"Poetry at the core of arts" with a Dedication to Pierre Henry by Marc-Henri Arfeux & the Access Virus

Many of you will be familiar with the Access Virus compositions by Marc-Henri from previous RADIOKLOW posts. Marc-Henri bridges the gap between electronic music and other forms of art. His most recent work is a poem in tribute to Pierre Henry accompanied by the Access Virus. The tribute is hosted on La poésie au cœur des arts : le Blogart which translates to "Poetry at the core of arts". Click through and click on the Access Virus image to get to the piece.

via Marc-Henri:

"This site called 'Poetry at the core of arts' is the net the extension of a book of the same title, an anthology of poetry published by the french publisher : Editions Bruno Doucey. The book contains a poem I wrote about electronic music. The site was conceived to developp an exploration for some of the poets and artists of the book. I am one of them for, poetry , music and painting.

You will find the poem I wrote for the book, three pieces of music composed in january 2014, four poems by other authors of the anthology, three improvisations performed in early february 2014, a former composition called De Haute Vallée you have seen in the form a video in late 2012, an interview in french and some photographs taken at my flat when I was interviewed."

The following is Marc-Henri's poem translated into English:

"Orpheus veil"

Fly down into Orpheus ear,
Where roll clockworks
Of the forbidden stars
And voices shreds seeking vision.

Listen at the well of walls
Echoes of illuminated faces
In their bronze palaces.

Pavings, folds of roses,
The naked heels
Playing the freshness game
With embers
And the childhood kisses.

Travelling back to horizon,
In the limestone of nights,
Is now the prophecy of the spices,
With its tissue gifted with red
And the sobbings of an initiation.

Marc-Henri Arfeux - 2013

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Update: the following an English translation of the interview with Marc-Henri Arfeux on "Poetry at the core of arts". It is a fascinating read and reminds me of why I initially got into synths. My first synth was a brand new Oberheim Matrix-6 back in 1986. When I first started exploring the Matrix-6 I had no idea what the parameters did, so I just dived in. For me it was an exploration of sound for the sake of sound and a fascination in creating musical instruments never heard before. The focus was on that exploration rather than the attempt to mimic real world instruments. Much of this spirit is covered in the world of musique concrete and is captured in the interview below. Do not miss the part on the short wave radio. Truly fascinating and an inspiration for sonic exploration.


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"POETRY IN THE CORE OF ARTS

The page devoted to Marc-Henri Arfeux on the site Poetry in the core of arts begins with a short introduction to the tree original pieces written in connexion with other poems by other authors of the anthology of the same name published by Editions Bruno Doucey on the occasion of the Spring of Poets 2014.

At Doineau’s (poem by Michel Baglin in reference to the famous photographer)

I began this composition taking care to express the urban and popular dimension of the text, and created a music carrying vernacular elements remembering sometimes the first compositions of the “musique concrete” (concrete music) created by Pierre Schaffer.

Vincent Van Gogh’s starry night (poem by Jean-Pierre Luminet, poet and also a major French astrophysician)

For this poem I chose a very mysterious and crystal like music to suggest great clouds of stars.

Fluttering about, poem by Evelyne Trouillot

This third composition pays a tribute to the lyrical, enigmatic and sensual mood of the poem.

The page goes on with an interview of Marc-Henri Arfeux by Réjane Niogret

RN : On the occasion of the Spring of Poets, a national French festival of petry, you have composed tree pieces music in connexion with tree poems published in the anthology Poetry in the core of arts. They belong to what is called electroacoustic music. What are the origins of this genre ?

M-HA : Electroacoustic music was a revolution in the conception of composition and derives in fact of two major events. The first was the creation of concrete music in France, by the radio engineer Pierre Schaeffer in 1948. In 1951, Herbert Eimert, a German composer and thinker in the theory of music creates electronic music at the radio studio of Cologne. The link between the two genres comes from one of the most important composers of the second half of the 20th century, Karlheinz Stockhausen with his famous piece : The song of young men in the furnace, for human voice and electronics. Pierre Henry to whom I dedicated my poem will soon after become one of the great masters of t music in France.

RN : One can easily imagine the meaning of electronic music. But what does express the notion of concrete music ?

M-HA : Concrete music derives from sound reality. Pierre Schaeffer discovered it was possible, by recording such sounds to explore their specific qualities apart their origin to associate them and create musical compositions. These sounds can be natural : water, wind ; they can be produced by things or mechanic systems, as the noises of a saucepan, a lawn sprinkler, a barge, trains, ; or they can be humans, as steps, laughs, whispers ; or musical sounds from instruments treated as fragments in a composition.

RN : What is interesting in electronic music ?

M-HA : Electronic music is produced with sound generators. This offers infinite opportunities to create purely electronic sounds nobody has ever heared before, and opens new ways of exploration to music. As I told you, Karlheinz Stockhausen had the genius to associate concrete sounds to electronic sounds. This gave birth to what we call electroacoustic music.

RN : Pierre Henry also worked in the same way ?

