Pierre Schaeffer

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Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Schaeffer working in his studio with an electronic instrument known as the phonogene; circa 1948.
Background information
Birth name	Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer
Born	August 14, 1910 Nancy, France
Died	August 19, 1995 Aix-en-Provence, France (age 85)
Genre(s)	Musique concrète Electroacoustic Classical (20th century)
Occupation(s)	Composer, Musician, Sound artist, Writer, Telecom. engineer, Professor, Radio broadcaster, Musical acoustician, Music theorist, Record producer, Inventor
Instrument(s)	Various (Electronic, Experimental)
Years active	1942 - 1990
Label(s)	INA-GRM (orig. Groupe de Recherches Musicales)

Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (IPA: [pjɛʁ hɛnriː mʊriː ʃæfʌr]; August 14, 1910 – August 19, 1995) was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, and engineer most widely recognized as the chief pioneer of musique concrète,^[1] a unique form of experimental music that began in Europe during the mid-1900s. His writings (which include written and radio-narrated essays, biographies, short novels and a number of musical treatises) ^[1][2] are often oriented towards his development of the genre, as well as the theoretics and philosophy of music in general.^[3]

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.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Life

Pierre Schaeffer, circa 1953.

Schaeffer was born in Nancy, in 1910.^[1] His parents were both musicians (his father a violinist; his mother, a singer),^[3] and at first it seemed that Pierre would also take on music as a career. He studied at several universities, the first of which was Lycée Saint-Sigisbert, after which he went on to the École Polytechnique ^[1][4] and then the École supérieure d'électricité (i.e. Supélec). In 1934 he briefly worked as a telecommunications engineer in Strasbourg. ^[5] He then moved on to join the 'Radiodiffusion Française (now Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française) in 1936, in Paris. ^[4] It was there that he began to experiment with records and other devices —the sounds they made and the applications of those sounds— after coercing the radio station's managemet to allow him to use their equipment. Pierre's experimentation with the instruments at Radiodiffusion Française was a point of significant influence on him, intriguing him with many questions about modern musical expression. ^[4]

In the experiments, Pierre tried playing sounds backwards, slowing them down, speeding them up and juxtaposing them with other sounds, all techniques which were virtually unknown at that time. ^[4] His work gradually became more avante-garde, as he challenged traditional music style with the use of various devices and practices. Unique electronic instruments —ones which Schaeffer himself created, in use of his experience as an engineer— came into play with his work, like the chromatic phonogene and the acousmonium. He also used standard electronic keyboards of the time, such as the Moog and Coupigny synthesizers.

By that time in his life, Schaeffer had founded the Jeune France association, which had interests in theatre and the visual arts, as well as music. In 1942, he created the Studio D'Essai (later known as the Club D'Essai), which played a role in the activities of the French resistance during World War II, and later became a center of musical activity. It was from D'Essai that he successfully recorded his first work, which itself appeared on Dix Ans D'Essais Radiophoniques Du Studio Au Club D'Essai : 1942-1952, a compilation of his personal concrète, along with many other artists' experimental pieces, released later in his life – 1953. The compilation has since become valued as a notable publication of the experimental music genre.

With the rise of nuclear power after World War II, Pierre became a notable aficionado of the anti-nuclear movement, one of the main factors associated with his personal life, other than his work in the field of music.

In 1949, Schaeffer met the percussionist-composer Pierre Henry, with whom he collaborated with on more than several different musical compositions, and in 1951, he founded the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC) in the French Radio Institution. This gave him a new studio, which included a tape recorder. This was a significant development for Schaeffer, who previously had to work with phonographs and turntables to produce music. Schaeffer is generally acknowledged as being the first composer to make music using magnetic tape. His continued experimentation led him to publish À la Recherche D'une Musique Concrète (French for "The Search For 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.

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"), where he briefly mentored the young Jean Michel Jarre, among other students. His last "etude" (study) came in 1959: the "Study of Objects" (Etudes aux Objets).

In 1954 Schaeffer founded traditional music label Ocora ("Office de Coopération Radiophonique") alongside composer, pianist and musicologist 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. Today, it is still run by Duvelle.

In 1988, Schaeffer appeared in a New York Times article on the 1988 Spitak earthquake. Schaeffer had led a 498-member rescue team in Leninakan to help find survivors in the aftermath of the quake.

