Pierre Henry facts for kids

Henry at his home (January 2008)

Pierre Georges Albert François Henry (born December 9, 1927 – died July 5, 2017) was a famous French composer. He was a true pioneer of a special kind of music called musique concrète. This type of music uses recorded sounds from everyday life and changes them to create new musical pieces.

About Pierre Henry

Early Life and Musical Start

Pierre Henry was born in Paris, France. When he was just 15 years old, he started playing around with sounds. He used noises made by different objects. He loved the idea of using everyday sounds in music. This is now sometimes called noise music. He studied music at the Conservatoire de Paris from 1938 to 1948. His teachers included famous musicians like Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen.

Pioneering Musique Concrète

From 1949 to 1958, Henry worked at the Club d'Essai studio. This studio was part of the French radio station RTF. It was started by Pierre Schaeffer in 1943. During this time, Henry worked with Schaeffer on a piece called Symphonie pour un homme seul in 1950. This was a very important early example of musique concrète.

Pierre Henry also created the first musique concrète track for a movie. This was for the 1952 short film Astrologie ou le miroir de la vie. He also wrote music for many other films and ballets. Two years after leaving RTF, he started his own private electronic music studio in France. It was called Studio Apsone-Cabasse.

Collaborations and Later Works

One of Henry's well-known works is the 1967 ballet Messe pour le temps présent. He worked on this with composer Michel Colombier and choreographer Maurice Béjart. It was first performed in Avignon. In 1970, Henry also worked with the British rock band Spooky Tooth. They created an album together called Ceremony.

In 1997, a special album called Métamorphose: Messe pour le temps présent was released. It featured remixes of Henry's music by popular electronic artists. These included Fatboy Slim, Coldcut, and Saint Germain. The theme song for the cartoon show Futurama was also inspired by Henry's Psyché Rock. This piece was created by Henry and Michel Colombier in 1967. It used sounds from bells, flutes, brass, and a rock band, mixed with electronic music.

Pierre Henry passed away in 2017 at the age of 89.

His Music Works

Here are some of the musical works by Pierre Henry:

• 1950 Symphonie pour un homme seul (with Pierre Schaeffer)
• 1951 Le microphone bien temperé
• 1952 First film music with musique concrète for Jean Grémillon's film Astrologie
• 1953 Orphée 53, an experimental opera for the Donaueschingen Festival (with Pierre Schaeffer)
• 1955 Arcane (ballet)
• 1956 Haut voltage (ballet)
• 1958 Coexistence
• 1959 Investigations
• 1961 La Noire à Soixante
• 1963 La Reine Verte (ballet)
• 1967 Le Voyage (ballet)
• 1967 Variations pour une porte et un soupir (Variations For a Door And a Sigh)
• 1967 Messe pour le temps présent (with Michel Colombier)
• 1968 L’Apocalypse de Jean (The Apocalypse of John) with spoken text
• 1968 Le Voyage (D'Après Le Livre Des Morts Tibétain)
• 1969 Ceremony (with Spooky Tooth)
• 1971 Nijinsky, clown de dieu (ballet)
• 1973 Machine Danse
• 1973 Kyldex I (cybernetic ballet)
• 1975 Futuriste, in memory of the Italian Futurists Luigi Russolo
• 1978 Dieu
• 1979 La Dixième Symphonie, a tribute to Ludwig van Beethoven
• 1986 La Dixième Symphonie De Beethoven
• 1990 Le livre des morts égyptien (Book of the Dead)
• 1997 Interieur/Exterrieur
• 2015 Choix d'oeuvres de 1950–1985 (Selections of works 1950–1985 on VOD Records Cat VOD133 Edition of 400 on 10xVinyl records)
• 2021 Galaxie Pierre Henry

See also

In Spanish: Pierre Henry para niños