Week 5 Forum - Pierre Henry Documentary

This documentary and subsequent listening session was my first experience of the work (and personality) of pioneering music concréte composer Pierre Henry.

I enjoyed some of Henry's music from a general listening perspective, however I was more attracted to the philosophy of most of the pieces. I thought his use of speakers in different places and faced in different directions for the performance of his work was very interesting and seems novel even today when one would expect such a simple idea to have been more widely used. "The sound of your footsteps is beautiful" Henry hurriedly explains to a jogging man. I guess this sums up his belief in the music of sounds not made by traditional musical instruments, which was obviously very radical in the 1950s when he first became known. This was evidenced by the comments from the audience of one of his early concerts which were sometimes confused or negative.

Henry's speaker-filled house was also very cool as was his use of electronic beats in a concert outside the pompidou centre which are characteristic of a musical genre that only came into being around 40 years after Henry's early music concrete. He is must be very open-minded to use such modern sounds.

Reference: Stephen Whittington. "Week 5 Music Technology Forum - Pierre Henry." Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 3 April 2008