Pierre Schaeffer

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Pierre Schaeffer
Lorraine, France
Died19 August 1995(1995-08-19) (aged 85)
Aix-en-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, France
Occupation(s)Composer, musician, writer, engineer, professor, broadcaster, acoustician, musicologist, record producer, inventor, entrepreneur, cultural critic
Years active1942–1990
Labels
  • GRMC/GRM
  • INA
  • Phonurgia Nova, Philips
  • Disques Adès
  • EMF
  • Prospective 21e Siècle

Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (English pronunciation:

cultural criticism
garnered him widespread recognition in his lifetime.

Schaeffer is most widely and currently recognized for his accomplishments in

form of avant-garde music known as musique concrète.[3] The genre emerged in Europe from the utilization of new music technology developed in the post-war 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

Early life and education

Schaeffer was born in

École supérieure d'électricité, in 1934.[7]

Schaeffer received a diploma in radio broadcasting from the

École nationale supérieure des télécommunications, although it is not verifiable as to whether or not he ever actually attended this university.[8]

Early experimentation

Later in 1934 Schaeffer entered his first employment as an engineer, briefly working in telecommunications for the Postes et Télécommunications 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 in 1936 where 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 forward many fundamental questions he had on the limits of modern musical expression.[6]

GRM

In these experiments, Pierre tried playing sounds backwards, slowing them down, speeding them up and juxtaposing them with other sounds,

tape recorders.[10]

Beginnings of writing career

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.[citation needed]

An ardent

Catholic, Schaeffer began to write religiously based pieces, and in the same year as his Basic Truths he published his first novel: Chlothar Nicole — a short Christian novel.[11]

Club d'essai and the origin of musique concrète

The Studio d'Essai, later Club d'Essai, was founded in 1942 by Pierre Schaeffer at the Radiodiffusion Nationale (France). It played a role in the activities of the French resistance during World War II, and later became a center of musical activity.

Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète

In 1949, Schaeffer met the percussionist-composer

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.[12]

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").

In 1954 Schaeffer founded traditional music label

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.

Over the years, Schaeffer mentored a number of students who went on to have successful careers, including

Jean Michel Jarre, who called his mentor the first disc jockey.[14]
His last "étude" (study) came in 1959: the "Study of Objects" (Études aux Objets).

Later life and death

Schaeffer became an

Paris Conservatoire from 1968 to 1980 after creating a "class of fundamental music and application to the audiovisual."[1]

In the aftermath of the 1988 Armenian earthquake, the 78-year-old Schaeffer led a 498-member French rescue team to look for survivors in Leninakan, and worked there until all foreign personnel were asked to leave.[15]

Schaeffer suffered from Alzheimer's disease later in his life, and died from the condition in Aix-en-Provence in 1995.[citation needed] He was 85 years old. He is buried in Delincourt in the green Vexin region (55 minutes from Paris) where he used to have his countryside property.[citation needed]

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

Legacy

Musique concrète

Main article: Musique concrète
See also: Acousmatic music
trains
running along railroad tracks.

Sound is the vocabulary of nature.

— Pierre Schaeffer

The term musique concrète (French for "real music", literally "concrete music"), was coined by Schaeffer in 1948.

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 term, 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

electroacoustic improvisation
, from the standpoint of Schaeffer's work and research.

Influences on music

In 1955, Éliane Radigue, an apprentice of Pierre Schaeffer at Studio d'Essai, learned to cut, splice and edit tape using his techniques. She then went on to work as an assistant to Pierre Henry in 1967. However, she became more interested in tape feedback and began working on her own pieces. She composed several works (Jouet Electronique [1967], Elemental I [1968], Stress-Osaka [1969], Usral [1969], Ohmnht [1970] Vice Versa, etc [1970]) by processing the feedback between two tape recorders and a microphone.[17]

Pierre's GRM student

Elzbieta Sikora
.

In the early 1980s, Pierre Schaeffer distanced himself from the contemporary musical scene after criticizing the avant-garde of the 1950s, which intended to break with tradition. Schaeffer recognized the virtuoso Otavio Henrique Soares Brandão as his most faithful disciple, who under his guidance performed a reading of his work "Traité des Objets Musicaux". This reading aims to create an innovative piano and musical instrumental technique that does not break with tradition. Pierre Schaeffer wrote four texts on the topic: "Apropos de la Transcription pour Piano par Otavio Brandão de l'Étude aux Objets" (1988); "Réponse à Otávio", in text of the program of the Soares Brandão concert at Salle Pleyel in honor of Schaeffer's eightieth birthday (1990); "Declaration de Pierre Schaeffer sur Ibis et Otavio Soares Brandão" (1990); and "Déclaration de Pierre Schaeffer (Porte Parole)" (1993).[18][19]

Many

3 Feet High And Rising by De La Soul take ordinary sounds and use them to create a finished product.[20]

Other

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

Music

Commercial release of Schaeffer's work was limited at best; Schaeffer released his work to the public primarily to disseminate a new and

ballets. Now after his death, various musical production companies, such as Disques Adès and Phonurgia Nova
have been granted 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. Grunenwald)
  • 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)

Broadcast narratives

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 (1946)
  • From Claudel to Brangues (1953)
  • Ten Years of Radiophonic Experiments from the 'Studio' to the 'Club' d'Essai: 1942–1952 (1955)

Selected writings

For a complete list of literary works by Pierre Schaeffer, see
the bibliography of Pierre Schaeffer
.

