Pierre Henry: Polyphonies disc 3

 Pliens jeux (2008) in four movements: Croissance, Expérience, Pressentiment, Plénitude

Kyldex (1973) in five movements: Ouverture/sirène, Danse électromatic, Erotica II, Crescendo, Continuum

The run time on this disc is 73:20. The editors are both clearly trying to present Henry's work in reverse chronological order, but also fit the maximum amount onto each disc. Like disc 2, the works jump around by a few decades. 

Listening to Liens jeux (Game links?), I'm reminded how important the piano is in Henry's musical world. It is rarely played in a traditional manner, or at least that's what I've heard so far. I'm going to have to study more of these recordings to conclusively state both of those things.

At least, I think it's the piano. It could be a number of other string and percussive sound sources, but I think I'm right. Maybe I'm being lazy by not relying on the notes provided; maybe I don't want to know anything about a particular work when it comes up on the disc. As they say a little of column A, a little of column B. 

Croissance (Growth) is at times a dense assemblage of percussive and string sounds. There's not so much the sort of audio manipulation going on here that one might associate with musique concrète (which I will henceforth on this blog refer to as MC), though there is filtering, panning, blending and balancing. This movement is built more through the layering of tracks, of which there are probably many here. 

Expèrience is noticeably less dense, with recognizable bell sounds mixed with the possibly altered piano sounds. The works in general, with the exception (so far) of Gymkhana from disc 2, have an improvisational feel to them.

Once again, not relying on the notes (which I will read some time in the future), I'm envisioning this: there's Pierre Henry, alone or with an assistant in his home studio. He has an idea for a piece, or a set of pieces. There's his long-suffering piano, which has been scratched, strummed, hit, pounded, and prepared many times over the years. He's surrounded by various bells, percussion, beaters, mallets, glasses, string bows, iron rods. Pierre starts to record, with a general sense of what he wants to capture, without worrying too much about the individual events. He's capturing a texture. And then layers in more, and more still. Some things are manipulated through processing and editing, some things brought forward, other ideas left behind as the piece develops. Improvisational in source, compositional in development. 

There's a good chance that I'm completely wrong about all of that. 

Real time comment as I listen to the final two movements. I'm seriously sleep deprived as I listen to them. Once or twice I found myself drifting off, not because I find the pieces boring but because they're hypnotic in a way. There are some short repeated figures that peak in and out, but mostly they're two pieces of escalating and de-escalating densities with little in the way of traditional musical content.

The Ouverture to Kyldex starts up, and we're in a different category. Electronically generated sounds!

I shouldn't be that surprised. I think it was Pierre Schaeffer, who coined the very term MC, who tended to be more the purist on these matters. All sounds captured by microphone, manipulated through recording technologies. Henry was perhaps less dogmatic in these matters.

It is a little startling to hear this work pop up in this collection however, when everything has been so clearly acoustically-based sound sources. 

The electronics are not "pleasant" in the traditional sense; I'd even go so far as to say, maybe intentionally annoying. I find the history of such things interesting, in that he's working with. sound palette similar to maybe some of the Buchla noisemakers of the later 70s, but creating it earlier on.

I found this listing when searching for the title online: http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/kyldex/

I noted the name of Nicolas Schöffer. I have an LP of Schöffer's electronic music, and I remember not liking it. Could he be the reason the work took this direction? He's not co-credited on the disc.

Also: https://vimeo.com/467484882

Erotica II brings in a female voice (or voices), further removing it from the piano-based works on this collection so far. The second half of this movement clearly brings some pre-composed elements into the mix, similar to Gymkhana. 

Crescendo is just that, a crescendo MC-style, and Continuum is purely pointillist sounds. 

Pierre Henry: Polyphonies disc 2

 Études transcendantes pour piano imaginaire (six movements) 2015; Grande Toccata 2006; Gymkhana 1970

If I had any reservation about the Chroniques terriennes of disc one, that goes away with the  Études transcendantes pour piano imaginaire (2015). Transcendental Etudes for Imaginary Piano.  

The title of "transcendental etudes" dates back to Liszt. It was later taken up by Sorabji and Ferneyhough. I have a CD of the so-called transcendental etudes, switching between Liszt and Ligeti.

The title immediately clicks for me, when listening to the work. It's mostly piano sounds of some sort, in some ways harking back to the "Bidule en ut" of 1950. The sounds originate from the piano (prepared and not played traditionally), are layered, and mixed with other extraneous sounds occasionally.

Since the piano is imaginary here, and the etudes transcendental, I am picturing this as being Henry's own imaginary piano. His piano would able to play all the things readily at the keyboard. The preparations, knocking, resonances, combinations of sounds, and so forth. I'm picturing the eight-armed being surrounded by 1,000 keys and a variety of gadgets and whatnots, that be required to perform these etudes.

The final movement gets weirdly funky. 

I will mentioned that there are notes, but at the moment I'm not particularly interested. 

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Grande Toccata: A toccata, traditionally speaking, is a freely composed work intended to demonstrate virtuosic ability on the part of a keyboardist. This definition is in stark contrast to the sound of this work, which is neither keyboard-based, nor does it have a virtuosic quality (except for perhaps the beautiful production).

