{"id":17399,"date":"2024-04-11T17:07:25","date_gmt":"2024-04-11T15:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musiknerd.org\/unkategorisiert\/pierre-schaeffer\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T19:35:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T17:35:00","slug":"pierre-schaeffer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musiknerd.org\/en\/composer\/pierre-schaeffer\/","title":{"rendered":"Pierre Schaeffer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pierre Schaeffer<\/strong> was born on August 14, 1910 in Nancy and died on August 19, 1995 in Aix-en-Provence.\nHe was a French composer composer<\/g><\/g><\/g>broadcaster, engineer and writer.\nIn the first half of the 20th century, Schaeffer developed a new musical practice that left behind the accusation that Western music was closing itself off from an important sphere by limiting itself to traditional musical instruments and the resulting restriction to fixed pitches.\nHe coined the term musique concr\u00e8te and assumed an open approach to sounds. <\/p>\n\n

By working with tapes, Schaeffer dispensed with traditional notation.\nIn doing so, he not only questioned the traditional instruments, but also dissolved the relationship between composer and performer. <\/p>\n\n

His innovative work emerged in the natural sciences, particularly in communication and acoustics, as well as in various arts such as music, literature and radio presentation after the end of the Second World War.\nHis anti-nuclear activism and cultural criticism earned him widespread recognition during his lifetime.\nSchaeffer is best known for his achievements in electronic and experimental music.\nHe was the main developer of a unique and early form of avant-garde music known as musique concr\u00e8te.\nThis genre emerged in Europe through the use of new music technologies developed in the post-war period following the advance of electro-acoustic and acousmatic music. <\/p>\n\n

Schaeffer’s writings include essays, biographies, short novels, musical treatises and plays.\nThey are oriented towards his development of the genre as well as theory and music philosophy in general.\nToday, Schaeffer is considered one of the most influential experimental, electro-acoustic and later electronic musicians.\nHe was the first composer to use contemporary recording and sampling techniques, which are now used by almost all record production companies worldwide.\nHis joint efforts are considered milestones in the history of electronic and experimental music. <\/p>\n\n

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Pierre Schaeffer – Etude aux chemins de fer, 1948<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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Early experimentation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

Later in 1934, Schaeffer began his first job as an engineer and worked briefly in telecommunications for Postes et T\u00e9l\u00e9communications in Strasbourg.\nIn 1935, he began a relationship with Elisabeth Schmitt, later marrying her and having his first child with her, Marie-Claire Schaeffer.\nHe then officially moved to Paris with his new family in 1936, where he began working in the broadcasting and presenting industry. <\/p>\n\n

He began to move away from his original interest in telecommunications and devote himself to music instead.\nIn doing so, he combined his skills as an engineer with his passion for sound.\nWhile working at the radio station, Schaeffer experimented with records<\/g><\/g><\/g> and other devices.\nHe investigated the sounds they produced and the applications of these sounds.\nSchaeffer’s period of experimentation was significant for his development and raised many fundamental questions, particularly about the limits of modern musical expression. <\/p>\n\n

In these experiments, Pierre tried to play sounds backwards, slow them down, speed them up and compare them with other sounds.\nThese techniques were practically unknown at the time.\nHe collaborated with new contemporaries he had met through RTF and thus deepened his experiments.\nSchaeffer’s work became increasingly avant-garde.\nHe challenged the traditional musical style by using different devices and practices. <\/p>\n\n

After all, his work involved a unique variety of electronic instruments<\/a><\/span><\/strong> were used in his work.\nSchaeffer and his colleagues had developed these instruments using their own technical skills.\nThese included the chromatic, gliding and universal phonogens, Fran\u00e7ois Bayle’s Acousmonium and a variety of other devices such as gramophones and some of the earliest tape recorders. <\/p>\n\n

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Writers, religious works and the birth of musique concr\u00e8te<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

Schaeffer began his writing career in 1938 with various articles and essays for the French music magazine Revue Musicale.\nHis first column, “Basic Truths”, took a critical look at the musical trends of the time.\nAs a convinced Catholic, Schaeffer began to write religiously inspired works.\nIn the same year as his “Basic Truths”, he published his first novel: “Chlothar Nicole – a short Christian novel”.\nIn 1942, Pierre Schaeffer founded the Studio d’Essai, later known as the Club d’Essai, at Radiodiffusion Nationale (France).\nIt played an important role in the French resistance during the Second World War and later developed into a center for musical experimentation. <\/p>\n\n

