Pierre Henry
French · 1927–2017
Pierre Henry (1927–2017) co-founded musique concrète with Pierre Schaeffer — their Symphonie pour un homme seul (1950) is the genre's founding monument. Variations pour une porte et un soupir, composed and premiered in 1963 (the Philips LP came in 1967), is built from nothing but a creaking door, human sighs, and a flexatone; Maurice Béjart choreographed it in 1965. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen, then spent a lifetime proving tape machines were instruments.
1 physical work
