Original Creator: Pierre Schaeffer

Each week we pay homage to a select "Original Creator" — an iconic artist from days gone by whose work influences and informs today's creators. These are artists who were innovative and revolutionary in their fields. Bold visionaries and radicals, groundbreaking frontiersmen and women who inspired and informed culture as we know it today. This week: Pierre Schaeffer

The recent release of a book paying tribute to Pierre Henry (The House of Sounds by Pierre Henry) and the re-issue of the complete remastered works of Pierre Schaeffer, L’Oeuvre Musicale, demonstrate a revival of interest in these pioneers of musique concrète. Together, Schaeffer and Henry created what’s considered to be the founding body of work within the genre—defined as either electroacoustic music, experimental electronic music, or acousmatic music—creating a collective work that had considerable impact on the avant-garde art world during the second half of the 20th Century.

While both Pierres made significant contributions to the development of this experimental genre, from the 1930s onwards it was Schaeffer who—from a personal and professional standpoint that was quite opposite of the traditional avant-garde artist—built the theoretical foundations for musique concrète. Dedicating himself to both science and art throughout his career, he advocated the use of these in order to propel forward the progress made by technological tools of mass communication and those of musical innovation.

After graduating with an engineering degree from the Ecole Polytechnique (Prestigious Grande École of Science and Technology) and Supélec, he joined French broadcast radio as an engineer in 1936. It was here that he became involved with, and was given the task of reflecting upon and researching, telecommunication over the airwaves. While looking for technical solutions for improving sound quality and broadcasting standards, he initiated and upheld a revolution transforming the ways mass communication could be improved, becoming a true pioneer in the world of radio.

His research led him to comment on the nature and materialism of sound, which eventually served as the motivation for his first musical experimentations. Through radio broadcasting, he began putting together unreleased montages, loops, samples, and sound collages that allowed him to fully formalize the objet sonore (sound object) concept. It was around this time that he wrote his first compositions and he began having his first theoretical essays on music published in various academic journals, announcing the birth of musique concrète.

In 1949 he encountered Pierre Henry and it was to become a pivotal moment for both men. Together they founded the Groupement de Recherche sur la Musique Concrète (GRMC) with support from French broadcast radio. The public radio station gave them access to a recording studio complete with modern equipment, most significantly a tape recorder which would revolutionize the way they were able to work. Schaeffer and Henry thus became the first composers to use magnetic tape as a means of creating. This attention to the supporting materials betrays a materialistic approach to sound, questioning the importance of the instrument in itself and thus our interpretation of that sound, as well as what we define as the listener’s experience. Still developing, the musique concrète gave way to new listening possibilities.

Below we take a look at some seminal moments in Pierre Schaeffer’s career and the emergence of musique concrète.

Etude Noire (1948) – Pierre Schaeffer

Etude Noire is one of the first personal musical pieces written, composed, and recorded by Pierre Schaeffer after his preliminary years of research. It is therefore both a manifesto and an illustration of his theories—the very basis of his œuvre. The piece is based on raw sound recordings made with the material and technology left at his disposal by the public radio in the 1940s.

Prosopopée II from Symphonie pour un homme seul (1949) – Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry

The Symphonie pour un homme seul (Symphony For a Man Alone) is in musical history most often considered to be the first work of varied scope within concrète music and thus, the inaugural act of this nouveau genre. Afterwards, between 1950 and 1960, Schaeffer and Henry worked alongside each other towards their critical release, which would figure prominently in the musique concrète manifesto. A la recherche d’une musique concrète (In Search of a Musique Concrète) (1952), and Traité des objets musicaux (Treaty On Musical Objects) (1966) provide both a theoretical and practical definition of musique concrète. This genre directly opposes what Schaeffer calls “abstract” music, i.e. traditional academic music that always requires a medium (the score or the performer).

Solfège de l’objet sonore (1967) – Pierre Schaeffer

Concrète musique rests on the unprocessed material of sound, and thus both disqualifies the conformity of the twelve semitones on the one hand, and the emerging serialism in composition on the other. In this archive from 1967 (above, with English subtitles) Schaeffer narrates the basic musical principles that govern the musique concrète.

Schaeffer and Henry have exerted a lasting influence on contemporary music. Their experimentation and work has changed both the course of music academia as well as that of popular music (although from a more conservative, transitive standpoint); from John Cage, with whom he corresponded, to Jean-Michel Jarre, who was briefly his student at the GRM (the ex-GRMC). From contemporary minimalism stalwarts like Steve Reich and La Monte Young to the most contemporary experimental music pioneers, Pierre Schaeffer left a considerable mark on the intellectual and artistic landscape of his time and beyond.