Socit Franaise de Musicologie

A History of "Timbres-dures": Understanding Olivier Messiaen's role in Pierre Schaeffer's

studio
Author(s): Christopher MURRAY
Source: Revue de Musicologie, T. 96, No. 1 (2010), pp. 117-129
Published by: Socit Franaise de Musicologie
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Christopher MURRA Y

A History of Timbres-dures
Understanding Olivier Messiaen's role
in Pierre Schaeffer's studio 1

Even to those familiar with the music of Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992),

it often comes as a surprise to learn that the composer dabbled in the
budding domain of musique concrte at the beginning of 1952, at a
moment when his music was poised on the cusp of a stylistic shift from
abstract, serial structures to birdsong transcriptions 2. Despite a recent
burst in scholarly activity focused on Messiaen, little has been said of his
musique concrte project Timbres-dures , though in 1952 alone, the work
was heard and commented upon by a constellation of mid-century musi-
cal luminaries on both sides of the Atlantic, from Henry Cowell to Igor

1 . The present study has grown out research begun in 2005 with a grant from the
Florence Gould Foundation. This initial project resulted in a Master's thesis at the
Universit Lyon 2, directed by Anne Penesco, Les Timbres-dures d'Olivier Mes-
siaen et la relation du compositeur avec la musique concrte (defended 20 September
2006), as well as a pair of complementary analytical conference presentations in
June of 2008, informed by the February 2008 consultation of Messiaen and
Henry's manuscripts of Timbres-dures : The Timbres of Timbres-dures ,
between note and objet musical for the 5th Electroacoustic Music Studies
Network Conference at the Sorbonne, published online at www.ems-
network.org/ems08/papers/murray.pdf and Rhythm and Symmetry in Olivier
Messiaen's Timbres-dures for the Messiaen 2008 International Centenary
Conference at the University of Birmingham, England. A synthesis and expansion
of these analyses figures in my forthcoming doctoral dissertation, Le dveloppe-
ment du langage musical d'Olivier Messiaen : Tradition, Emprunts, Expriences ,
(Universit Lyon 2), as well as in the chapter Olivier Messiaen's Timbres-
dures in Olivier Messiaen, Sources and Influences , eds. Christopher Dingle and
Robert Fallon (Aldershot : Ashgate, forthcoming). My sincere thanks to Pierre
Henry for opening his private archives as well as to Anne-Sylvie Barthel-Calvet
and Rachel Marie Mundy for their careful readings and reccommendations.
2. For a general description of this period see Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone,
Olivier Messiaen (New Haven : Yale, 2005), p 197-205. For previously published
discussions of Timbres-dures see Michel Chion, Pierre Henry (Paris : Fayard,
2003), p. 44-45, and Jean Boivin, La Classe de Messiaen (Paris : Bourgois, 1995),
p. 115-119.

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 118 Revue de Musicologie , 9611 ( 2010 )

Stravinsky. Though Timbres-dures may not be Messiaen

ful work using serial techniques, it is the last in a series of
mental compositions by the composer and is worth furthe
for its unusual medium, but also for its use of symmetric
of four individually evolving personnages rythmiques. Thi
porates a variety of previously uncommented primary s
early 1950s that afford a greater understanding of Messiae
Pierre Schaeffer's musique concrte studio, including in
Pierre Henry's personal archives, Pierre Boulez's archiv
Stiftung, Pierre Schaeffer's archives at the Institut mmoi
contemporaine (IMEC), the archives of Antoine Gola
Suprieur de musique et pdagogie in Namur (IMEP), and
the Internationale Musikinstitut at Darmstadt (IMD). T
these materials construct a detailed account of Timbres
and creation for the first time in musicological scholarship

Messiaen's and Schaeffer's studio before 1952

Few realize that beginning in 1950, Messiaen periodically lent his

renown to Pierre Schaeffer's Studio du club d'essai by participating in a
number of radio broadcasts of round tables, interviews, and critiques
dedicated to musique concrte 4. Though it is not clear whether Messiaen
was present at the 18 March 1950 premire of Symphonie pour un homme
seul in the Salle de l'cole Normale de Musique, he was familiar with the
music on the program. It even seems plausible that he was aware of Pierre
Schaeffer's experiments from their beginnings in 1948, given Messiaen

