Pierre Henry on DeBaser: musique concrète, radical tapes, and a few sacred grooves

Pierre Henry

Musician

Forfans of electronic and experimental music, curious listeners, and crate-digging historians.
3 Reviews 0 Definitions 1 Charts

The Profile

Pierre Henry (1927–2017) was a French composer and a pioneer of musique concrète. Working with Pierre Schaeffer at French radio’s studios and later on his own, he expanded tape-based composition into concert works, stage pieces, and collaborations, notably with Michel Colombier on Messe pour le temps présent and with Schaeffer on Symphonie pour un homme seul.

Pioneer of musique concrète; French composer; collaborated with Pierre Schaeffer and Michel Colombier; recognized for Symphonie pour un homme seul, Variations pour une porte et un soupir, and Messe pour le temps présent (which includes “Psyché Rock”).

The reviews frame Pierre Henry as a key pioneer of musique concrète and a bridge to modern electronic music. Core works discussed include Symphonie pour un homme seul (with Schaeffer), Messe pour le temps présent (with Colombier) and Le Voyage. Themes cover the birth of sampling, the 1960s avant-garde, and Henry’s role in making electronic sound both experimental and danceable.

Notable Quotes

❝ The precocious genius of Pierre Henry, after the first concrete experiments, would have built the first bridge between avant-garde experimentation and modern electronics.

❝ Once upon a time, there was musique concrète, and it was made in Paris at the Studio d'Essai of the RTF, the French broadcasting corporation.

❝ In 1967, Philips produced the Prospective 21st-century series, recordings of concrete and electronic music by musicians including Ivo Malec, Luc Ferrari, Pierre Henry, and many others.