Luc Ferrari

Luc Ferrari (5 February 1929 – 22 August 2005) was a French composer of Italian heritage and a pioneer in musique concrète and electroacoustic music.

He was a founding member of RTF's Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRMC), working alongside composers such as Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry.

Ferrari was born in Paris, and was trained in music at a very young age.

He studied the piano under Alfred Cortot, musical analysis under Olivier Messiaen, and composition under Arthur Honegger.

His first works were freely atonal.

A case of tuberculosis in his youth interrupted his career as a pianist.

From then on he mostly concentrated on musical composition.

During this illness he had the opportunity to become acquainted with the radio receiver, and with pioneers such as Schönberg, Berg, and Webern.

In 1954, Ferrari went to the United States to meet Edgard Varèse, whose Déserts he had heard on the radio, and had impressed him.

This seems to have had a great effect on him, with the tape part in Déserts serving as inspiration for Ferrari to use magnetic tape in his own music.

In 1958 he co-founded the Groupe de Recherches Musicales with Pierre Schaeffer and François-Bernard Mâche.

He taught in institutions around the world, and worked for film, theatre and radio.

1959 Luc Ferrari: "Stages of the Vision/Stages of the Production" in Expériences musicales – Concrete music – exotic Electronics Revue Musicale No. 244, Paris 1959, p. 8 – 10

By the early 1960, Ferrari had begun work on his Hétérozygote, a piece for magnetic tape which uses ambient environmental sounds to suggest a dramatic narrative.

The use of ambient recordings was to become a distinctive part of Ferrari's musical language.

1967 "Luc Ferrari" by Pierre Schaeffer in La Musique Concrète Que Sais-Je.

Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1967, p. 108 – 113

Ferrari's Presque rien No. 1 'Le Lever du jour au bord de la mer (1970) is regarded as a classic of its kind.

In it, Ferrari takes a day-long recording of environmental sounds at a Yugoslavian beach and, through editing, makes a piece that lasts just twenty-one minutes.

It has been seen as an affirmation of John Cage's idea that music is always going on all around us, and if only we were to stop to listen to it, we would realise this.

Ferrari continued to write purely instrumental music as well as his tape pieces.

He also made a number of documentary films on contemporary composers in rehearsal, including Olivier Messiaen and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

1970 "Luc Ferrari".

Interview by Denys Lémery.

In Actuel No. 12, 1970, p. 14 – 18

1971 Luc Ferrari – "Für Wen Komponieren Sie Eigentlich?"

(For whom do you actually compose?) By Hansjörg Pauli

Ed.

S. Fischer – Frankfurt 1971, p. 37 – 59

1972 "Discussion with Luc Ferrari" by François-Bernard Mâche.

In Nouvelle Revue Française No. 232, 1972

1973 "Luc Ferrari Les Danses Organiques".

Remarks collected by Daniel Caux in Art Vivant – Le Corps (The body) 2, No. 41, July 1973, p. 30 – 32

1974 Tibor Kneif: "Types of the « Entsprachlichung" » in The New Music 1

Stephan, Rudolf (ed.): "About music and language. Seven Attempts about the Newer Vocal Music"

Mainz (Schottt) 1974,

1974 Luc Ferrari.

"Interrupteur, Tautologos 3, Ensemble Instrumental de Musique Contemporaine de Paris, Konstantin Simonovitch".

Ferrari died in Arezzo, Italy on 22 August 2005, at age 76.

for piano and percussion