3. Pierre Henry's personal archives, consulted in February 2008, are of parti-

cular interest, allowing the verification of analyses based on Timbres-dures '
recording. They include copies of three different manuscript scores of Timbres-
dures (the six page manuscript score by Messiaen in traditional notation, Henry's
initial 12-page non-spatialized version, and his second 24-page spatialized ver-
sion), as well as Henry's working documents (including an 11 -page manuscript
sketch of his spatialization, Schma spatial , and a 4-page typescript describing
the manipulations of Timbres-dures ' sounds, Rpertoire et analyse de sons ).
A copy of the Rpertoire et analyse de sons is also preserved in the archives of
Antoine Gola.
4. Including a roundtable debate from 1950, Messiaen's critique of Henry's
Musique sans titre , September 21 1951, a 1951 episode of Le microphone bien
tempr , and an interview with Antoine Gola from 1952 addressing Timbres-
dures failings, all conserved in INA's archives and consulted in 2005, apart from
the episode of Le microphone bien tempr which proved unfindable. The round-
table with Schaeffer, Serge Moreux, and Roland-Manuel bears no date but refe-
rences works from the 18 March 1950 concert of musique concrte , making it the
first documented instance of Messiaen's contact with musique concrte. Robert
Richard cites this debate and Messiaen's interest in musique concrte in Le Com-
bat , 19 July 1950 and is in turn cited in Pierre Schaeffer, la recherche d'une
musique concrte (Paris : Seuil, 1952), p. 72.

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Christopher Murray : A History of Timbres-dures 1 19

and Schaeffer's longtime acquaintance 5. It also bears noting that Pierre

Henry, Schaeffer's primary collaborator from 1949 onwards, was a long-
time student in Messiaen's harmony class at the Conservatoire 6. Mes-
siaen also heard and commented upon Schaeffer and Henry's music of the
groundbreaking 6 July 1951 concert of new tape-based musique concrte
and spatialization technology at the Thtre de l'Empire (where another
former Messiaen student, Maurice Le Roux, conducted the spatiali-
zation) 7 .
As word of Schaeffer and Henry's innovations spread during 1950 and
1951, an increasing number of potential collaborators came knocking at
the studio's door leading Schaeffer to formalize and regulate the way in
which the interested parties were integrated into the studio's workforce 8.
The first official batch of six stagiaires (interns) entering the studio's ranks
in October 1951 included three Messiaen students : Pierre Boulez, Yvette
Grimaud and Jean Barraqu 9. Messiaen's name and ideas are also pre-
sent in the documents from this training period of autumn 1951 : in a
meeting with the stagiaires on November 6, one of the subjects addressed
(upon whose suggestion is not noted) was an Essai en rythmes non
rtrogradables. The stagiaires were also expected to create new episodes
of a radio program on musique concrte called Le Microphone bien tem-
pr, , in which Messiaen was noted as a potential guest 10.
Towards the end of the autumn 1951 training period, Schaeffer com-
posed an extensive list of projects involving the stagiaires for the following
year. The contents of this list reveal that Schaeffer had very specific
projects in mind for his future high-profile collaborators. This document
also shows that there was never a question of Messiaen manipulating the
studio's technology himself :