M-HA : Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaffer had been collaborating since 1949 and allowed electronic sounds to enter in their own work. Pierre Henry also composed a purely electronic piece called The Journey in 1962, this piece being nevertheless an exception in his creation since most of the time he composes electroacoustic music. In his works, you will find electronic sounds, recorded various non electronic sounds, often transformed by various means including electronic devices, and associated with a very subtle art in his compositions. Most of the time, the substance is so complex it is difficult to be aware of their specific origin.

RN : The composer creates himself the sounds with which he will create music, the works themselves are not expressing a traditional language but consist in a new kind relationship between sounds. Is the break with past absolute ?

M-HA : The principle of this kind of creation is to produce absolutely new sound universes : they do not correspond to any form in the history of music. The writing method, the conception of the musical language is totally different. Pierre Schaeffer underlines the difference between what he calls abstract and concrete music. Abstract music is “cosa mentale”. It is written before it is played. Concrete music follows an opposite process since it begins with sound reality developed into a musical form. It is a more intuitive way of composing.

RJ : Can electroacoustic music be written ?

M-HA : The problem was raised early in its history. A long work was done around it in many institutes devoted to the composition of electronic music and many composers of the genre created their own form of musical writing. These languages are sometimes very complex to conceive since they must be appropriate with the technical and formal specificities of the compositions. This is why they need a special knowledge to be understood.

RJ : Do these languages allow to perform a composition on stage ?

M-HA : Most of the time it is not the case. Some works – I am thinking for instance about an orchestral composition with a synthesizer by the French composer Gérard Grisey – are really written to be performed by musicians. But 99% of electroacoustic music is not created to be performed by a player according to the traditional approach. The conception of a work which has such a complex substance with so many sound events is not adapted to the traditional way of playing on a stage. Thus, this kind of music is not performed but is broadcast through loudspeakers to create a sound space. This sound space is most of the time conceived during the composition process, a long time before concerts, but the composer can also introduce undetermined elements during the performances and then becomes a kind of player. Of course, with rock, ambient, techno and other genres of popular electronic music, things are different since musicians can play written or semi improvised songs on stage.

RJ : Is there any link between classical and electroacoustic music ?

M-HA ; Yes these links are real. Pierre Henry composed music pieces in which he uses as a main element a work or several works of a major composer of the past. In his first studies, Pierre Schaeffer very often used the sonata form and Stockhausen, before using the electronic devices was already a composer. Composers of electroacoustic music have the same level of requirement as the traditional composers of abstract music. Sometimes, and this is another requirement, the two conceptions melt and participate to the exploration will. Stockhausen wrote operas in which electronic instruments are equal to acoustic soloists or orchestral instruments and to human voices of singers. Each source is an element of a general substance which can be compared with an alloy of metals.

RN : Is electroacoustic music the classical music of our time ?

M-HA : I don’t think it is exactly the case since contemporary music is extremely very rich and follows numerous stylistic paths. It is hard to define its unity except the fact of participating to the music of the present. But electroacoustic music has never been separated from the adventure of acoustic musical composition. Many composers have created at least an electronic work Many other musicians compose electroacoustic and acoustic music. The many links between these worlds are so close it is difficult to say which one is the most important and has a leader position. But it is true electronic music produced a revolution in the conception an orchestra composer could use traditional instruments. There is an indirect effect of electronic music on their works. I am for instance thinking about Tristan Murail among many other musicians.

RN : You said electronic gives opportunities to create new sounds…

M-HA : What is magic with electronic music is that we reach the basic components of sound. You begin with a simple sound, un very poor wave deprived of any musical quality. By working on the sound parameters you are able to develop and enrich it, to make it expressive and able to give life to musical structures.

RN : Can these sounds be stored or are they ephemeral ?

M-HA : During the seventies there was no technical means to store sounds except recording them on a tape. Musicians who wanted to use a sound they had once created had not write notes about all their parameters. It was difficult to recreate every time the same sound because the instruments of that age were very changeable. One was not sure even using the same parameters to find again the wanted sound. Today, musicians use synthesizers with memory locations allowing to store the sounds they create and to dump them on a computer. Here is a kind of sound with a tone no acoustic known instrument could produce because it associates in its process features which belong to different families of acoustic instruments. At the beginning, it is a hit sound. It goes on in a kind of climbing and finishes in a sort of rubbing and grinding way. In general, instruments belong to well defined families : percussions, hit, rubbed or plucked strings, etc. but they can’t gather all these qualities in a single sound. This other sound I created recently is more temporary. After the attack it reaches very soon its climax and remains at this point during a long time. Here is another one, extremely short which awakes some resonance particles in the background, as if a little scintillation was creating very quickly a rain of other little scintillations.

RN : The sounds you present us seem to have their own life…

M-HA : The French electroacoustic composer Bernard Parmegiani who pat away the 21th of last November, defined precisely sound as a living being. When I create sounds or compose, I really live music as an adventure and a journey through substances. It is a whole world in which sound objects are garden, star, swamp.

