Search - Pierre Henry :: Variations for a Door & A Sigh

Ingenious music concrete from mid sixties

Mr. M. J. Berridge | South Africa | 02/26/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The "Variations for a door" is a set of 25 variations describing various moods and emotions using mainly only the effect of a door creaking. The sounds are all manipulated using magnetic tape editting and speed manipulations. There were NO computers in the mid sixties, and so these works would have taken a great deal of labour. The work is a brilliant piece of sound engineering, but you will have to be a "music concrete" boffin to be able to appreciate it.

The "Orpheus" poem is made in the same way, with NO computers or electronic generators, but the sound sources are far more varied - manipulated voices, orchestral loops slowed down, piano strings brushed, multiplications, and various devices impossible to identify. It's wiered and moody - some of the finest "tape music" ever made under the heading of "music concrete".

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