Pierre Schaeffer

Pierre Schaeffer

Born: August 14, 1910
Died: August 19, 1995
in Nancy, France
Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (14 August 1910 – 19 August 1995) was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist, acoustician and founder of Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC). His innovative work in both the sciences—particularly communications and acoustics—and the various arts of music, literature and radio presentation after the end of World War II, as well as his anti-nuclear activism and cultural criticism garnered him widespread recognition in his lifetime.

Amongst the vast range of works and projects he undertook, Schaeffer is most widely and currently recognized for his accomplishments in electronic and experimental music, at the core of which stands his role as the chief developer of a unique and early form of avant-garde music known as musique concrète. The genre emerged in Europe from the utilization of new music technology developed in the post-war era, following the advance of electroacoustic and acousmatic music.

Schaeffer's writings (which include written and radio-narrated essays, biographies, short novels, a number of musical treatises and several plays) are often oriented towards his development of the genre, as well as the theoretics and philosophy of music in general.

Today, Schaeffer is considered one of the most influential experimental, electroacoustic and subsequently electronic musicians, having been the first composer to utilize a number of contemporary recording and sampling techniques that are now used worldwide by nearly all record production companies. His collaborative endeavors are considered milestones in the histories of electronic and experimental music.

Schaeffer was born in Nancy in 1910. His parents were both musicians (his father a violinist; his mother, a singer), and at first it seemed that Pierre would also take on music as a career. However his parents discouraged his musical pursuits from childhood and had him educated in engineering. He studied at several universities in this inclination, the first of which was Lycée Saint-Sigisbert located in his hometown of Nancy. Afterwards he moved westwards in 1929 to the École Polytechnique in Paris and finally completed his education in the capital at the École supérieure d'électricité, in 1934.

Schaeffer received a diploma in radio broadcasting from the École Polytechnique. He may have also received a similar qualification from the École nationale supérieure des télécommunications, although it is not verifiable as to whether or not he ever actually attended this university. ...

Source: Article "Pierre Schaeffer" from Wikipedia in english, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Movies for Pierre Schaeffer...

La Voix
Title: La Voix
Character: Voice
Released: December 1, 2023
Type: Movie
The images of this short film are linked to the concrete music by Michel Chion, and let the monologue of Saint Antoine (Pierre Schaeffer's voice) unfold and offer itself completely. The imagery, presented in parallel pictures, is intended to be earthy and close to nature, rediscovering, when necessary, the material which is offered in a metaphor surrounded by mists. At the sound of the gunshot, concrete in the music, occurs this break in the discourse, and the image, like this gunshot, finds the Asian connotation of death. And the dream raises the human form, then a face which offers itself before disappearing in the tumults of an imaginary sea. The earth seen from the sky then the sky itself take us very far (Robert Cahen)
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The Animograph, or I Was Born in a Shoebox
Title: The Animograph, or I Was Born in a Shoebox
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: May 12, 2022
Type: Movie
The amazing story of the animograph, a machine created in France in the sixties by the cartoonist and self-taught inventor Jean Dejoux (1922-2015), whose creation was intended to revolutionize the animation industry.
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Electronic Vibrations: A Sound Changes the World
Title: Electronic Vibrations: A Sound Changes the World
Character: Self - Composer (archive footage)
Released: February 15, 2022
Type: Movie
The amazing story of electronic music: its epic journey from its origins in Europe, at the hands of the great artists of the post-war classical avant-garde, to the great post-industrial cities of the USA, where this genre of genres took over music stores, shady clubs and, eventually, the big stages.
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The Great Rehearsals: Homage to Edgard Varèse
Title: The Great Rehearsals: Homage to Edgard Varèse
Character: Self
Released: April 20, 1966
Type: Movie
Edgard Varèse died on 6 November 1965, a few days before the filming of the rehearsal of his work "Déserts" which he had to attend.
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Love at Twenty
Title: Love at Twenty
Character: Himself (segment "Antoine et Colette")
Released: June 22, 1962
Type: Movie
Love at Twenty unites five directors from five different countries to present their different perspectives on what love really is at the age of 20. The episodes are united with the score of Georges Delerue and still photos of Henri Cartier-Bresson.
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Antoine and Colette
Title: Antoine and Colette
Character: Himself
Released: June 22, 1962
Type: Movie
Now aged 17, Antoine Doinel works in a factory which makes records. At a music concert, he meets a girl his own age, Colette, and falls in love with her. Later, Antoine goes to extraordinary lengths to please his new girlfriend and her parents, but Colette still only regards him as a casual friend. First segment of “Love at Twenty” (1962).
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Title: Discorama
Character: Self
Released: February 4, 1959
Type: TV