Pierre Henry
Pierre Georges Henry (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ ɑ̃ʁi]; 9 December 1927 – 5 July 2017)[1] was a French composer, considered a pioneer of musique concrète.[2]
Biography[]
Pierre Henry was born in Paris, French Third Republic,[3] and began experimenting at the age of 15 with sounds produced by various objects. He became fascinated with the integration of noise into music. He studied with Nadia Boulanger, Olivier Messiaen, and Félix Passerone at the Paris Conservatoire from 1938 to 1948.[4]
Between 1949 and 1958, Henry worked at the Club d'Essai studio at RTF, which had been founded by Pierre Schaeffer in 1943.[4] During this period, he wrote the 1950 piece Symphonie pour un homme seul, in cooperation with Schaeffer; he also composed the first musique concrète to appear in a commercial film, the 1952 short film Astrologie ou le miroir de la vie. Henry scored numerous additional films and ballets.
Two years after leaving the RTF, he founded with Jean Baronnet the first private electronic studio in France, the Apsone-Cabasse Studio.[4]
Among Henry's works is the 1967 ballet Messe pour le temps présent,[4] a collaboration with choreographer Maurice Béjart that debuted in Avignon.[5][page needed] In 1970 Henry collaborated with British rock band Spooky Tooth on the album Ceremony.[6]
Composer Christopher Tyng was heavily inspired by Henry's "Psyché Rock" when writing the theme to the popular animated cartoon show Futurama. The theme is so reminiscent of Henry's song, it is considered a variation of the original.[7]
Henry died on Wednesday 5 July 2017 at Saint Joseph's Hospital in Paris, at the age of 89.[8])
Discography[]
- 1950 Symphonie pour un homme seul (in collaboration with Pierre Schaeffer)
- 1951 Le microphone bien temperé
- Musique sans titre
- Concerto des ambiguities mit Klavier
- 1952 First film music with musique concrète for Jean Grémillons film Astrologie
- 1953 Orphée 53, experimental opera for Donaueschingen Festival, first stage play[contradictory] with musique concrète (together with Pierre Schaeffer)
- 1955 Arcane (ballet)
- 1956 Haut voltage (ballet)
- 1958 Coexistence
- 1959 Investigations
- 1961 La Noire à Soixante
- 1963 La Reine Verte (ballet)
- 1967 Le Voyage (ballet)
- 1967 Variations pour une porte et un soupir (Variations For a Door And a Sigh)
- 1967 Messe pour le temps présent (in cooperation with Michel Colombier)
- 1968 L’Apocalypse de Jean (Die des Johannes) with spoken text
- 1969 Ceremony (with Spooky Tooth)
- 1971 Nijinsky, clown de dieu (ballet)
- 1973 Machine Danse
- 1973 Kyldex I (cybernetic ballet)
- 1975 Futuriste, in memory of the Italian Futurists Luigi Russolo
- 1979 La Dixième Symphonie, tribute to Ludwig van Beethoven
- 1986 La Dixième Symphonie De Beethoven
- 1990 Le livre des morts égyptien (Book of the Dead)
- 1997 Interieur/Exterrieur
- 2015 Choix d'oeuvres de 1950–1985 (Selections of works 1950–1985 on VOD Records Cat VOD133 Edition of 400 on 10xVinyl records)
- 2021 Galaxie Pierre Henry
References[]
- "Pierre Henry". The Times. 27 July 2017.
- Chion, Michel. 2003. Pierre Henry, new, revised edition. Paris: Fayard. ISBN 2-213-61757-0.
- Clark, Philip. 2009. "Interior Designs: An Interview with Pierre Henry". The Wire (July): 36–39.
- Dayal Geeta. 2017. "The Life And Work Of Pierre Henry, Ceaseless Sonic Explorer". The Record: Music News from NPR (8 July; retrieved 10 July 2017).
- Decalf, Guillaume. 2017. "Le compositeur Pierre Henry, figure de la musique électroacoustique, est mort". Francemusique.fr (6 July, accessed 6 July 2017).
- Dhomont, Francis (2001). "Henry, Pierre". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan.
- Gervasoni, Pierre. 2017. "Mort de Pierre Henry, père de la musique concrète". Le Monde (6 July).
- Griffiths, Paul. 2017. "Pierre Henry Obituary". The Guardian (9 July).
- Kennedy, Michael. 2006. The Oxford Dictionary of Music. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-861459-4.
- Rubin, Don. 2001. The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: Europe. Taylor & Francis.
- Williamson, Marcus (13 July 2017). "Pierre Henry: Composer of musique concrète". The Independent.
Footnotes[]
- ^ Griffiths 2017.
- ^ Williamson 2017.
- ^ Dhomont 2001; Williamson 2017.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d Dhomont 2001.
- ^ Rubin 2001.
- ^ Rubin 2001, p. 308.
- ^ Cohen, David X. 2001. Commentary track to Futurama, Season 1 (television series, 13 episodes). 3 DVD set. Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.[need quotation to verify]
- ^ Decalf 2017; Dayal 2017; Gervasoni 2017; Williamson 2017.
External links[]
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pierre Henry. |
- Pierre Henry at IMDb
- Pierre Henry at AllMusic
- "Pierre Henry biography" (in French). IRCAM.
- Discography of vinyl records.
- Pierre Henry at Virtual International Philharmonic
- http://media.hyperreal.org/zines/est/intervs/henry.html
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- 1927 births
- 2017 deaths
- Musicians from Paris
- French electronic musicians
- French experimental musicians
- Electroacoustic music composers
- Sound artists
- French classical composers
- French male classical composers
- Musique concrète
- Officers of the National Order of Merit (France)
- 20th-century French composers
- 20th-century classical composers
- 20th-century French male musicians
- 21st-century French composers
- 21st-century classical composers
- 21st-century French male musicians