which Xenakis memorized in its entirety.^[4] It was also at the Spetsai school that Xenakis studied notation and solfège, and became enamored with Greek traditional and sacred music.^[4]

In 1938, after graduating from the Spetsai school, Xenakis moved to Athens to prepare for entrance exams at the National Technical University of Athens. Although he intended to study architecture and engineering, he also took lessons in harmony and counterpoint with Aristotelis Koundouroff.^[5] In 1940 he successfully passed the exams, but his studies were cut short by the Greco-Italian War, which began with the Italian invasion on 28 October 1940. Although Greece eventually won the war, it was not long before the German army joined the Italians in the Battle of Greece, in April 1941. This led to the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II, which lasted until late 1944, when the Soviet Army began its drive across Romania, forcing the Axis forces to slowly withdraw. Xenakis joined the communist National Liberation Front early during the war, participating in mass protests and demonstrations, and later becoming part of armed resistance—this last step was a painful experience Xenakis refused to discuss until much later in life.^[6][7] After the Axis forces left, Churchill ordered that British forces step in to help restore the monarchy; they were opposed by the Democratic Army of Greece, and the country plunged into a civil war. In December 1944, during the period of Churchill's martial law,^[8] Xenakis (who was by then a member of the communist students' company of the left-wing Lord Byron faction of ELAS) became involved in street fighting against British tanks. He was gravely wounded when a shell hit his face; that Xenakis survived the injury has been described as a miracle.^[9] He survived seriously scarred, and lost his left eye.^[10]

The Technical University worked intermittently during these years. Despite this, and Xenakis's other activities, he was able to graduate in 1947, with a degree in civil engineering.^[11] Xenakis was then conscripted into the national armed forces. Around 1947 the new government began hunting down former resistance members and sending them to concentration camps. Xenakis, fearing for his life, deserted and went into hiding. With the help of his father and others he fled Greece through Italy. On 11 November 1947 he arrived to Paris. In a late interview, Xenakis admitted to feeling tremendous guilt at leaving his country, and that guilt was one of the sources of his later devotion to music:

For years I was tormented by guilt at having left the country for which I'd fought. I left my friends—some were in prison, others were dead, some managed to escape. I felt I was in debt to them and that I had to repay that debt. And I felt I had a mission. I had to do something important to regain the right to live. It wasn't just a question of music—it was something much more significant.^[12]

In the meantime, in Greece he was sentenced (in absentia) to death by the right-wing administration. The sentence was commuted to ten years' imprisonment in 1951, and only lifted some 23 years later, after the fall of The Regime of the Colonels in 1974.^[13]

1947–1959: Architecture and music[link]

The Philips Pavilion at the time of the exhibition. Design by Xenakis

Although he was an illegal immigrant in Paris, Xenakis was able to get a job at Le Corbusier's architectural studio. He worked as engineering assistant at first, but quickly rose to performing more important tasks, and eventually to collaborating with Le Corbusier on major projects. These included a kindergarten on the roof of an apartment block in Nantes (Rezé), parts of government buildings in Chandigarh, India, the "undulatory glass surfaces" of Sainte Marie de La Tourette, a Dominican priory in a valley near Lyon, and the Philips Pavilion at Expo 58—the latter project was completed by Xenakis alone, from a basic sketch by Le Corbusier.^[14] The experience Xenakis gained played a major role in his music: important early compositions such as Metastaseis B (1953–4, also known as Metastasis) were based directly on architectural concepts.

At the same time, while working for Le Corbusier, Xenakis was studying harmony and counterpoint, and composing. He worked long and hard, frequently far into the night,^[15] and sought guidance from a number of teachers, most of whom, however, ultimately rejected him. Such was the case with Nadia Boulanger, who was the first person Xenakis approached about lessons. He then tried studying with Arthur Honegger, whose reaction to Xenakis's music was unenthusiastic. As Xenakis recounted in a 1987 interview, Honegger dismissed a piece which included parallel fifths and octaves as "not music". Xenakis, who was by that time well acquainted with music of Debussy, Béla Bartók, and Stravinsky, all of whom used such devices and much more experimental ones, was furious and left to study with Darius Milhaud, but these lessons also proved fruitless.^[16] Then, Annette Dieudonné, a close friend of Boulanger's, recommended that Xenakis try studying with Olivier Messiaen.^[17] Xenakis approached Messiaen for advice: should he once again start studying harmony and counterpoint? Unlike Honegger and Milhaud, Messiaen immediately recognized Xenakis's talent:

