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7/30/2019 Describe the Technological and Aesthetic Conditions Surrounding the Establishment of Musique Concrte Tradition

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Describe the Technological and Aesthetic Conditions Surrounding the Establishment of

Musique Concrte Tradition of Composition. Be sure to discuss the Paris Studio as Distinctfrom the Studios in Cologne, Milan and Comlumbia-Prinecton University.

Musique concrteis a genre of electroacoustic music, defined as Music preparedfrom recoded sounds, either natural (e.g. birdsong) or man-made (traffic, instruments, etc.)1

The term musique concrte was coined by Pierre Schaeffer in 1948 to differentiate betweenhis new paradigm of musical conception, constructed from concrte sound objects, and

music extant only as abstract notation. The compositional tradition can be said to have

originated in early 1940s Paris, in this essay I will discuss the circumstances surrounding the

origins of this genre.

The creator, and chief practitioner, ofmusique concrte can be considered to be theFrench composer Pierre Schaeffer. Schaeffer, born in 1910, trained originally as an engineer,

and began working forRadiodiffusion Franaise, a french radio broadcaster based in Paris, in1936. He worked initially as a broadcaster and engineer, but it was here he first expressed aninterest in music. At the time, Schaeffers specific interests lay in the scientific principles of

sound recording and acoustics, and by 1942 he was able to convince his employers at RDF

(Radiodiffusion Franaise) to allow him the use of their audio equipment to carry out hismusical research, this establishment became Studio dEssai. Here, through the course of his

research Schaeffers attention became drawn towards the use of recording techniques as a

means of isolating naturally produced sound events2 which can be considered the principle

sonic material ofmusique concrte. Schaeffers research also led him to be the first toconsider how the attack and decay characteristics of a sound can influence how we hear it.

He experimented with truncating sounds by physically removing their very beginning from

the tape of their recording in order to disguise or influence the perception of their natural

origins to the listener. Schaeffers first work, and the first piece ofmusique concrte, titledtude aux chemins de fer, was recorded in 1948, consisting of sounds recorded in a Parisianrailway station. This, amongst other early works of Schaeffers, are considered by some

writers to be more an essay in sound3 functioning to formalise and demonstrate the musical

language and stylistic manifesto of his musical vision rather than as a piece of creative music.

I think that this strong outlining of Schaeffers aesthetic agenda can be seen to contribute to

musique concrte becoming the first recognisable sub genre within the umbrella ofelectroacoustic music, i.e. the first with a strongly defined set of principles governing it,

initiating from a small group of peers, obvious stylistic influences, and a notable influence

upon its musical descendents.

Although it is true that Schaeffer was the first to codify and demonstrate the possibilities of

electronic music to such influence and such extent, he was by no means the first to attempt to

do so, and his musical antecedents held noticeable influence over him, contributing to the

establishment ofmusique concrte. Firstly, Schaeffer was alleged to have admired themusicians of the Italian Futurist movement, arguably the first pioneers of electronic music.

Luigi Russolo, the most notable of them, published a text called the art of noises which laid

out a manifesto on the futurists vision of musical expression. It called for "the musical

1

M. & J. Kennedy, Oxford Concise Dictionary of Music, 5

th

edn, (Oxford, 2007), 518.2P. Manning, Electronic and Computer Music, (Oxford, 2004) 20.

3P. Manning, Electronic and Computer Music, (Oxford, 2004) 21.


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soul of crowds, of great industrial plants, of trains, of transatlantic liners, of armoured

warships, of automobiles, of airplanes."4 To be liberated from confinement as non musical

and called into use as musical elements in order to best express the nature of the human

condition. Russolo also created noise making devices, and categorised them according to

timbre, an approach that was taken up and extended by Schaeffer. Although the music of the

Futurists was ill received at the time, Russolos writings were hugely prophetic andinfluenced later generations of composers significantly. Another obvious influence on

Schaeffers work is Edgard Varse; Varse was a fellow Frenchman and pioneer of electronic

music. Varse was the first to explore the possibilities of manipulating recorded sound to

create compositional materials, and the first to recognise the potential of electronic

instrumentation to exceed the scope of the conventional orchestra and bring about whole new

horizons in musical expression. Varse also wrote and theorised extensively on the use of

technology in broadening the possibilities of music, his most famous writing on the subject is

called organized sound referring to the grouping of certain timbre and rhythms, regardless

of origin, can be used to musical effect. This concept specifically had great influence over

Scaheffers ideas of the sound object. It is interesting to note that both of these people had a

musical vision as vibrant as Schaeffers with regards the necessary progression of musicalexpression, yet their ideas were unable to take root and flourish in the same way that those of

Schaeffers were. For this reason it is arguable that only through the unwillingness of culture

to accept these new ideas, and the lack of available technology with which to fully realise

them, that either the futurists or Edgard Varse were not able to create an accepted culture of

electronic music in their own time, however, both of these pioneers exercised a great

influence over Schaeffer in his establishment of the musique concrte tradition.

Schaeffers home throughout his working life was Paris, a city with a long history of

strong association with the arts, and is seen as being at the forefront of creative innovation.