5. In March and April 1941, Messiaen worked for Schaeffer's Association

Jeune France following his return from the prisoner of war camp, Stalag VIIIA.
See P. Hill and N. Simeone, op. cit., p. 104-109.
6. J. Boivin, op. cit., p. 115-119.
7. P. Schaeffer, op. cit., p. 111.
8. Ibid., p. 94, 104, 108-109.
9. Pierre Boulez archives, Sacher Stiftung, MF 25, p. 1927. Studies touching
upon this period in the studio's history often confuse the status of these stagiaires
with that of older established figures such as Messiaen and Milhaud, invited for
their prestige and from whom Schaeffer did not require training periods to assure
their familiarity with the lab and its equipment. Pierre Boulez's archives at the
Sacher Stiftung conserve the paperwork from his Stage de musique concrte with
Schaeffer, including a document laying out the differences between membres
participants like Boulez, expected to complete the stage and render services to
the studio for two years, membres associs personalities with an artistic or
technological background that would be able to collaborate occasionally with the
group in applied or pure musique concrte research, and membres correspon-
dants wishing merely to be kept informed of the studio's activities and advances.
Boulez was thus serving his time to become a membre participant while
Messiaen's status afforded him the freedoms of the more casual title membre
associ. Sacher Stiftung, MF 25, p. 1600-1603.
10. Ibid., p. 1901-1906, 1610-1624.

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 120 Revue de Musicologie , 9611 (2010)

Il serait intressant de montrer comment on peut tirer un

chorgraphique de la matire menu du bruit du danseur
proposes : l'une de fantaisie, partir des castagnettes, l'au
sante, partir du pas et du glissement du danseur. Ce
galement donner lieu une projection en relief. Des com
porains, choisis parmi ceux qui ont dj manifest de l'int
concrte (en principe) pourraient tre convis raliser et
par les stagiaires, de ces courts morceaux : M. Delannoy, M
Constant, par exemple. 1 1

Elsewhere on the list of proposed projects for 1952

project intended to be taken on by a membre associ t
closer to the project finally realized by Messiaen an
months later :

Etude No. 3 Cellule rythmique? Partant d'une source co

rythmiques (objet direct en disque en type chemin de fer) op
mations sur ces cellules jusqu' obtenir des varits qu'on p
en succession, soit en superposition. Eventuellement con
cellules, spatiale ou non. 12

This tude partially describes the project of Timbres

juxtaposed rhythmic cells and their systematic and su
tions and transformations.
But Schaeffer was not alone in projecting his hopes for the development
of musique concrte. Messiaen too would hint at his ideas for future
developments in musique concrte in a radio broadcast from September
1951 mentioned earlier :

Pour terminer, j'exprime un souhait, et le voici : Pierre Schaeffer me disait un

jour qu'il dsirait employer une gamme dont chaque note serait un magma
d'une matire diffrente. Premire note : instrument musical, deuxime note :
un bruit, troisime note : une syllabe de voix parle. C'est vers cette absence de
continuit, cette disparit ordonne, que doivent tendre, mon sens, tous les
auteurs de la musique concrte. 13

That same year (1951), Messiaen was composing his Livre d'orgue. His
later description of its operations also perfectly describes his future
treatment of the personnage A in Timbres-dures : Dans une trange
confusion, les personnages rythmiques se sont dmantels, dmembrs,
pour devenir un monstre protiforme qui recolle au bras de celui-ci la

11. Ibid., p. 1625. Schaeffer would later lament Messiaen's distance in the
compositional process : Messiaen, rest malheureusement un peu loin du
ralisateur, laissait se produire cet tonnant Timbres-dures qui demeurera
sans doute la fois le plus grand succs et le plus grand chec de cette priode.
Pierre Schaeffer, Vers une musique exprimentale. La revue musicale , 236 (1957),
p. 20.
12. Sacher Stiftung, MF 25, p. 1625.
13. Messiaen's radio critique of Pierre Henry's Musique sans titre , from
September 1951, INA, op. cit.

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Christopher Murray : A History of Timbres-dures 121

main de celui-l, au parfum de celle-ci la couleur de celle-l 14. In both

works, Messiaen imagines his personnage rythmique as a surreal body,
dismembered and reassembled to create a musical chimera, producing
cette absence de continuit, cette disparit ordonne wished for by the
composer in future compositions of musique concrte.
Given Messiaen's previous participation in radio broadcast projects
and the interest shown by the composer in musique concrte , it seems likely
that Schaeffer invited Messiaen to participate in the next step of the
studio's projects : the preparation of musique concrte demonstration
concerts for Nicolas Nabokov's gargantuan propagandist festival of art
and music, L'uvre du XXe sicle 15. Many sources suggest that Messiaen
was specifically interested by the rhythmic accuracy afforded by the tape
technology introduced to the studio in the spring of 1 95 1 , but my previous
studies have revealed that Messiaen also hoped the recorded sounds of
musique concrete would be more self-effacing than the timbres of tradi-
tional instruments and would bring his rhythmic experiments to the
foreground of the listening experience 16.

