Cinq études de bruits

Cinq études de bruits (Five Studies of Noises) is a series of five musical compositions by Pierre Schaeffer. The five études were composed in 1948 and are the earliest pieces of musique concrète, a form of electroacoustic music first theorized by Schaeffer that utilizes recorded sounds as the primary compositional resource.

The five études were composed at the studio Schaeffer established at RTF (now ORTF), the Studio d'Essai in Paris. They are:[1]

  1. Étude aux chemins de fer - trains[2][3]
  2. Étude aux tourniquets - toy tops and percussion instruments[4]
  3. Étude violette - piano sounds recorded for Schaeffer by Pierre Boulez
  4. Étude noire - piano sounds recorded for Schaeffer by Boulez
  5. Étude pathétique - sauce pans, canal boats, singing, speech, harmonica, piano

The works were premiered via a broadcast on 5 October 1948, titled Concert de bruits.[5][6]

In 2011, The New York Times included Étude aux chemins de fer in its history of the mashup, describing it as "[t]he first piece of musique concrète, composed from recordings of trains."[7] Stony Brook University music professor Margaret Schedel, who writes that Schaeffer is widely regarded as the first composer to "create music with pre-recorded media", describes Étude aux chemins de fer as a sound collage with "a prominent place in most histories of electronic and computer music".[8]

References

  1. ^ Gagné, Nicole V. (17 July 2019). Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music. ISBN 9781538122983.
  2. ^ Paddison, Max; Deliège, Irène (2010). Contemporary Music: Theoretical and Philosophical Perspectives. ISBN 9780754604976.
  3. ^ Jong, Alex de; Schuilenburg, Marc (2006). Mediapolis: Popular Culture and the City. ISBN 9789064506284.
  4. ^ Schrader, Barry (February 1982). Introduction to electro-acoustic music. ISBN 9780134815152.
  5. ^ Collins, Nick; Collins, Nicholas; Schedel, Margaret; Wilson, Scott (9 May 2013). Electronic Music. ISBN 9781107010932.
  6. ^ Tournet-Lammer, Jocelyne (2006). Sur les traces de Pierre Schaeffer: Archives 1942-1995. ISBN 9782110061935.
  7. ^ "The Recombinant DNA of the Mash-Up". The New York Times. 6 January 2011. Archived from the original on 23 January 2022. Retrieved 1 September 2022.
  8. ^ Schedel, Margaret (2017). "Electronic Music and the Studio". In d' Escrivan Rincón, Julio; Collins, Nicholas (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Electronic Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 26. ISBN 9781107133556. Retrieved 1 September 2022.