‘Galaxie Pierre Henry’ features landmark and previously unreleased compositions by one of the 20th Century’s most influential composers. Galaxie Pierre Henry, a new 13CD box set and eAlbum featuring compositions by musique concrète pioneer and one of the 20th Century’s most influential composers Pierre Henry, is out now. The new anthology includes a selection of 33 works composed between 1958 and 2017, a third of them released for the first time. Galaxie Pierre Henry compliments the 12 CD box set Polyphonies, released in 2017, and together they present a comprehensive anthology of Pierre Henry’s work.
This is a massive testament to the one of the most innovative and influential bodies of work in 20th century music. Pierre Henry (who died in 2017 at the age of 89) was one of the pioneers of musique concrète. His work and ideas resonate through the spectrum of electronic music, from tape collage to the theme from animated series Futurama (which was based on his track Psyché Rock). This artist-compiled 12-disc box samples his output from the 1950 collaboration with Pierre Schaeffer, Symphonie Pour Un Homme Seul, to some of his final works, with nine pieces seeing their first release. Contains an 112-page booklet with extensive notes with artwork displaying Henry’s “concrete paintings”.
A really well-titled collection – given that it features the most important steps in the long musical journey of Pierre Henry – easily one of the most important electronic musicians of the 20th Century! The package offers a heck of a lot of amazing music for the price – and is very heavy on Henry's crucial 60s recordings – including both his funky analogue grooves, and his much more abstract sonic compositions! Much of this material has been issued over the years, but never in a package this complete – and the depth of the sounds here is stunning – a set that should be given as a textbook to anyone who ever thinks about making any sort of electronic music.
Pour marquer son 90e anniversaire du 9 décembre 2017, Pierre Henry avait élaboré une édition discographique nouvelle de 12 CD réunissant une sélection d’œuvres composées entre 1950 et 2016. Ce coffret intitulé “Polyphonies” comprend 29 œuvres dont 9 inédites et met en valeur son travail de compositeur, son attachement à la tradition savante, à ses maîtres et à un vrai travail d’écriture.
Pierre Henry’s Carnet de Venise in his own fashion recreates the soundscape of the City of Doges, juxtaposed with the shifting harmonies of Monteverdi madrigals. His use of source material - like the sound of splashing fountains, children’s voices, the ringing of bells, the rubbing of mooring cables, that he collected on site (from Torcello to the Old Ghetto, with stops in San Marco or Giudecca) then manipulated and edited together - demonstrates the bold poetic language of this pioneer of musique concrète. A work that remained unpublished for 17 years has its first release ever to mark the reconstruction of the composer’s recording studio, which is now housed at Paris’ Musée de la musique.
Pierre Henry, a supreme innovator in the field of sound aesthetics, opened the gates to many other musical universes through the applications of his technological research. Fascinated by Beethoven from an early age, he composed a ‘Tenth Symphony’: ‘It’s not the one Beethoven made sketches for’, he said. ‘Nor is it a synthesis of the nine. It is essentially a combinatorial work. It’s also a tribute to the man who hoped to exceed the limits of the orchestra. Perhaps a way of painting my portrait (our portrait) through this music and the influence it has had on mine. It is a dreamlike, logical and respectful trajectory through what these symphonies contain and suggest. The work deliberately uses as “raw material” only notes, groups or motifs from the nine symphonies.’
Hugo Reyne décide, en 1987, de fonder un ensemble dont la vocation est la redécouverte du patrimoine musical français des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Le nom qu´il lui choisit réunit le mot simphonie, synonyme à cette époque d´ensemble instrumental, et le Marais, l´un des plus beaux quartiers de Paris, représentatif de la période baroque.
It is a well-established fact that our approach to music is generally twofold: this is the physicists' as well as the musicians' doing. One the one hand, music is considered to be based on acoustics, or even mathematics, which ought to give it the status of a science; on the other hand , it is acknowledged that it proceeds from psychological and sociological phenomena which, over the ages, have developed into an art, itself depending on various crafts. There is no longer any contradiction between the two approaches so long as one is prepared to accept them jointly, with enough insight to respect the methods proper to each end of the "chain."