The genesis of Timbres-dures

Ultimately, Messiaen chose not to work with the new stagiaires from
the autumn of 1951 as Schaeffer intended, preferring the assistance of the
more experienced Pierre Henry. According to Henry's agendas, Messiaen
arrived in Schaeffer's studio at 37, rue de l'Universit to begin composing

14. Olivier Messiaen, Trait de rythme, de couleur et d'ornithologie , tome III

(Paris : Leduc, 1996), p. 179.
15. To better understand the geopolitical motivations of this CIA-iunded
festival, dubbed le festival de NATO by Serge Lifar, see Michle Alten, Musi-
ciens franais dans la guerre froide, 1945-1956 (Paris : L'Harmattan, 2001) and
Francis Saunders, Who Paid the Piper, the CIA and the Cultural Cold War ,
(London : Granta, 1999).
16. Chr. Murray, art. cit., p. 1. See also M. Chion, op. cit., p. 44-45, and Jean
Barraqu, Qu'est-ce que la Musique concrte , Guide du concert , 1952, n 18,
p. 417, reprinted in Jean Barraqu, crits , ed. Laurent Feneyrou (Paris : Sor-
bonne, 2001), p. 33-35, as well as a letter from Stockhausen to Goeyvaerts dated 18
April 1952, described in Richard Toop, Stockhausen and the Sine-Wave : The
Story of an Ambiguous Relationship, The Musical Quarterly , 65 (1979),
p. 382-383 : Messiaen told me about his work: there are rhythmic "characters"
[ personnages rythmiques] which he has continually permutated in one voice using
twenty sound elements. I asked whether this path had really proved necessary for
him, since the rhythmic problems he had were still best realized with tra-
ditional means of performance. He said that his view, that it was impossible to
develop harmony any further, had led him to this initially monodie tape-cutting
composition, where the harmonic aspect didn't come into consideration.
Stockhausen's letter casts a new light on the content of Messiaen's text for
the program of 21 May 1952, Attendre 200 ans , reprinted in P. Hill and
N. Simeone, op. cit., p. 199.

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 122 Revue de Musicologie, 96/1 (2010)

a piece of musique concrte on 1 February 1952 17 . Mes

work with Henry nearly every day during the first
choosing the sorts of sounds he wanted to work wit
lowing month, Henry created several hundred tape
Messiaen made a second selection of about twenty d
With these sounds in mind, he wrote his score in tr
employing a great deal of text to describe the sound
iteration 18.
News of the project traveled fast : the young Sto
Messiaen's presence in Schaeffer's studio to Herbert
the electronic studio in Cologne, in a letter dated 17 Ma
10, the critic Bernard Gavoty mentioned Timbres-d
newspaper article, effectively announcing Messiaen's fo
ment and association with Schaeffer's studio to the Parisian musical
community 20. At the time of Gavoty's article, Henry was creating a new
version of Messiaen's score in concrte notation completed 15 April
1952 21 . Henry would use the concrte score as an aide-mmoire for the
montage of the original monophonie version of Timbres-dures , comple-
ted at the beginning of May. Messiaen was not satisfied with the results
and made cuts to his score while also accepting Henry's suggestion to give
the study movement through spatialization - one of Schaeffer's original
intentions for Messiaen's collaborative project 22. Henry created a second
score and a second set of tapes, and the new revised and spatialized
version of Timbres-dures was ready in time for the Parisian concerts of
21,23, and 25 May 1952.
Unlike previous spatializations created with Schaeffer's pupitre
d'espace alone, Timbres-dures ' spatialization combined the pupitre
d'espace with the magntophone tripiste , a 1951 joint invention of Jacques
Poullin (the studio's in-house engineer) and Pierre Schaeffer in
which three tapes were read simultaneously and broadcast to three diffe-
rent speakers 23. Messiaen recognized Henry's participation in his pro-
gram note, Je suis responsable des rythmes et du choix des timbres.
Pierre Henry a assum le travail de manipulation des sons, la ralisation,