Schaeffer's literary works, fiction and non-fiction, span a range of genres. 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

Novels and short stories
  • Chlothar Nicole (1938)
  • The Guardian of The Volcano (1969)
  • Prelude, Chorale and Fugue (1981)
Plays
  • Tobie (1939)
  • Secular Games (1946)

Non-fiction

References

Notes
  1. ^ a b c "Pierre Schaeffer". Encyclopædia Britannica: ¶2. Retrieved 4 December 2008. "Schaeffer taught electronic composition at the Paris Conservatory from 1968 until 1980. His writings include novels, short stories, and essays, as well as theoretical works in music, such as À la recherche d'une musique concrète (1952; 'In Search of a Concrete Music"'), Traité des objets musicaux (1966; 'Treatise on Musical Objects'), and the two-volume Machines à communiquer (1970–72; 'Machines for Communicating')."
  2. ^ a b c "Pierre Schaeffer & Pierre Henry: Pioneers in Sampling". Unknown author (reproduction via Diliberto, John 2005: Electronic Musician) 1986: Electronic Musician. Archived from the original on 7 December 2009. Retrieved 30 September 2009.
  3. ^ a b c d "Pierre Schaeffer". Snyder, Jeff 2007: CsUNIX1/Lebanon Valley College: 1, 3. Archived from the original on 15 May 2008. Retrieved 3 December 2008.
  4. ^ "Les écrits de Pierre Schaeffer". Couprie, Pierre & OLATS 2000 (in French). Archived from the original on 10 May 2020. Retrieved 12 May 2009.
  5. ^ a b "Musique Concrète Revisited". Palombini, Carlos 1999: The Electronic Musicological Review. Archived from the original on 23 October 2008. Retrieved 5 December 2008.
  6. ^ a b c d "Pierre Schaeffer: Profile on Discogs.com". Anonymous/Various, submitted 2003: Discogs.com. Retrieved 4 December 2008.
  7. ^ a b c d "Pierre Schaeffer Biographie". Couprie, Pierre & OLATS 2000 (in French). Archived from the original on 10 May 2020. Retrieved 6 December 2009.
  8. ^ a b "Excerpt from Electronic Music, 1948–1953" (PDF). Cross, Lowell [unverifiable date]: Forum: Electronic Music and Computer Research. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 July 2011. Retrieved 17 December 2009.
  9. ISBN 9780313296895
    . Retrieved 26 December 2008.
  10. ^ a b "A-Z of Instruments – Other". The Foundry Creative Media Company Ltd. 2005: sec. 2. Archived from the original on 22 April 2003. Retrieved 7 December 2009. "Musique concrète was an experimental technique that combined pre-recorded sounds natural as well as musical to make musical compositions. Using only the earliest tape recorders, sounds were edited, played backwards and speeded up and down to create fascinating 'sound-scapes'. Pierre Henry was a prolific composer of musique concrète and collaborated with Schaeffer on many compositions. Luciano Berio and Steve Reich are also key figures in musique concrète composition. Karlheinz Stockhausen combined electronic and concrète sounds to become a leader of avant-garde music making."
  11. JSTOR 3681324
    .
  12. ^ a b "The 'Groupe de Recherches Musicales' Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry & Jacques Poullin, France 1951". 26 December 2013. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
  13. S2CID 37881462
    .
  14. ^ "Electronic Vibrations: Ein Sound erobert die Welt" [Electronic Vibrations: A sound conquers the world]. WDR Klassik (in German). Westdeutscher Rundfunk. 19 October 2022. 8:00-8:50. Retrieved 18 October 2022.
  15. ^ Keller, Bill (16 December 1988). "As Hope Dies, Quake Rescuers Pull Out". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  16. ISBN 0-19-861459-4
  17. ISBN 978-0-8223-4661-6
    .
  18. ^ Textes de Pierre Schaeffer à propos d´Otavio Henrique Soares Brandão, by Ibis Soares Brandão – Issuu
  19. ^ "Otavio Henrique Soares Brandao – Piano – Resposta a Schaeffer I, by Otavio Soares Brandão". Archived from the original on 24 June 2021. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  20. ^ The Effects of Musique Concrete at Musique Concrete – History and Figures "FAU Electronic Music - Musique Concrete: History and Figures". Archived from the original on 18 June 2013. Retrieved 6 January 2013.
Sources

External links

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