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This article is based on a interview with Pierre
Henry which took place in May 1999 when he was a featured
composer of the Eighth Annual Festival of Experimental
Music organised by the London Musicians Collective.
During the concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall Henry
diffused both the original and remixed versions of his
works Psyché Rock (1967), Teen Tonic (1967) and
Jericho Jerk (1967) as well as remixes of Psyché
Rock by William Orbit and Ken Abyss. In addition, he
played his compositions La "Dixième" remix (1998)
and Schubert 97 (1997). Some material from the interview
formed the basis for an article in Diffusion (see Diffusion,
July 1999). However, due to limitations on space, many
topics relevant to electroacoustic musicians could not
be included. The present article restores these omissions
with references to subjects such as synthesis, composition,
the urban soundscape, remixing and, as the title implies,
Pierre Henrys relationship with the music of Ludwig
van Beethoven.
I
would like to thank Pierre Henrys musical assistant
Bernadette Mangin for her invaluable assistance during
the interview as well as providing additional written
material. Thanks also to Marie-Josianne Agossou for
the time-consuming task of transcribing the interview
and advising on the English translation.
There
can, of course, be no doubts regarding Pierre Henrys
status as one of the most significant pioneers of electroacoustic
music. Over the last fifty years he has produced an
extensive body of works which could have produced a
complacent disregard for experimentation. The reality
is quite different, and his experimental attitude is
undiminished. His music provokes, enthrals, exasperates,
delights
Henry dismantles cultural divisions between
what might be described as "high" or "low" art. This
is no post-modern artifice: he is a socially engaged
composer who continues to explore the plurality of roles
that music must assume in contemporary society. His
unique perspective derives, I believe, both from his
particular musical intelligence and the manner in which
his ideas are realised with technology. The electroacoustic
medium will not necessarily produce challenging works.
It is a depressing and unsurprising fact that the most
sophisticated equipment frequently results in reactionary
music. The inherent limitations of software programmes
impose restrictions to which some composers readily
capitulate. Consequently, essential questions regarding
the generation of new musical materials and structures
from technology are ignored. Henrys decision to
use analogue equipment and a large collection of recordings
is not an eccentric idiosyncrasy. I am certain that
the practices of the analogue studios in the period
between the immediate post-war years up to the nineteen-seventies
encouraged that most essential skill for composers:
reflective, analytical listening. It promoted "ear training"
in the true sense of the term. To take editing as an
example, early composers needed infinite patience, a
plentiful supply of razor blades and nerves of steel!
Tape splicing has no "undo" facility, no pop-down menus,
no visually based graphic representations of the sound
- composers had to listen and think carefully about
each stage of the process. Henry admitted: "I dont
have a computer, not even for editing." and when I asked
if he used forms of synthesis for any of his sound material
the reply was unequivocal: "I like some electronic sounds
but those are not from synthesis. They are specific
and original sounds that I like to create myself. I
dont like it when sounds come from electronic
instruments. I create them in my studio with my equipment;
therefore, not the synthesiser."
It
was a characteristic of much post-war French electroacoustic
thought to regard technology as an almost transcendental
means of allowing us to hear that which is normally
inaudible. According to Henry: "(
) at first the
basis of recording was recording so that sounds were
different and new, so that the sound had never been
heard before... It was something that preoccupied us,
that the sounds shouldnt remain the way they were
originally recorded. They had to be transformed. But
technology isnt a great deal to me. Technology
is
well, lets say, for example, with the
piano you have the pedal, you have the soft pedal, the
sustain pedal, but the piano could perhaps also be just
what it is. (
) The technology of acoustic music
mustn't go too far, mustn't be too ambitious and complex
otherwise it isnt real music any longer but rather
technical music, and I dont enjoy this very much.
I like it when music remains music. At first there is
a sound and that sound is then amplified, treated, but
it remains close to the original sound... in my opinion..."
Recognisable,
anecdotal sounds, therefore, can play an important part
in Henrys musical language but the role of the
composer is still paramount in deciding which sounds
to use, how they are grouped and what long term implications
can be deduced from their characteristics. "Firstly
there is the acte créateur which
is choosing one sound rather than another... its
a sort of emotional and aesthetical will... one sound
is chosen which will later become longer..or will be
transformed. In fact, choices are related to harmony,
harmonisation and counterpoint, as well as orchestration,
to me, it is close to what I learnt during my classical
music training.... there is writing and, the writing
of the different styles of music can also be found in
my music. There is a definite research in the writing
and it is this acte créateur that
will then give a continuation to that sound...a sound
has variations...it becomes an orchestra,
in fact my own desire to compose is to orchestrate the
sounds in relation to each other, it is being a composer.
