Pierre Schaeffer

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Pierre Schaeffer : biography

August 14, 1910 – August 19, 1995

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.

Later life and death

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 Aix-en-Provence in 1995. He was 85 years old.

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

Works

Music

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.

  • Concertino-Diapason (1948; collaboration with J.J. Grünewald)
  • Cinq études de bruits (1948)
  • Suite pour 14 instruments (1949)
  • Variations sur une flûte mexicaine (1949)
  • Bidule en ut (1950; collaboration with Pierre Henry)
  • La course au kilocycle (1950; radio score, collaboration with Pierre Henry)
  • L’oiseau r.a.i. (1950)
  • Symphonie pour un homme seul (1950; collaboration with Pierre Henry; revised versions in 1953, 1955, and 1966 (Henry))
  • Toute la lyre (1951; pantomime, collaboration with Pierre Henry. Also known as Orphée 51)
  • Masquerage (1952; film score)
  • Les paroles dégelées (1952; music for a radio production)
  • Scènes de Don Juan (1952; incidental music, collaboration with Monique Rollin)
  • Orphée 53 (1953; opera)
  • Sahara d’aujourd’hui (1957; film score, collaboration with Pierre Henry)
  • Continuo (1958; collaboration with Luc Ferrari)
  • Etude aux sons animés (1958)
  • Etude aux allures (1958)
  • Exposition française à Londres (1958; collaboration with Luc Ferrari)
  • Etude aux objets (1959)
  • Nocturne aux chemins de fer (1959; incidental music)
  • Phèdre (1959; incidental music)
  • Simultané camerounais (1959)
  • Phèdre (1961)
  • L’aura d’Olga (1962; music for a radio production, collaboration with Claude Arrieu)
  • Le trièdre fertile (1975; collaboration with Bernard Durr)
  • Bilude (1979)