In 1949, Schaeffer met the percussionist and composer Pierre Henry, with whom he collaborated on numerous compositions.\nIn 1951, he founded the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concr\u00e8te (GRMC) at the Institut fran\u00e7ais de radio.\nThis gave him a new studio, which also included a tape recorder.\nThis was an important development for Schaeffer, who had previously worked with phonographs and record players to produce music.\nSchaeffer is generally regarded as the first composer to make music with tapes. <\/p>\n\n

His continued experiments led to the publication of \u00c0 la Recherche d’une Musique Concr\u00e8te (In Search of a Concrete Music) in 1952, a summary of his previous working methods.\nHis only opera, Orph\u00e9e 53 (“Orph\u00e9e 53”), was premiered in 1953. <\/p>\n\n

Schaeffer left the GRMC in 1953 and reformed it in 1958 as the Groupe de Recherche Musicales (initially without an “s”, then with an “s”).\nIn 1954, together with the composer, pianist and musicologist Charles Duvelle, Schaeffer founded the traditional music label Ocora (“Office de Coop\u00e9ration Radiophonique”) with a worldwide reach in order to preserve the rural soundscapes of Africa.\nOcora also served as a training center for technicians of the national African radio stations.\nOver the years, Schaeffer mentored a number of students who went on to have successful careers, including \u00c9liane Radigue and the young Jean-Michel Jarre<\/g><\/g><\/g>who called his mentor the first disc jockey.\nHis last \u00e9tude was composed in 1959: the \u00c9tudes aux Objets. <\/p>\n\n

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Theoretical position<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

With his main theoretical work, the “trait\u00e9 des objets musicaux”, Pierre Schaeffer was the first to develop a linguistic system that made it possible to grasp and communicate the new musical structures of electroacoustic music.\nHe was primarily reacting to a development that he himself had driven forward: musique concr\u00e8te required a new theoretical foundation and a new vocabulary as it deliberately broke away from harmonic structures. <\/p>\n\n

In addition to his work, Schaeffer published the “Solf\u00e8ge de l’objet sonore” on three records.\nBy experimenting with sound transformations on tape, he was able to show that there is a surprising discrepancy between the physical appearance and the perceived quality of sounds.\nBased on this insight, he developed a catalog of sound characteristics that was not based on physical appearance but directly on hearing.\nSchaeffer also commented on the discrepancy between physical time and the perceived duration of musical events. <\/p>\n\n

The theoretical dispute between musique concr\u00e8te from Paris and the electronic music of the Cologne style, which arose in the middle of the 20th century, was often attributed to Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Karlheinz Stockhausen<\/a><\/span><\/strong> reduced to Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz Stockhausen.<\/p>\n\n

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The sound object, typology and morphology<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

The central prerequisite for Schaeffer’s theoretical considerations was the definition of the sound object as the lowest denominator of musical experience.\nThese should be regarded as the smallest unit of music.\nSchaeffer saw human perception in connection with music fundamentally through the rudimentary division into individual musical events: the sound objects.\nIn his Trait\u00e9, Schaeffer developed a typology of sound objects.\nHe distinguished between balanced and unbalanced sounds on the basis of the parameters of mass and temporal extension.\nIn a second step, he developed a morphology of the sound object, which is divided into seven criteria: mass, harmonic timbre, grain, allure, dynamics, melodic profile and mass profile.\nThis serves both as an orientation for compositional work and as a tool for analysis. <\/p>\n\n

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Musique Concr\u00e8te<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

Pierre Schaeffer coined the term musique concr\u00e8te, which distinguishes itself from traditional music by starting from concrete sounds and abstracting them.\nIt is an attempt to construct music from scratch by reinterpreting traditional instruments, harmony and rhythm. <\/p>\n\n

Schaeffer’s work has three main meanings: the inclusion of all sounds in music, the manipulation of recorded sounds for composition and the emphasis on “playing” in the creation of music.\nUsing techniques such as tape looping and tape splicing, he created sound collages and became a forerunner of contemporary sampling practices.\nHis use of recording techniques and experimental instruments, inspired by Luigi Russolo, paved the way for new musical possibilities.\nThe idea of “playing” reflects improvised sound experiments and electro-acoustic improvisation as the core of musique concr\u00e8te. <\/p>\n\n

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Life<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

Pierre Schaeffer was born in Nancy in 1910.\nHis parents were both musicians, his father a violinist and his mother a singer.\nAlthough it initially looked as if he would also take up music as a profession, his parents discouraged him from musical activities from an early age and had him trained as an engineer.\nHe studied at several universities in this direction.\nThe first of these was the Lyc\u00e9e Saint-Sigisbert in his home town of Nancy.\nIn 1929, he moved west to Paris to attend the \u00c9cole Polytechnique and graduated from the \u00c9cole sup\u00e9rieure d’\u00e9lectricit\u00e9 in 1934. <\/p>\n\n