Schaeffer became an associate professor at the Paris Conservatoire from 1968 to 1980 after creating a "class of fundamental music and application to the audiovisual." He suffered from Alzheimer's disease later in his life, and died from the condition in 1995. He was 85 years old.

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

[edit] Legacy

[edit] Influences on music

Pierre Schaeffer using a Moog synthesizer.

The modern industrial and, to a certain extent, New Age music scenes attribute much of their influence to musique concrète, the brainchild of Schaeffer himself. As well, Schaeffer is considered by many electronic and experimental musicians to have been a profound part of the development of those musical genres. His contribution has been compared to the likes of Luigi Russolo, Robert Moog, Edgard Varèse and others. Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music features sound samples by Pierre Schaeffer, as well as Iannis Xenakis and the aforementioned Varèse (two of his contemporaries).

Pierre's aforementiond student in GRM, Jean Michel Jarre, went on to great international success in his own musical career. Jarre's 1997 album, Oxygene 7-13, is dedicated to Schaeffer. Pierre Henry also made a tribute to the man, composing his Écho d'Orphée, Pour P. Schaeffer alongside him for Schaeffer's last work and second compilation, L’Œuvre Musicale.

[edit] Musique concrète

Schaeffer often created his "concrete music" with real-world sounds. The notable Étude aux Chemins de Fer, for instance, featured recordings of the noises made by trains running along railroad tracks.

The term musique concrète (French for "real music", literally "concrete music") can be misunderstood as simply referring to music made from "real-world" audibles or other naturally occurring sounds that do not include an instrumental/human interface. While this aspect of musique concrète is a major factor according to how Schaeffer had developed it, it should predominantly be seen as a term describing more than simply the recording and manipulation of everyday noises. In a broader sense, the phrase embodies new sensibilities of musical expression and entails a reconceptualized framework for the long-established "organized" sound of the world, one that does not rely on familiar descriptors of rhythm and timbre, or tone and tempo. 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 at the "concrete" sounds that emanate from base 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.^{[citation needed]}

Furthermore, he emphasized the importance of play (in his terms, 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 play: '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 on freely improvised sound, perhaps more specifically electroacoustic improvisation, from the standpoint of Schaeffer's work and research.

[edit] Influences on literature

The writers Martial Robert and Carlos Palombini have mentioned Schaeffer frequently in their works, and have penned a number of books on or referring to his life and legacy. Pierre being a writer himself, he coauthored several works with a number of his colleagues, such as Sophie Brunet, Marc Pierret and Michel Chion, among others. Today Pierre's work is still being published, albeit without translations from French and primarily in France itself. Many of his works have become rarities. As recently as 2006 a coauthored work of his, Sur les traces de Pierre Schaeffer, was published post-mortem.

[edit] Other

Today, in his honor, the Qwartz Electronic Music Awards has named several of their past events after Schaeffer. Pierre himself had been a prize winner at the awards more than once.

[edit] Works

[edit] Music

	Excerpt from "Étude aux Chemins de Fer" (1948) Possibly being Schaeffer's most memorable track, this étude is known for its heavily featured recordings of trains.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

All of Schaeffer's musical compositions (concrète or otherwise) were recorded before the advent of the CD, either on cassettes or a more archaic form of magnetic tape (therefore the term "discography" cannot be appropriately used here; rather his music in general). Mass-production for his work was limited at best, and each piece was, by Schaeffer's terms, intended to be released foremost as an exposé to the masses of what he believed was a new and somewhat revolutionizing 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 the Institut 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) and/or done in live "concert". Some individual tracks even found their way into the use of other artists, with Pierre's work being fronted in mime performances and ballets. Now after his death, various musical production companies, such as Disques Adès and Phonurgia Nova have been given rights to distribute his work.

Below is a list of Schaeffer's musical works, showing his compositions and the year(s) they were recorded.

[edit] Bibliography

Wikisource has original works written by or about:

Pierre Schaeffer

Title	Year Published
Clotharius Nicole	1938
Tobias	1939
America, We Ignore You	1946
Children of The Heart	1949
In Search of a Concrete Music	1952
Towards an Experimental Music	1957
Music and Acoustics	1967
Concrete Music	1967
The Guardian of the Volcano	1969
Future Backwards	1970
Machines à communiquer 1. Genèse des simulacres	1970	...
De l'expérience musicale à l'expérience humaine	1971	...
La Musique et les Ordinateurs	1971	...
Machines à communiquer 2. Pouvoir et communication	1972	...
Traité des Objets Musicaux	1977	...
De la musique concrète à la musique même	1977	...
Excusez-moi, je meurs	1981	...
Prélude, choral et fugue	1981	...
Faber et sapiens	1986	...

