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 Sound UbuWeb |
Pierre Henry (b. 1927) Various Works
Microphone bien tempéré (1950-52)
Concerto des ambiguïtés (1950)
Musique sans titre (1950)
Pierre Henri & Pierre Schaefffer - Symphonie pour un homme seul (1950)
Symphonie pour un homme seul (Symphony for One Man Alone) is a musical composition by Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, composed in 1949–1950. It is an important early example of musique concrète. The Symphonie was premiered at a concert on 18 March 1950. Comprising twenty-two movements of music produced using turntables and mixers, it was difficult to perform due to technical problems. The number of movements was reduced to 11 for a broadcast in 1951, and then to 12 for the revised 1966 version by Henry. The revised version was used for the Pierre Schaeffer – L'oeuvre musicale recordings. Its movements are as follows: Prosopopée I Partita Valse Erotic Scherzo Collectif Prosopopée II Eroïca Apostrophe Intermezzo Cadence Strette Schaeffer started developing the idea of a "symphony of noises" (Symphonie de bruits) soon after he established his studio (Studio d'Essai) at RTF (now ORTF).[4] He sketched ideas for sound materials in his journal. He later described the completed work as "an opera for blind people, a performance without argument, a poem made of noises, bursts of text, spoken or musical."[ In the 1952 work A la recherche d'une musique concrète he commented thus on the nature of the Symphonie: The lone man should find his symphony within himself, not only in conceiving the music in abstract, but in being his own instrument. A lone man possesses considerably more than the twelve notes of the pitched voice. He cries, he whistles, he walks, he thumps his fist, he laughs, he groans. His heart beats, his breathing accelerates, he utters words, launches calls and other calls reply to him. Nothing echoes more a solitary cry than the clamour of crowds. Coexistence (1959)
Coexistence (1959)
Live recording of the world premiere of Futuristie that took place at Théâtre national de Chaillot, October 16, 1975 (Paris, France).  All above tracks from
History of Electronic / Electroacoustic Music (1937-2001)
Full Albums Voile D'Orphée I Et II, Entité, Spirale - 1970 - Philips Prospective 836 887 DSY Le Voyage - 1963 - Philips 836 899 DSY Pierre Henry (born 9 December 1927) is a French composer, considered a pioneer of the musique concrète genre of electronic music. 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. UbuWeb Sound | UbuWeb |