RN : Is electroacoustic music the music of cosmos and nature ?

M-HA : In the history of music always appeared a will to suggest, sometimes to imitate nature. The awakening of birds, a work for singers a capella, composed by Clément Jannequin during the XV° century, mainly consists in a dialogue of voices imitating different birds as they sing in spring. We all know the imitative parts of the Four seasons by Vivaldi, and of course the way Wagner suggests natural elements in the opening of his opera The Rhine gold. We also could think about The Planets by Holst, a British composer who lives the earth tiny nest to develop a great symphonic poem on cosmos across the various planets of our solar system. This will of a relationship to the natural world has always been an element of music. Electronic music shares this attempt by its own means, which are different and may be find a more close link to the conception we have today of matter and cosmos. The new imaginary universes electronic music gives birth to can in a certain way be compared to these cosmic phenomena contemporary science reveals. And we must never forget that electronic sound allow us to explore the components of sounds, to brake and separate them in tiny elements, as scientists brake atoms, electrons and particles, to study their properties. According to me, there is a correlation between the universe of music and fundamental physics. This stimulates imagination and also creates this feeling of a similarity between natural realities and their expression by music, even if in their huge majority electronic sounds do not imitate anything, neither the music composed with them.

RN : How did you come to composition in electronic music ?

M-HA : The origin of this passion dates to my childhood. My father had a huge radio of the early sixties and liked to play with its potentiometers and explore the edges of short wave programs. He produced this way all sorts of strange noises, modulations, sparkling, horn rumbles and growls that fascinated me and that he called “Tibetan music”. Later he bought a recording of The Journey by Pierre Henry, a pure electronic music piece where I could hear all these mysterious sounds changed into a genuine composition. The discovery of other composers during my teenage years contributed to this passion, but at that time I never thought I would compose electronic music some day. Electronic instruments were too big or too expensive. Later, when I became an adult, synthesizers became more democratic and less expensive. My youth fascination came back as a desire to play synths and to compose electronic music. I took my decision and the adventure started in the infinite universe of sound creation and composition.

RN : May we say the practice of electroacoustic music is fun ?

M-HA : Yes, fun if you mean the pleasure of being surprised. When I am creating sounds, I feel like an alchemist in his laboratory. I happens unexpected qualities reveal and then it is a new adventure in the adventure ! You reach new territories and for me this idea of a constant exploration is really essential.

RN : You are musician, poet and also a painter. I chose on your site tree of your paintings to associate them with you musical creations composed for the poems At Doisneau’s, Vincent Van Gogh’s starry night and Fluttering about. What does this link suggest you ?

M-HA : I regognize in your first choice the blue translucent atmosphere of Vincent Van Gogh’s starry night. In the case of Fluttering about, the link was also obvious. When I read this poem for the first time, I was attracted by its sensuality. The choice of a very abstract painting, warm in colours and substance to create a dialogue with this poem was a very accurate idea. The most surprising choice, but I think I understand the meaning of this association, is the link between the little circles painting and At Doisneau’s. This is a very joyful poem with a kind of fizzing effect in the sounds and images, and watching again my painting, I thought about marbles or balloons, which corresponds to the spirit of the poem.

RN : composing music, painting, writing poetry: what is for you the meaning of these tree forms of creation ?

M-HA : These different forms of creations are for me tree ways to follow the same path and the same question. They are closely liked by a single necessity. Sometimes, this necessity is expressed by the means of painting, sometimes in music or writing. I happened they were in dialogue. In 2010, I published a book of poetry called Patience of horizon divided in several parts. On of them is untitled She-wolf track. Soon after the book was published I felt I needed to express by music the spirit of this part last poem and I composed From High Valley. This piece follows an ascending line until it reaches the top of the high valleys suggested by the poem.

RN : Creating an painting and composing music : is it for you the same thing ?

M-HA : There are some points in common. But the act of painting is very different. For me, the creation of a painting is associated with silence. And more, to a certain mood in which I try to experience void. At the same time you are confronted to the resistance of matter, which is not the case with music. Of course, when you create a sound, you can have difficulties to reach what you whish. But sound is nevertheless immaterial. With painting you have to fight with the concrete substance and its material density : some colours do not mix, do not flow as you would like, or flow too much. You have to wait during a certain amount of time until a tone dries and it doesn’t depend on your will. Many painters speak about the drying time and the uncertain result of this process. For me painting is a kind of strike against this heaviness I try to make fluid the better I can to achieve the painting. The purely substantial dimension of this work, before you reach what you are looking for, when you unify the colours with the brush, is in itself a pleasure. At this moment it is not a fight but a kind of joy. It gives you the feeling your are really part of the world.

RN : Is poetry such a fight ?

M-HA : No poetry is very different. I have bee writing for many years, since I was a child. Later I came to the two other forms of creation. I felt I had to face this risk. But its is true : writing and especially writing poetry is for me the core of my work. May be because when you write you just need a paper sheet and a pen. It is an absolute simplicity. Compared to the other arts, poetry offers an exceptional experience of freedom."