It is composing." Composers compose - this might seem
self-evident but composition is not necessarily synonymous
with simply arranging sounds or initiating processes
that are allowed to continue without any intervention.
"But, to me, who has had a classical music training,
I remain a classical musician doing electroacoustic
music. It is linked to the kind of composition and to
the composers I like."
Life
and work seem inextricably linked for Pierre Henry:
"I live in the house that is also my studio." and, as
his musical assistant Bernadette Mangin remarked: "3
years ago he gave a concert in the house. He opened
the whole house, with speakers in each room, for 6 weeks,
people came every night and the whole house was a concert
place." (The compact disc Intérieur/Extérieur
contains the works from this intriguing event.) The
subject of urban life prompted me to mention my experiences
in June 1994 at the MusikTriennale in Cologne. I attended
two performances in the Roncalliplatz of Henrys
work la Ville (originally conceived for radio) which
accompanied the silent film from 1927 Berlin. Die Sinfonie
der Großstadt by Walther Ruttmann. Subsequently,
when I heard the work on compact disc I was particularly
struck by the manner in which sounds were grouped together.
In la Ville the sound "families" of some movements are
self explanatory: Klaxons consists of an "orchestra"
of car horns mixed with what appears to be music from
a Kabuki theatre, Métro combines sounds of trains.
Others are more subtle: in Lointain the foreground ticking
of clocks contrasts with a continuous drone evoking
space and distance, the vocabulary of Jeux are the sounds
of children plus a simplistic drum beat and a high-pitched
electronic ostinato. I naively assumed that when Henry
wanted to start composing a work he went out and "sampled"
the sounds of the city. His reply (obvious, now I think
about it) was that he didnt need any more sounds
- he already had enough! He possesses thousands of hours
on hundreds of tapes. As a Parisian, are city sounds
still important to him?
"Well,
Id say that it is important only if I can create
them myself. To tell you the truth I dont listen
to city noises very much, I prefer imagining them....
the image of a city." I suggested he seemed like a flâneur
walking through the urban environment observing and
capturing interesting sounds in order to reassemble
them later. The juxtapositions thus created would reveal
new and unusual relationships: "But the walk of a flâneur
happens in the studio....there is a symbolic image which
is that my studio crosses the city. It is
a studio with microphones that has already got city
noises, so I am only doing a task of reorganisation."
And in order to have a choice of sounds, to transcend
both the time and place of the original recording you
need a large sound collection: "Thats exactly
correct...It is like having a library filled with all
the books that you treasure. It is also a collection
of all sorts of things with...noises, voices, animals,
instruments... and all this had been thought through
a long time ago, a long time before sampling appeared,
introducing the sample and all the sounds which are
now available to composers. They buy sounds. No later
than the 50s , I decided to keep my sounds...
There are sounds, of course, that dont satisfy
me any more, that have to be thrown away...that have
to be sacrificed... but apart from that,
sounds are a part of what I like around me, They are
my family circle." In compositions such
as la Ville and la Dixième remix as well as earlier
works like Le microphone bien tempéré
and Variations pour une porte et un soupir the result
is often short movements centred around certain types
of sounds. The work has an organic unity but consists
of discrete, quasi-autonomous movements: "Yes, in a
very classical way and also very close to French music
that often uses the suite form - which is
a very French concept."
During
the concert in the Queen Elizabeth Hall I was struck
by the absence of compositions such as la Ville and
Variations pour une porte et un soupir. The decision
to use remixes, to revisit earlier works appeared to
be the consistent thread running through Henrys
concert set. His own remixes were very different to
those of Orbit and Abyss. Was the remix, therefore,
a phenomenon that appeals to Henry? "The remix is a
musical and social fact. I never wanted to even start
thinking that a large public would discover my music
with the remix. It is true that nowadays the remix is
what used to be arrangement. In the past, we used to
do transcriptions of Beethoven, Busoni, Bach...and nowadays
I think that people want to work very fast. They dont
want to make the effort to make a sound. It has to be
from a library or an existing piece. When I decided
to keep all my sounds, it was to build a kind of.. as
Borges said, library of Babel that makes everything
exist like a pyramid, like a memory. (
)"
In
addition to Schubert 97, the work that left the deepest
impression on me was La Dixième remix. The original
composition La Dixième consisted of fragments
of Beethovens music which were, broadly speaking,
"sampled" and reassembled. However, bearing in mind
Henrys formidable musical education can the tonal
implications of these fragments ever be ignored? If
they are not transformed beyond recognition they retain
their musical functions in embryonic form. In the accompanying
notes to the compact disc of La Dixième remix
Henry writes: "The notes of Beethoven have become concrete
sounds (
)" So, why remix la "Dixième" at
all? What were the additional processes and sounds of
this remix version and how does this relate to Henrys
other works? "It was completely deliberate. La "Dixième",
was first a study of the Beethovenian cells that I liked
then cut and classified. From this a first two-hour
version emerged where there was only Beethoven. Then
I reduced this version in a more dense and tight
one but I wanted to add electronic sounds, percussions,
rhythms to it and from this emerged analogies with la
Ville. One can hear, in Beethoven, sounds of screams,
children, and all this can also be heard in la Ville."
