The musique concrète
07/25/2007 | 0 comment(s) | E-mail this article | Comment this articleClosely related to radio first studios at the beginning of the Fifties and to an emblematic figure of the electronic music Pierre Schaeffer,this music is too often forgotten as a major influence in the history of the music by introducing electronics into the contemporary classical music.
History of electronic music
The term appears music concrète for the first time in May 1948 in Journal de recherche of Pierre Schaeffer. The legend tells that Pierre Schaeffer would have, due to a broken LP, observed the capacity of to ear to extract from its context a sound. The ear would forget the cause of this one through repetitions and would listen to the soud for itself.
On June 20 of this same year, Schaeffer presents on Radio Paris the first "Concert of Noise", fruit of his work at the Studio of RTF. This concert is composed of 5 studies:
- Study n° 1 Déconcertante ou étude aux tourniquets
- Study n° 2 Imposée ou étude aux chemins de fer
- Study n° 3 Concertante ou étude pour orchestre
- Study n° 4 Composée ou étude au piano
- Study n° 5 Pathétique ou étude aux casseroles
Due to this first success, the French administration makes possible for Pierre Schaeffer to create his first studio at the RTF. In 1949, he is joined by another personality: Pierre Henry and it is on March 18, 1950 that in the concert hall of Ecole Normale the first concert of concrete music is given with one of the most known works of the duet Henry-Schaeffer: the symphony for a man alone. Indeed, if it had already appeared before, it is only in December 49 that Schaeffer uses officially the term musique concrète, in Polyphonie
The year 1951, sees the appearance of the denomination of the studio in GRMC Groupe of Search for Concrete music but the beginning of the Fifties also marks marketing in France of the first tape recorders with band. The concrete music was recorded before on floppy discs, which coutait very expensive in time and human resources. Indeed, one éxécutant by platinum, one which directs platinums and the controlling last platinizes it recording the mixing. The error was not possible, because the engraving of the vynil cannot be corrected, which thus required many repetitions. The magnetic tape will explode the stranglehold of vynil, using a material which composers can edit, but also can be played backwards!
In 1952, Schaeffer publishes the first conclusions of his experiments. The musique concrète resides then for him in the recording of the sounds on a tape and the montage of these "sound objects" in order to create "musical objects".
The composer are really interested by these development in the Fifties. Messiaen assisted by Pierre Henry composes his Timbres - Durées, Varèse composes in 54 Déserts, the first work mixing accoustic instruments and tape, and in 55, Boulez sign his symphonie mécanique, for Mitry's movie.
After 3 years, Schaeffer comes back to GRMC in 58, which he turns into GRM Group of Musical Research. Pierre Henry, at the same time, leaves GRM and set up his own studio of music electroacoustic: APSOME.
In 1966, after publication of Theory of the musical objects, Schaeffer leaves the GRM .It is then François Bayle who replaces him until 1997, François Bayle known for his famous acousmonium. It is in Theory of the musical objects of Schaeffer that appears for the first time the word acousmatic, "music of the invisible sounds" according to Bayle.
In 1968 is set up the Class of electroacoustic composition and musical research in Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and as professors Pierre Schaeffer, then Guy Reibel.
Today in the hands of Daniel Teruggi, the GRM with its acousmathèque created in 1993 lodges more than 5.000 bands including 1.500 works carried out since 1948 by more than 200 composers.
A worldwide impact
If the first attempts of electronic music appears a bit frenchy, it quickly will be propagated to the whole world. In 1953, the first opera of Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry is created in Donaueschingen: Orphée 53, first trace of export abroad. Then Maurice Béjart makes the choregraphy of la symphonie pour un homme seul executed by the Ballets de l'Etoile in Paris in 1955 before a world tour.
Abroad at the beginning of the Fifties, studios appear a bit everywhere. The electronic studio of music of the WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) in Cologne will be used by Stockhausen for its work Gesang der Jünglinge in 1956. Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna set up in 51 what, four years later, will become the studio of phonology of RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana) in Milan. In Europe, at Stockholm, at Helsinki, at Copenhagen and the B.B.C in London, studios dedicated to electronic music are also set up. In the United States, Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening also began in 1951 their research in their center inaugurated in 1959 under the name of Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center (C.P.E.M.C.). And one should not forget, the studio of sonology of Utrecht (created in 1961) and the studio of Stockholm (E.M.S.) which will make research about interfaces for musician in the Seventies.
Some composers and some works
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> François Bayle
> Luciano Berio
> André Boucourechliev
> Pierre Boulez
> Pierre Henry
> François-bernard Mâche
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> Ivo Malec
> Bernard Parmegiani
> Guy Reibel
> Jean-Claude Risset
> Pierre Schaeffer et Pierre Henry
> Iannis Xenakis
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