He obtained a diploma in broadcasting from the \u00c9cole Polytechnique.\nIt is unclear whether he also received a similar degree from the \u00c9cole nationale sup\u00e9rieure des t\u00e9l\u00e9communications, as it cannot be proven whether or not he ever attended this university. <\/p>\n\n

Schaeffer worked for French radio after the Second World War.\nHe experimented with everyday sounds and recorded them on vinyl and tape.\nHe alienated these recordings and assembled them into new sound compositions.\nThe means of alienation were limited to the playback speed and direction.\nHe also developed a way of playing back short sections of a record as a loop.\nHe called the resulting experimental music musique concr\u00e8te (concrete music).\nThis had a great influence on electronic music<\/g><\/g><\/g> and the radio play. <\/p>\n\n

From 1968 to 1980, Schaeffer was an associate professor at the Paris Conservatoire, where he set up a class on musical principles and their application in the audiovisual field.\nAfter the 1988 earthquake in Armenia, the then 78-year-old Schaeffer led a 498-strong French rescue team to Leninakan to search for survivors.\nHe stayed there until all the foreign aid workers had been evacuated.\nSchaeffer later developed Alzheimer’s disease and died in Aix-en-Provence in 1995 at the age of 85.\nHe was buried in Delincourt in the green Vexin, where he once owned his estate.\nMany of his colleagues later remembered Schaeffer as the “musician of sounds”.\nHe created his last work in 1979. <\/p>\n\n

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Influences on the music<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

Schaeffer’s influence on the music world is undisputed.\nHis students, including \u00c9liane Radigue, adopted his techniques and created groundbreaking works using tape feedback and other innovative approaches.\nThese artists, as well as Jean Michel Jarre and Pierre Henry, have honored Schaeffer with their own works and taken his ideas further. <\/p>\n\n

In the 1980s, Schaeffer distanced himself from the avant-garde and promoted a new approach, which was refined by his student Otavio Henrique Soares Brand\u00e3o.\nBrand\u00e3o developed an innovative piano and instrumental technique that respected tradition.\nThis approach influenced not only contemporary music, but also other genres such as rap, where ordinary sounds are used for creative productions.\nSchaeffer’s legacy lives on in the works of his students and in the broad application of his ideas in the music industry. <\/p>\n\n

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Musical works<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
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  • 1943\/44 La coquille a planetes, INA, ADES, Manuscrit<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1948 Concertino-Diapason (collaboration with J.-J. Grunenwald)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1948 Cinq \u00e9tudes de bruits<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1949 Suite for 14 instruments<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1949 Variations sur une fl\u00fbte mexicaine<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1950 Bidule en ut (collaboration with Pierre Henry)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1950 La course au Kilocycle (radio music, collaboration with Pierre Henry)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1950 L’Oiseau Rai<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1950 Symphonie pour un homme seul (collaboration with Pierre Henry; revised versions in 1953, 1955 and 1966 (Henry)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1951 Toute la lyre (pantomime, collaboration with Pierre Henry, also known as Orph\u00e9e 51)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1952 Masquerade (film music)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1952 Les paroles d\u00e9gel\u00e9es (music for a radio production)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1952 Sc\u00e8nes de Don Juan (incidental music, collaboration with Monique Rollin)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1953 Orph\u00e9e 53 (opera)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1957 Sahara d’aujourd’hui (film music, collaboration with Pierre Henry)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1958 Continuo (collaboration with Luc Ferrari)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1958 Etude aux sons anim\u00e9s<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1958 Etude aux allures<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1958 Exposition fran\u00e7aise \u00e0 Londres (collaboration with Luc Ferrari)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1959 Etude aux objets<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1959 Nocturne aux chemins de fer (incidental music)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1959 Ph\u00e8dre (incidental music)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1959 Bidule en ut<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1959 Simultan\u00e9 camerounais<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1961 Ph\u00e8dre<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1962 L’aura d’Olga (music for a radio production, collaboration with Claude Arrieu)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1967 Solf\u00e8ge de l’objet sonor<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1975 Le tri\u00e8dre fertile (collaboration with Bernard Durr)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1979 Bilude<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
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    Studio albums<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
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    • 1979 \u0152uvres de Pierre Schaeffer Prospective du XXIe si\u00e8cle and Classique du XXe si\u00e8cle, Philips<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • 1990 L’oeuvre Musicale, 4 x CD, Box Set<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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