I understood straight away that he was not someone like the others. [...] He is of superior intelligence. [...] I did something horrible which I should do with no other student, for I think one should study harmony and counterpoint. But this was a man so much out of the ordinary that I said... No, you are almost thirty, you have the good fortune of being Greek, of being an architect and having studied special mathematics. Take advantage of these things. Do them in your music.^[18]

Xenakis attended Messiaen's classes regularly in 1951–53. Messiaen and his students studied music from a wide range of genres and styles, with particular attention to rhythm.^[19] Xenakis's compositions from 1949–52 were mostly inspired by Greek folk melodies, as well as Bartók, Ravel, and others; after studying with Messiaen, he discovered serialism and gained a deep understanding of contemporary music (Messiaen's other pupils at the time included, for example, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Jean Barraqué). Messiaen's modal serialism was an influence on Xenakis's first large-scale work, Anastenaria (1953–54): a triptych for choir and orchestra based on an ancient Dionysian ritual. The third part of the triptych, Metastaseis, is generally regarded as the composer's first mature piece; it was detached from the triptych to mark the beginning of the "official" Xenakis oeuvre.^[14]

In 1953 Xenakis married Françoise Xenakis (née Gargouïl), journalist and writer, whom he met in 1950.^[20] Their daughter Mâkhi, later a painter and sculptor, was born in 1956. In late 1954, with Messiaen's support, Xenakis was accepted into the Groupe de Recherches de Musique Concrète,^[21] an organization established by Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, dedicated to studying and producing electronic music of the musique concrète variety. Shortly after that Xenakis met conductor Hermann Scherchen, who was immediately impressed by the score of Metastaseis and offered his support. Although Scherchen did not premiere that particular work, he did give performances of later pieces by Xenakis, and the relationship between the conductor and the composer was of vital importance for the latter.^[22]

By late 1950s Xenakis slowly started gaining recognition in artistic circles. In 1957 he received his first composition award, from the European Cultural Foundation, and in 1958 the first official commission came through, from Service de Recherche of Radio-France.^[23] In the same year he produced a musique concrète piece, Concret PH, for the Philips Pavilion, and in 1960 Xenakis was well-known enough to receive a commission from UNESCO, for a soundtrack for a documentary film by Enrico Fulchignoni.^[24]

Later life[link]

After leaving Le Corbusier's studio in 1959, Xenakis was able to support himself by composition and teaching, and quickly became recognized as one of the most important European composers of his time. He became especially known for his musical research in the field of computer-assisted composition, for which he founded the Equipe de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales (EMAMu) in 1966 (known as CEMAMu: Centre d’Etudes de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales, since 1972). He taught at Indiana University in 1967–72 (and established a studio similar to EMAMu there), and worked as visiting professor at the Sorbonne in 1973–89.^[14] Xenakis frequently gave lectures (for instance, from 1975 to 1978 he was Professor of Music at Gresham College, London, giving free public lectures^[25]), taught composition (notable students include Pascal Dusapin, Henning Lohner, and Miguel Ángel Coria), and his works were performed at numerous festivals worldwide, including, for instance, the Shiraz Arts Festival in Iran.

In addition to composing and teaching, Xenakis also authored a number of articles and essays on music. Of these, Musiques formelles (1963) became particularly known. A collection of texts on applications of stochastic processes, game theory and computer programming in music, it was later revised, expanded and translated into English as Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition (1971) during Xenakis's tenure at Indiana University.

Xenakis completed his last work, O-mega for percussion soloist and chamber orchestra, in 1997. His health had been getting progressively worse over the years, and by 1997 he was no longer able to work. In 1999, Xenakis was awarded the Polar Music Prize "for a long succession of forceful works, charged with sensitivity, commitment and passion, through which he has come to rank among the most central composers of our century in the realm of art music, exercising within its various fields an influence which cannot be readily overstated".^[26] After several years of serious illness, in early February 2001 the composer lapsed into a coma. He died in his Paris home several days later, on February 4, aged 78. He was survived by his wife and his daughter.^[27]