The great French composer of musique concrète Bernard Parmegiani has just died at the age of 86. To many of us his work has been a central inspiration for decades. I remember hearing De natura sonorum on BBC Radio 3 when it was new, recording it on a cassette and listening to it many times until the LP and then the CD appeared, over which time it gained stature as one of the essential compositions of the late 20th century. Practitioners of electronic music may disagree about many things but we all agree about Parmegiani, and if you don't know why that is, or if his name is new to you, please be so kind as to click on the link below. I met him only once, in 1989, and found him charming and encouraging. He left behind a body of work of an expressive intensity and imaginative precision which remains almost unique in his chosen medium.
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First encountered his music through Ponomatopees II and Generique on the Philips Electronic Panorama boxed LP set, which opened many of us to so much more than the Stockhausen I'd heard, at any rate. If Radio 3 ever gets around to a series outlining the growth and development (and more!) of electronic music, Parmegiani will feature large in it, along with Luc Ferrari, Guy Reibel and Francois Bayle and their associates at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales back in the 50s.
In many ways advances in technology mean that the music has become less difficult to create, but somehow one wonders if anything can replace what they achieved, back in the early days. Or is such a view, I've often heard expressed, just puritanical?
R.I.P., Bernard.
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Well, yes.Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
It's easier to make superficial and uninteresting electronic music than it used to be, but there's plenty of excellent recent work too. Interestingly, Parmegiani managed to make the transition from analogue to digital technology without any lessening of output or in the quality thereof, or any interruption in his artistic evolution, and not many of his contemporaries managed that - Xenakis certainly, Bayle perhaps, Stockhausen probably not...
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Oh dear, this is such sad, sad news.
I had recently taken a conscious decision to listen to more of his and Pierre Schaeffer's music and also posted a music link only four days ago on the 'Rest Is Noise' thread.
Coincidently I was listening to 'La Création du monde' just this lunctime.
A true music pioneer has left us.
RIP Bernard Parmegiani
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Only the De natura sonorum disc has graced my CD shelves, but I too recall those BBC Radio 3 broadcasts (I think on Music In Our Time as part of a cutting-edge electronica mini-series curated by Denis Smalley around 1982).
It's gratifying that important pioneering composers like this live to an old age, enabling them to continue composing into their twilight years, in BP's case right up until 2008 I think.Comment
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Very sad news
a real inspiration to many
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