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Re: [microsound] pierre henry



On 03/11/00 15:07, Scott Handley said in living color:

> I know almost nothing about the man's work, but I've been looking at the "Mix
> 1.0" box set and it contains at least one composition ("Apocalypse de Jean")
> that comes highly recommended.

I don't know who/what enounced this recommendation, but it's right on
target!

IMHO, l'"Apocalypse de Jean" is not only Pierre Henry's masterpiece but also
among the greatest masterpieces of electroacoustic history (I'm using the
term "electroacoustic" in a very encompassing way here). The honors would
probably be shared with Parmegiani's "De Natura Sonorum", another totally
awesome masterpiece... which is out of print :(((( (Why, why, why...??)

I'd go as far to say that l'"Apocalypse de Jean" is in my top 10 of all the
music I've ever heard, across all genres and centuries...

If you can catch a performance of it in a "concert setting", with a good
sound system and proper spatialisation (something I've been fortunate enough
to experience), I can assure you that <cheesy mode ON> it will rest forever
engraved in your memory <cheesy mode OFF>.

Conclusion: get it! Now!

> There's also, apparently, a William Orbit remix (?!) of another composition on
> one of the CDs, but the original (?) comp. is not included.  Can anyone
> recommend this, or any other Henry recorded work for me?

This is "Fantaisie Messe pour le temps présent", which is a melting pot of
excerpts of the original piece [1967] ("Messe pour le temps présent", music
for a ballet by Maurice Béjart which could be described as "psychotronic
rock"), a remix by Henry [1991] and a remix by Orbit [1997].

I have the original "Messe pour le temps présent" on a Philips CD which also
includes "Variations pour une porte et un soupir" and excerpts of "La reine
verte" (great stuff - but unforgivably still unavailable in its entirety on
CD...) and "Le voyage" (also very nice).

I like the original piece. I find the Fantaisie does not expand
significantly on it. Of minor interest.

Other great Henry stuff I haven't mentioned include "Messe de Liverpool", a
phonetic exploration of liturgical texts and "Mouvement - rhythme - étude",
a more abstract work which could be characterized in French as an "exercice
de style" -- I don't know exactly how to translate that.


OK, I should probably stop now...

Uh, one other thing: does anybody know by any chance WHEN other boxsets will
be released?

g.

-- 
Guillaume Grenier - gollum@xxxxxxxxxxxx

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