17. As communicated by Pierre Henry.

18. This is the autograph score kept in Henry's personal archives and described
above.
19. Letter from Karlheinz Stockhausen to Herbert Eimert, Karlheinz
Stockhausen, Karlheinz Stockhausen bei den Internationalen Ferienkurse fr neue
Musik in Darmstadt (Krten : Stockhausen Stiftung, 2001), p. 42.
20. Bernard Gavoty, La musique concrte , Le journal musical franais ,
10 April 1952, p. 2.
21. Pierre Henry's manuscript score, shared by Pierre Henry, February 2008.
22. These cuts are visible in both Messiaen's and Henry's manuscripts and are
described in my previous studies.
23. Pierre Schaeffer, Brevet d'invention n 1.033.682 : perfectionnements aux
appareils pour la ralisation des bruits ou sons musicaux , (Paris : Imprimrie
nationale, 15 juillet 1953), p. 3. Copies of Schaeffer's patents are consultable in his
archives at the IMEC, dossier 1250.

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Christopher Murray : A History of Timbres-dures 123

et le dcoupage spatial 24 . When the time came to register the work at the
SACEM during the summer of 1952, Messiaen suggested that Henry be
declared the work's arranger 25.

The Concerts of May 1952 and their Critical Reception

There are no truly positive appraisals of Timbres-dures among the

reviews of May 1952, though Messiaen and Henry's collaboration is often
singled out as one of the more interesting works on the program 26. The
younger generation, including Stockhausen, Pousseur and Barraqu, so
taken by Messiaen's Quatre tudes de rythme , would respond rather
negatively to concerts of Timbres-dures in 1952 and 1953, as would
Messiaen's elder, Stravinsky 27 . Timbres-dures ' length, judged dispropor-
tinately long in comparison to its restrained timbrai resources, was the
focus of more than one critic 28. Indeed, it's clear that Messiaen was
already concerned by Timbres-dures ' length, given the cuts he made to its
longest motive, the serially arranged and rearragned eleven-part person-
nage A , after hearing the first montage of the work at the beginning of
May. Even with these cuts, the unfolding 24 permutations of the four
rhythmic motives, some of them quite long and composed themselves of
multiple sounds, makes for a confounding sequence of noises lasting
nearly fifteen minutes from beginning to end. The added layer of com-

24. Copies of this program are conserved in a number of different archives,

including those of Schaeffer at the IMEC, Gola at the IMEP, Stravinsky at the
Sacher Stiftung, and Dnise Tuai at the BnF dept. Arts du spectacle.
25. Letter from Olivier Messiaen to Pierre Henry, dated 18 June 1952, Sacher
Stiftung, Grumbacher Collection, MF 261 . 1 , p. 2746 (ms. no. 979). Henry's copies
of Messiaen's manuscript as well and his own manuscript versions of the concrte
score all carry a SACEM stamp dated 16 July 1952.
26. See Raymond Lyon's review in Le Guide du concert , 30 May 1952,
p. 295-296 ; Claude Baignres, Musique concrte , Le Figaro , 2 June 1952, p. 6 ;
J. Barraqu, op. cit. p. 33-35.
27. For the reactions of Stockhausen see, Robin Maconie, The Works of Karl-
heinz Stockhausen (Oxford : Clarendon, 1990), p. 47 as well as R. Toop, art. cit.,
p. 382-383. For Pousseur, see Pousseur's letter to Pierre Boulez dated 5 July 1953
and conserved in the Boulez Sammlung, Sacher Stiftung, MF 25, p. 539. For
Barraqu see J. Barraqu, op. cit., p. 33-35. For Boulanger and Stravinsky see
Robert Craft, Stravinsky, Chronicle of a Friendship , revised expanded version
(Nashville : Vanderbilt University Press, 1994), p. 83. See also Robert Craft,
Stravinsky : Letters to Boulez , The Musical Times , 123 (1982), p. 386 n. 6 where
Craft transcribes Stravinsky's notes on the evening. Long quarter-hours
demonstrating pieces whose substance was a mlange of sounds and noises... The
participants were professional composers, very antipathetic, and amateurs, 'revo-
lutionaries', rather sympathetic. Stravinsky kept a copy of the program with the
inserted extract from Messiaen's score of Timbres-dures , and it remains in the
Sacher Stiftung, Sammlung Stravinsky, MF 90, p. 1790-1793.
28. See R. Lyon, art. cit. ; J. Barraqu, op. cit., p. 33-35 ; as well as Andr
Hodeir, La musique depuis Debussy (Paris : P.U.F., 1966), p. 92-93.