This situation was of benefit to Schaeffer, as new and radical ideas had more chance of being

readily accepted in a cultural society such as Paris than they would do in many more

conservative and less prosperous locations. Paris intellectual and artistic elite had the wealth

of cultural inheritance and exposure to avantgarde means of expression that better equippedthem to process and contextualise radical ideas such as Schaeffers. Having a captive

audience willing to give their attention to new ideas will have been of great advantage to

Schaeffer, furthermore, inhabiting an artistically rich city such as Paris would have given

Schaeffer access to like minded peers with which to collaborate and expand his vision. One

such early collaborator was Pierre Henry, who worked in thestudio dEssai with Schaeffer

between 1949 and 1952. Henry, unlike Schaeffer, was a classically trained composer who

became interested in Schaeffers musique concrte. Henrys compositional trainingcomplemented Schaeffers engineering background and self taught approach to music welland they collaborated to create works such as Symphonie pour un homme seul, which aimedto display similarities between the musical and non musical sounds that can be created by a

man. It also evidences Henrys influence over Schaeffer as the piece includes the use of

orchestral instruments, something Schaeffer had originally rejected in his musical manifesto.

This shows that although Schaeffer was determined and steadfast in his musical vision, he

was not opposed to enveloping the ideas of his like minded peers. Although the early

pioneers ofElektronische Musikin Cologne were trying to emulate and advance theprinciples of Weberns late serialism, there is no obvious segue from 20th century French

orchestral music into the electronic domain. However, in my opinion there are certain

4L. Russolo, The Art of Noises, (Milan, 1913) 7.


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conceptual similarities between Schaeffers idea of masking the origin of a natural sound, and

the French impressionist music of Debussy and Ravel. Schaeffers wider French musical

inheritance and his position in Paris must both have been advantageous to the establishment

of the musique concrte tradition.

Schaeffer began his work in music at thesudio dEssai in 1942, three years before theend of WWII, though he did not broadcast his own piece of music until 1948. Although it

speaks volumes of the determination of Schaeffers resolve and convictions that he was

granted patronage for musical research at a time of war, the war itself benefitted the field of

electronic music greatly. The revival of the arts after the Second World War took place in

an environment altogether more favourable for the development of electronic music. The

rapid advances in technology as a result of the war, an upsurge of interest from many quarters

in new sound techniques, and a generally expansionist economic climate provided sufficient

incentives for institutions to provide support.5. This marks the crucial technological advance

which allowed figures such as Schaeffer to take to the mantle of the Futurists in altering how

musical and non-musical sounds are so defined. After the initial upsurge of the Futurists

interest, this ideal for a new form of expression had lay dormant, present only in theirwritings, however at this crucial tipping point, the technological resources were able to keep

up with the composers musical intentions. Initially, the technological means that Schaefferhad at his disposal were relatively limited; he used tape lathes to record his compositional

material and physically manipulated them using disc cutters to achieve the desired result.

This could be by splicing them together, slowing or quickening their playback, or reversing

them. He also had at his disposal a primitive electronic keyboard of his own invention called

the Mellotron which played back preset loops of tape on command. In 1951 Schaeffers

studio was reequipped with more modern equipment; this included multi track tape recording,

signal processing effects such as reverberation, and resources for creating synthesised sounds.

The necessity of complex audio equipment meant that the advancement of electronic music at

the time was driven as much by engineers as it was by composers, composers often relied on

engineers to action their musical idea for them in the studio, engineers became composers,

and vice versa, Schaeffer being an example of this. Composers demands also began to drive

the supply of the audio equipment industry, yielding new innovations to better meet their

compositional needs. Naturally, the rise ofmusique concrte was reliant upon the availabletechnology; however, Schaeffer was an engineer, a composer, and an inventor of musical

instruments, himself a technical innovator, he was manipulating technology to best benefit his

musical vision.

Musique concrte at the RDF was one of the various institutions that make up the

early history of electronic music. Although there was initially immense rivalry amongst theseschools, and disagreement on matters of aesthetic principles, the modern spectrum of

electroacoustic music has diversified to encompass all of these school happily and a myriad

more variations, subgenres and hybrids thereof. The principles and writings of Pierre

Schaeffer are still important statutes of electroacoustic music, and the compositional

principles ofmusique concrte are still paramount to the genre of music now more commonlyknown as acousmatic music. It could be argued that the initial rivalry between the schools of

thoughts was beneficial, and a vital ingredient to the circumstances surrounding the

establishment ofmusique concrte, each schools new work provoking their rival to greaterheights and a greater need to justify their chosen aesthetic principle, however the eventual

cross pollination between these genres, each learning from the techniques and practices that

5P. Manning, Electronic and Computer Music, (Oxford, 2004) 21.


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others had mastered, was inevitable, and beneficial. Although the circumstances surrounding

the establishment ofmusique concrte may never be able to happen again, the fruits of thegenre are still very much relevant today, and may still contribute to another definitive cultural

movement within electroacoustic music.

In conlusion, I believe that there are a very specific set of circumstances surroundingthe establishment of the musique concrte tradition, being social, cultural, historical,economic, technological and aesthetic, without which, it may never have existed. However, I

would attribute a large proportion of the success and significance of this genre to the

determination and convictions of Pierre Schaeffer as an individual, had there not been an

individual with such willingness to act upon his musical convictions the circumstances

themselves would not have yielded the same richness of results.


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Bibliography:

Kennedy, M. & J., musique concrte Oxford Concise Dictionary of Music, 5th edn,(Oxford, 2007)

Manning, P.,Electronic and Computer Music, (Oxford, 2004)

Russolo, L., The Art of Noises, Trans. R. Filliou, (Milan, 1913)

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