Page 301 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

CONTEMPORARY 299

See also: Ionisation 268–269 ■ Quartet for the End of Time 282–283 ■ Pierre Schaeffer
4´33˝ 302–305 ■ Gruppen 306–307 ■ Pithoprakta 308 ■ Sinfonia 316–317
and Pierre Henry

n the aftermath of World Born in 1910 in Nancy,
War II, composers were among Schaeffer grew up in a family
I the many creative figures who of musicians. He, however,
studied engineering and
sensed a need for a new aesthetic. received a diploma in radio
They sought to create works that broadcasting from the École
would not be tainted—as they felt Polytechnique before joining
complex state-sponsored orchestral the French radio and TV
music and opera were—by any broadcasting company
connections with previous regimes, Radiodiffusion-Télévision
particularly the Third Reich, its française, in 1936. In 1949,
allies, and the countries it had Schaeffer met Pierre Henry,
occupied. Some turned to forms a composer and percussionist,
of serialism (in which notes are born in Paris in 1927, who
repeated in a specific order) had studied at the Paris
developed from the organic Conservatoire with the
structures of Anton Webern, an Pierre Henry, in concert in Paris in composers Nadia Boulanger
earlier exponent of serial music 1952, used four large circular receiver and Olivier Messiaen.
and one of the composers whose coils to show how sound transmitted Together they formed the
Groupe de Recherche de
work had been denounced as through four loudspeakers could be Musique Concrète, remaining
“degenerate” by the Nazi Party. shifted around a listening space. close collaborators until 1958
Others found a new beginning when the more prolific Henry
by recording ordinary, everyday Symphonie de bruits (“Symphony left to found his own
sounds and putting them together of sounds”). Founded in 1942 by independent studio called
into collagelike compositions theatre director Jacques Copeau Applications de Procédés
that merely needed to be played and his pupils as the center of the Sonores en Musique
on a disk or a tape, rather than Resistance movement in French Electroacoustique.
interpreted by live musicians in radio, the studio subsequently Henry continued to write
a concert hall. This was the origin became the cradle of musique electronic scores for films
of musique concrète, an early concrète. In collaboration with and ballet, as well as his
form of electronic music. Pierre Henry, who joined the incomplete La Messe de
It was at the Studio d’Essai de electronic studio in 1949, Schaeffer Liverpool, an electronic mass
la Radiodiffusion Nationale that developed his original Symphonie commissioned for the opening
of Liverpool Cathedral in
Pierre Schaeffer began work on the into the Symphonie pour un homme the UK in 1968. Schaeffer
seul (“Symphony for a lone man”), composed little more, although
premiered at the École Normale he continued writing and
de Musique in Paris, in 1950. Henry teaching; his pupils included
went on to run what was eventually Jean-Michel Jarre, a pioneer
called the Groupe de Recherche de of electronic music. Schaeffer
Musique Concrète—the body that died in Aix-en-Provence in
Something new has been studied and developed musique 1995 aged 85. Henry died in
added, a new art of sound. Am concrète from 1951 to 1958. Paris in 2017, at the age of 89.
I wrong in calling it music?
Pierre Schaeffer The sounds of a life Other key collaborations
In its original form, the Symphonie 1950 La course au kilocycle
consisted of 22 movements using (radio score)
turntables and mixers. For a 1953 Orphée 53
broadcast in 1951, this number 1957 Sahara d’aujourd’hui
was reduced to 11, but then ❯❯

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