It demonstrate's Henry's love of the recorded sound, and the various things you can do with it. There's an atmosphere here: breathing sounds, tapped metal bowls, slamming doors, elevators, digitally manipulated piano sounds. There's some synthesized sounds in the mix, perhaps. It's difficult to tell. It could be natural sounds digitally drawn out over time. 

I could easily draw a comparison to Nurse With Wound on this particular work, though perhaps less emphasis on the voice than NWW tends to be. The problem is, that's like comparing the work of the teacher to the student, and not the other way around.

So what is the commonality? Maybe there's more of a narrative character to this work than the previous one, something I associate with NWW. Musique concréte can take on a storytelling quality, even if that quality is obscured. Our brain naturally makes connections between what we see and hear in the moment, and our previous experiences. If we recognize something, we associate it with memory. If we don't, our brain tries to.

Something's happening here. It's dark, builds, it's sometimes in an elevator. I try to resist such things, but I can't help believe there's a horror movie vibe to the work in the latter third. What's happening?

And it has a degree of drama. It's intense towards the end. It's not meant to be math sound without effect. There's also a tiny little coda at the end.

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Gymkhana (1970, remixed 2016). My daughter, when quite young, went to the Gymkhana above the East End Food Co-op. I never gave much thought to the name, besides having the word "gym" in it. 

I looked up: it's a location where various gymnastics and other sporting events are held. Okay. 

This work is markedly different that the previous ones. The sounds are very clearly based on acoustical recordings, and there is a large degree of scoring going on. It begins with slow, irregular percussive sounds. They're filtered but definitely not synthesized. It feels and sounds more Asian than anything in this set (so far). 

Then the instruments enter. Definitely piccolo, flute(s), oboe, bassoon high register (?). Maybe others, some horn perhaps? 

Again, without referring to the notes, I get a very strong gagaku flavor from this. What is gagaku? It's the oldest extant orchestral music in the world, Japanese imperial court music. It's always slow. There are mouth organs (sho) playing cluster chords, percussion, some sort of transverse flute, biwa, nasty double reeds. I forget all the names of the instruments. It's weirdly both dreamy and strident. 

But there's a twist in the work 3/4 of the way through, when brass instruments are introduced. They are similarly irregular as the woodwinds before, with the piccolo being the last to interact with them. 

All the while, there are the percussive sounds, clearly manipulated through recording and processing techniques.

Pierre Henry: Polyphonies disc one

 I was deep in conversation with my friend Adam MacGregor Wednesday night. Bombici (with me) was on a bill with Microwaves (with him) at Brillobox prior to them playing some dates on the east coast. The talk between us comes fast and varied. We share various interests, musical and otherwise. I mentioned this blog, and how I'd written blog posts about the 32-CD Messiaen set I bought at the front end of the lockdown. Also, the Morricone vinyl postings I made after Ennio's death. When I told him I had bought a 12-CD collection of Pierre Henry's music, he suggested I blog about it. Yes, well, why not? 

I like it in part because of the discipline. Find a collection of recordings, listen to it all, and regularly comment on them. I've stated before this is not a serious musicological dig, just the impressions of one musician as he digs into a library. 

So, I found a 12-CD collection of Henry's music at Half Price Books. About $30 for the set. Not bad. Do you know Pierre Henry's name? He's probably eclipsed by that of his associate Pierre Schaeffer. Schaeffer coined the term, musique concrète (MC). MC has come to be known as, technology-based composition in which the sound are drawn from the real world. What I've read is that it referred to the music existing in a corporeal form, as in a disc or tape that one could hold in one's hand. Whether this is true or not, nonetheless, Schaeffer's music was based on the manipulation of natural recorded sounds.

Schaeffer was making his first works in 1948. Soon thereafter he was joined by Pierre Henry, and more traditionally trained composer/musician. There are various works credited to the two of them. It was Pierre Henry who had the much longer, more varied career and body of work though.

The box is presented in reverse-chronological order. Start with the most recent and work backwards. All of disc one is taken up by Chroniques Terriennes, or Earth Chronicles according to Google translations. The first release of this work. It's twelve "moments" of varying lengths. On the surface, there are natural sounds, instrumental sounds (prepared or at least muted piano), and some small degree of processing. 

What are his intentions with this work, I ask myself as I listen to it. I would ask that of a student if that person was to submit this to me. (Though not to worry, nobody's submitted anything at this level.) He wrote a description, but I won't rewrite it. He considers the word chronicles in a more journalistic sense. The work has some strongly improvisational elements, as he attempts to find connections between environmental sounds and his piano. 

There are recurring sounds, such as cicadas, mixed with his piano. The piece overall has an atmosphere. Things come and go, occur and reoccur, slide in and out of our perceptions. 

I don't think I consider this to be among Henry's most essential works. But, it's Pierre Henry. He achieved so much, that when he created something, you pay attention just because it's him. This is not to say you can't be critical, but you have to trust the voice of experience.