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Musique Concrete: Pierre Schaeffer
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Their first work, Suite pour quatorze instruments , was the starting point for the syntax for musique concrete . It consisted of five movements. The Courante was a montage of an entire library of source material. The Gavotte was a simple musical phrase on different instruments. Pitch transposition was used for variations. Schaeffer was not happy with the results since the phrase retained many of its original characteristics, even with all of the treatments.
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Pierre Schaeffer wanted to distinguish the music he made from the common sense of the term: he called it "Musique Concrete." This is not a music that streams from the hearts of composers onto musical notation, only to be played at a later date by other musicians. Composers of Musique Concrete compose in a wholly different sense: they assemble, cut, splice, gather, shape, and tape. They often work from found sounds -- manipulating them, running them backwards, speeding them, slowing them down, distorting, and interweaving. The tape machine becomes both an instrument and an orchestra.
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Pierre Schaeffer's first experiments with musique concrete date from april 1948. He was joined shortly afterwards by Pierre Henry and from then on that new form of music, which distinguishes sound from its initial acoustic cause, experienced a rapid development. 50 years later, the acousmatic experience is still going strong.
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The first public performance of musique concrete took place in 1950 in Paris. Schaeffer used a PA system, several turntables, and mixers. The performance did not go well as creating live montages with turntables had never been done before.
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Pierre Schaeffer