Thus the addition of Henrys sounds combines Beethovens
music with Henrys and aspects of contemporary
culture. For example, in Fantasie Flipper Henry combines
the rustic dance from the sixth symphonys third
movement with sounds from the Jeux and Train sections
of la Ville. "It is a Beethovenian rewriting
starting from Beethoven but in my own personal dynamic."
I suggested that this kind of music could only be composed
by someone who loved the music of Beethoven; did he,
Henry, like Beethovens music? He replied: "Enormément".
I
commented that la Dixième remix was music about
music - "metamusic" to use a common term. It seemed
to be "about" structural harmony, its subject is this
watershed of Western classical music: "Yes, but it is
a different way to proceed from Schubert. Schubert 97
is also a tribute to Schubert but to me its more
poetic. Like a poem about Schubert." Thus, in common
with many of the sounds Henry uses in other compositions,
the Beethoven "cells" retain their identity as tonal
fragments. They are as charged with these tonal qualities
as are sounds whose causal origins are recognisable
due to the physical characteristics of their sources.
The selection of tonal melodic cells and motifs cannot
be neutral. Even the simplest phrases of Beethoven will
have an intrinsic function. However, it needs an expert
ear to understand and then subvert these relationships.
From a musicological point of view the system of tonality
remains one of the high points of Western musical thought.
It is an infinitely flexible system allowing the ebb
and flow of goal-directed motion. Beethovens language
contains relationships at all structural levels. It
is precisely at the local level, where a cadence is
approached but left unresolved that Henrys work
is particularly convincing. For example, Pas Perdus
contains an elongated version of the ninth symphonys
first bars. In the original version the tremolo strings
and descending perfect fourths and fifths leave the
listener uncertain about the chord - without the major
third is it A major or minor? (In reality, of course,
we know it is a dominant preparation for D minor.) Henry
allows the texture to continue, with the addition of
the pitch C# and drum loops and the sounds of people
walking. Thus, this remix is not simply sampling the
composition la Dixième and fitting the sounds
into a preexisting framework. It is a genuine reevaluation
of an earlier work. Jan Pasler has described musical
language as "non-narrative" if the elements of a tonality
are present but there is no attempt to relate one chord
to another in a goal-directed motion. When this technique
is added to the resonances that Beethovens music
still evokes in many - perhaps most - musicians, the
result is a powerful and complex network of cultural
and musical relationships. I mentioned that I enjoyed
the way one could detect a Beethovenian sound which
is almost completely concealed by other sounds, often
electroacoustic ones, forcing the listener to scan through
the various layers of sonic activity. "Thats it,
I really love sounds which are hiding behind others.
One is in a forest, there are trees which are very near
and those which are distant, and I would say it is interesting
to make an orchestration with
a sense of distance,
therefore, its necessary there are effects like
this, of masking which reinforce the sound which is
very near. It is a work
on sonic geography."
La
Dixième remix is only one example of Pierre Henrys
constant re-evaluation of his own music and music in
general. His capacity for posing serious questions about
how we use technology to create music from all materials
is an example to us all. Henry does not repudiate the
past. He is able to reactivate dormant sounds and demonstrate
their continuing relevance. He shows it is possible
to use the electroacoustic medium and still be a classical
musician in the true sense of the word.
Discography
La dixième Symphonie Philips 462 821-2
Intérieur/Extérieur
Philips 462 132-2
La
Ville WER 6301-2
References
Chion, M. (1980) Pierre Henry Librairie Arthème
Fayard/Fondation SACEM.
Frisius,
R. (1984) Ein unvollendetes Gesamtwerk als mehrdeutige
Komposition: Journal de mes sons von Pierre Henry Melos
vol.4 Mainz: B.Schotts Söhne pp.76-103.
Programme:
Tour de Crest 28-29 Août 98.
Pasler,
J. (1989) Narrative and Narrativity in Music in Time
and Mind: Interdisciplinary Issues (ed. J.Fraser) Madison,
CT: International Universities Press pp. 233-57.
John
Dack is a researcher and writer on electroacoustic music
based at Middlesex University.
No
part of the article may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, without prior permission
of the individual authors.
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