[edit] Coauthored

Title	Year Published	Title Translation (If Applicable)	Coauthors
Entretiens avec Pierre Schaffer	1969	Discussions with Pierre Schaeffer	Marc Pierret
Pierre Schaeffer par Sophie Brunet suivi de Réflexions de Pierre Schaeffer	1969	Pierre Schaeffer by Sophie Brunette followed by Reflections of Pierre Schaeffer	Sophie Brunette
Regulation de la sporulation microbienne	1973	...	Jekisiel Szulmajster, J.P. Aubert
Musique concrète: Von den Pariser Anfängen um 1948 bis zur elektroakustischen Musik heute	1974	...	Michel Chion, Josef Häusler
Guide des objets sonores, Pierre Schaeffer et la recherche musicale	1983	...	Michel Chion
The gentle revolution: Musique concrete: Translation of selected early writings by Pierre Schaeffer and commentary on experimental music in Paris, 1945-1952	1985		Linda G. Witnov
Sur les traces de Pierre Schaeffer	2006	...	Jocelyne Tournet-Lammer

[edit] Further reading

• (French) Pierre Schaeffer (1966). Traité des Objets Musicaux. Paris, France: Le Seuil. ISBN 978-2020026086. 
• (French) Martial Robert (1999). Communication et musique en France entre 1936 et 1986. Paris, France: L'Harmattan. ISBN 2738479758. 

[edit] References

[edit] Web

1. ^ ^{a b c d} "Pierre Schaeffer". Snyder, Jeff 2007: CsUNIX1/Lebanon Valley College: ¶1, 3. http://csunix1.lvc.edu/~snyder/em/schaef.html. Retrieved on December 3 2008. 
2. ^ "Pierre Schaeffer". Encyclopædia Britannica: ¶2. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/526992/Pierre-Schaeffer. Retrieved on December 4 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')."
3. ^ ^{a b} "Musique Concrète Revisited". Palombini, Carlos 1999: The Electronic Musicological Review: ¶1, 23. http://www.rem.ufpr.br/REMv4/vol4/arti-palombini.htm. Retrieved on December 5 2008. 
4. ^ ^{a b c d} "Pierre Schaeffer: Profile on Discogs.com". Anonymous/Various, submitted 2003: Discogs.com. http://www.discogs.com/artist/Pierre+Schaeffer. Retrieved on December 4 2008. 
5. ^ "Excerpt from Music of the Twentieth-century Avant-garde". Jonathan D. Kramer, spec. Martial Robert 2002: Google Books: pp. 432. http://books.google.com/books?id=9-M_jhnOuboC&pg=PA432&lpg=PA432&dq=pierre+schaeffer+Strasbourg&source=bl&ots=MeS6euSxhI&sig=psT8Ax97SW4L8897E2t66tAympQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result. Retrieved on December 26 2008. 

[edit] Printed

• Robert, Martial (1999). Pierre Schaeffer: des Transmissions à Orphée. Paris: L'Harmattan. ISBN 2-7384-7975-8. 
• Robert, Martial (2000). Pierre Schaeffer: d'Orphée à Mac Luhan. Paris: L'Harmattan. ISBN 2738492673. 
• Robert, Martial (2002). Pierre Schaeffer: de Mac Luhan au fantôme de Gutenberg. Paris: L'Harmattan. ISBN 2-7475-2457-4. 

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Pierre Schaeffer

• Biography of Pierre Schaeffer on "CsUNIX1"
• Les Machines à Communiquer — unnoficial site on Schaeffer (French)
• Pierre Schaeffer — the alumni community of E. Polytechnique (French)
• Pierre Schaeffer at Allmusic
• Pierre Schaeffer on EMF Media
• Pierre Schaeffer on BBC Music

v • d • e Pierre Schaeffer Musical works Ten Years of Radio Essays by the Studio at Club Essay: 1942-1952 (1942-1952) · The Shell For Planets (1944) · Concertino Tune (1948) · Five Studies of Noises (1948) · Study for Piano and Orchestra (1948)