Pioneers of electronic music #4: Pierre Schaeffer

Pioneers of electronic music #4: Pierre Schaeffer

5 November, 2008 | 9.28PM

• Written by: culprit1
• Filed under: Music News: pierre schaeffer, pioneers, pioneers of electronic music

Pierre Schaeffer was a pioneer of musique concrète, a style of avante-garde composition based on natural environmental sounds and other non-musical noises.

The Frenchman helped bring the cut ‘n’ paste method of composition to a worldwide audience during the 1940s.

Here’s a history lesson on one of the 20th century’s most important electronic music pioneers.

Early life

Born 1910 in Nancy, Schaeffer received no formal musical education and followed an unorthodox route into composition.

Educated at L’Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, he began work as a telecommunications engineer in Strasbourg in the early 1930s and later became a member of the French resistance during World War II.

Following the war, Schaeffer was able to focus on his engineering work, by now based at Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (RTF).

The development of musique concrète

After several promotions, he was able to persuade the station’s managers to create an entirely new department, thus allowing him consistent access to studio facilities.

The primitive devices contained therein included turntables, disc cutting lathes, mixers and an extensive library of sound effects.

Influenced by the Italian Futurist movement and the manifesto of its leader Luigi Russolo, Schaeffer began experimenting with various sound sources.

The studio later became known as the rather cool Club d’Essai (Experimental Club).

Schaeffer’s first broadcast work, the revolutionary ‘Etude Aux Chemins de Fer’ (1948), was a groundbreaking montage of sounds recorded at a Paris train station.

Incorporated into the piece were steam locomotives, conductors’ whistles and a plethora of wagons rattling across the track.

The piece was broadcast on French radio the same year and prompted some interesting responses from the Gallic listeners, mostly angry.

Heard with 21st century ears however, the piece makes for an incredible listen.

Pierre Schaeffer ‘Etude Aux Chemins de Fer’

Beginning with a cacophony of whistles, the insistent rhythm of a rolling train slowly develops.

Schaeffer then builds and develops his sound sources; reversing, looping and decreasing the speed.

He continued to create new works at the studio, with other notable compositions including the bizarre vocal workout ‘Etude pathetique’ (1948) and the five-movement ‘Suite pour quatorze instruments’ (1949).

Schaeffer was later joined at the studio by the young Pierre Henry, just about to embark on his own dazzling musical career.

Together, the dream team of musique concrète created ‘Symphonie pour un homme seul’ (1950).

At 22 minutes long and separated into 12 movements it was undeniable epic, utilising the sounds of the human body as its source material.

The piece prompted Schaeffer, ever the philosopher, to consider the implications of his recent work: “The whole problem of the sound-work is distancing oneself from the dramatic.”

“I hear a bird sing, I hear a door creak, I hear the sounds of battle; you start to get away from that. “

“You find a neutral zone.”

“Just as a painter or sculptor moves away from a model, stops representing a horse, or a wounded warrior, and arrives at the abstract.”

“A beautiful sculptural form, as beautiful as an egg, a greenhouse, a star.”

The work required to create these early tape works was painstaking and as a result, only a handful of Schaeffer’s experiments ever saw the light of day (leaving the rest of the world forever guessing as to what else was created).

Influence

But his studio grew in stature and attracted a flood of post-war visionaries such as Messiaen, Stockhausen, Boulez, Ferrari and Xenakis.

Schaeffer’s work influenced not only his contemporaries, but future generations of artists and producers.

The Frenchman’s cut ‘n’ paste legacy is noticeable in countless hip-hop records and there is also a tangible influence in releases by The KLF, Can and even The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’.

In 1951, Schaeffer and Henry were instrumental in creating the influential Groupe de Musique Concrète, which became known as Le Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) seven years later.

Disillusionment

Despite the intellectual props he was receiving at the time, Schaeffer became increasingly disillusioned with musique concrète : “As I defended the music I was working on, I was personally horrified at what I was doing.”

“I felt extremely guilty…it’s not that I disown everything I did - it was a lot of hard work.”

“But each time I was to experience the disappointment of not arriving at music. I couldn’t get to music - what I call music. I think of myself as an explorer struggling to find a way through in the far north, but I wasn’t finding a way through.”

In 1967, having largely given up on electronic music, he published an essay entitled: “Musique Concrète: What Do I Know?”, which appeared to dismiss his inspirational previous work.

Later life

The multi-talented and adaptable Schaeffer progressed to other successes, embarking on a portfolio career which included lecturing, research and radio production.

He died in Aix-en-Provence in 1995, having suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease in later life.

Schaeffer never fully acknowledged the enormous impact he had made to the development of electronic music, commenting in a late interview: “Unfortunately it took me forty years to conclude that nothing is possible outside DoReMi… In other words, I wasted my life.”

• (5) Comments
• (3355) Views