Pierre Schaeffer | |
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 Schaeffer in 1973 | |
| Born | Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (1910-08-14)14 August 1910 |
| Died | 19 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 active | 1942–1990 |
| Labels | |
Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (English pronunciation:/piːˈɛərˈhɛnriːməˈriːˈʃeɪfər/ ⓘ,French pronunciation:[ʃɛfɛʁ]; 14 August 1910 – 19 August 1995)[1] was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer,musicologist,acoustician and founder ofGroupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC). His innovative work in both the sciences—particularlycommunications andacoustics—and the various arts of music, literature and radio presentation after the end of World War II, as well as hisanti-nuclear activism andcultural criticism garnered him widespread recognition in his lifetime.
Schaeffer is most widely and currently recognized for his accomplishments inelectronic andexperimental music,[2] at the core of which stands his role as the chief developer of a unique and earlyform ofavant-garde music known asmusique concrète.[3] The genre emerged in Europe from the utilization of newmusic technology developed in thepost-war era, following the advance ofelectroacoustic andacousmatic music.
Schaeffer's writings (which include written and radio-narrated essays, biographies, short novels, a number of musicaltreatises and several plays)[1][3][4] are often oriented towards his development of the genre, as well as thetheoretics andphilosophy of music in general.[5]
Today, Schaeffer is considered one of the most influential experimental, electroacoustic and subsequentlyelectronic musicians, having been the first composer to develop a number ofrecording andsampling techniques that are ubiquitous in modern sound and music production .[2] His collaborative endeavors are considered milestones in the histories ofelectronic andexperimental music.
Schaeffer was born inNancy in 1910.[3] His parents were both musicians (his father was a violinist; his mother, a singer),[5] and at first it seemed that Pierre would also take on music as a career. However, his parents discouraged his musical pursuits from childhood and had him educated in engineering.[2] He studied at several universities in this inclination, the first of which wasLycée Saint-Sigisbert, located in his hometown of Nancy. Afterwards he moved westwards in 1929 to theÉcole Polytechnique in Paris[3][6][7] and finally completed his education in the capital at theÉcole supérieure d'électricité, in 1934.[7]
Schaeffer received a diploma in radio broadcasting from theÉcole Polytechnique.[8] He may have also received a similar qualification from theÉcole nationale supérieure des télécommunications, although it is not verifiable as to whether or not he ever actually attended this university.[8]
Later in 1934 Schaeffer entered his first employment as an engineer, briefly working intelecommunications for the Postes et Télécommunications inStrasbourg.[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 modernmusical expression.[6]
In these experiments, Pierre tried playing sounds backwards, slowing them down, speeding them up and juxtaposing them with other sounds,[10] all techniques which were virtually unknown at that time.[6] He had begun working with new contemporaries whom he had met through RTF, and as such his experimentation deepened. Schaeffer's work gradually became moreavant-garde, as he challenged traditional musical style with the use of various devices and practices. Eventually, a unique variety of electronic instruments—ones which Schaeffer and his colleagues created, using their own engineering skills—came into play in his work, like thechromatic, sliding and universal phonogenes,François Bayle'sAcousmonium and a host of other devices such asgramaphones and some of the earliesttape recorders.[10]
In 1938 Schaeffer began his career as a writer, penning various articles and essays for theRevue Musicale, a French journal of music. His first column,Basic Truths, provided a critical examination of musical aspects of the time.[citation needed]
An ardentCatholic, Schaeffer began to write religiously based pieces, and in the same year as hisBasic Truths he published his first novel:Chlothar Nicole — a shortChristian novel.[11]
TheStudio d'Essai, later Club d'Essai, was founded in 1942 by Pierre Schaeffer at theRadiodiffusion 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.
In 1949, Schaeffer met the percussionist-composerPierre Henry, with whom he collaborated on many compositions, and in 1951, he founded theGroupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC) in the French Radio Institution.[12] This gave him a new studio, which included atape recorder. This was a significant development for Schaeffer, who previously had to work withphonographs andturntables to produce music.[13] Schaeffer is generally acknowledged as being the first composer to make music usingmagnetic tape.[citation needed] His continued experimentation led him to publishÀ la Recherche d'une Musique Concrète (French; the English title is: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 theGroupe de Recherche Musicale[s] (GRM) (at first without "s", then with "s").
In 1954 Schaeffer founded traditional music labelOcora ("Office de Coopération Radiophonique") alongside composer, pianist, and musicologistCharles 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, includingÉliane Radigue and the youngJean Michel Jarre, who called his mentor the firstdisc jockey.[14] His last "étude" (study) came in 1959: the "Study of Objects" (Études aux Objets).
Schaeffer became anassociate professor at theParis Conservatoire from 1968 to 1980 after creating a "class of fundamental music and application to the audiovisual."[1]
In the aftermath of the1988 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 fromAlzheimer's disease later in his life, and died from the condition inAix-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]
Sound is the vocabulary of nature.
— Pierre Schaeffer
The termmusique concrète (French for "real music", literally "concrete music"), was coined by Schaeffer in 1948.[16] Schaeffer believed traditionally classical (or as he called it, "serious") music begins as an abstraction (musical notation) that is later produced as audible music. Musique concrète, by contrast, strives to start with the "concrete" sounds that emanate from basephenomena 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 evenmusic 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 astape looping and tape splicing were used in his research, often comparing tosound 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 ofelectronic andexperimental instruments in a manner similar toLuigi 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 ofjeu comes from the French verbjouer, which carries the same double meaning as the English verbplay: 'to enjoy oneself by interacting with one's surroundings', as well as 'to operate a musical instrument'. This notion is at the core of the concept of musique concrète, and reflects onfreely improvised sound, or perhaps more specificallyelectroacoustic improvisation, from the standpoint of Schaeffer's work and research.
In 1955,Éliane Radigue, an apprentice of Pierre Schaeffer atStudio d'Essai, learned to cut, splice and edit tape using his techniques. She then went on to work as an assistant toPierre 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 studentJean Michel Jarre went on to great international success. Jarre's 1997 albumOxygene 7-13 is dedicated to Schaeffer.Pierre Henry also made a tribute to the man, composing hisÉcho d'Orphée, Pour P. Schaeffer alongside him for Schaeffer's last work and second compilation,L'Œuvre Musicale. His other notable pupils includeJoanna Bruzdowicz,Jorge Antunes,Bernard Parmegiani,Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux,Armando Santiago,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 virtuosoOtavio 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]
Manyrap albums, such asIt Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back byPublic Enemy and3 Feet High And Rising byDe La Soul take ordinary sounds and use them to create a finished product.[20]
TheQwartz Electronic Music Awards has named several of its past events after Schaeffer. Pierre himself was a prize winner at the awards more than once.
Commercial release of Schaeffer's work was limited at best; Schaeffer released his work to the public primarily to disseminate a new andavant-garde form of music. The original production of his marketed work was done by the "Groupe de Recherches Musicales" (a.k.a. GRM; now owned and operated by INA or theInstitut national de l'audiovisuel), the company which he initially had formed around his creations. Other music was broadcast live (Pierre himself being notable on French radio at the time). Some individual tracks found their way into the use of other artists, with Pierre's work being fronted in mime performances andballets. Now after his death, various musical production companies, such asDisques Adès andPhonurgia 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.
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:
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 ardentCatholic, Schaeffer wroteClotaire Nicole (published 1934)—a nonfiction tribute to his friend—andTobias (French:Tobie; published 1939) a religiously based play.
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