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 124 Revue de Musicologie , 9611 (2010)

plexity in Henry's spatialization - which followed a f

independent of Messiaen's construction - cannot hav
trying to orient themselves inside the work's repetitive
Messiaen's terse analytical note as their only guide.

Timbres-dures in Europe after the Parisian premiere

Mixed reviews did not discourage Schaeffer from

Messiaen's work in demonstration recordings sent to
lecturers on music. Timbres-dures would continue to be heard in concerts
of musique concrte in 1952 and 1953 until it was replaced by other, newer
music from the Paris studio. Timbres-dures was featured at the Ferien-
kurse in Darmstadt on 21 July 1952 and 27 July 1953 29 . It should be noted
that though these were years when Messiaen was present in Darmstadt
teaching composition and rhythmic analysis, he seems to have had
nothing to do with the organization of the Ferienkurse' s musique concrte
concerts. Wolfgang Steinecke and Pierre Schaeffer had been in contact
from June 1951 onwards, thanks to the music writer and critic Serge
Moreux ; later it was Stockhausen who took over the practical arrange-
ments concerning the transport of tapes and playback materials to
Darmstadt, though he would not enter the studio as an official stagiaire
until the autumn of 1952 30. Just a month before the Ferienkurse ,
Stockhausen and Boulez contacted Schaeffer in June of 1952 to have the
newest and most interesting examples of musique concrte. They recei-
ved two works by Pierre Henry, Boulez's two tudes , Messiaen's Timbres-
dures and a tape of examples and explanations 31 . In a letter to Stockhau-
sen on 23 June 1952, Steinecke confirmed the scheduling of a special
concert of musique concrte and electronic music for 21 July 1952 at 15:00
in the Marienhhe seminar room, the site of Messiaen's analysis and
compositions classes. Herbert Eimert was scheduled to give a talk on the
problems facing electronic music followed by a lecture on musique
concrte by Antoine Gola, another music writer and critic who worked
with Schaeffer and who would also become Messiaen's linguistic interpre-
ter at Darmstadt 32 . Timbres-dures had no more success in Darmstadt

29. Schedules and press clippings of the Ferienkurse, conserved at the IMD
archives, Darmstadt. See also Gianmario Borio and Hermann Danuser, eds., Im
Zenith der Moderne : die internationalen Ferienkurse fr neue Musik Darmstadt
1946-1966 (Freiburg im Breisgau : Rombach, 1997), p. 555, 563.
30. Schaeffer-Steinecke correspondence dossier at the IMD archives,
Darmstadt.
31. Letter dated 19 June 1952 from Stockhausen to Steinecke in K. Stockhau-
sen, op. cit. , p. 56.
32. See both Messaien-Steinecke correspondance dossier, IMD archives,
Darmstadt ; K. Stockhausen, op. cit. Though originally hired only to give a
conference on Pellas et Mlisande , Gola managed to get hired as Messiaen's
interpreter despite the machinations of Stockhausen and Eimert in favor of their

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Christopher Murray : A History of Timbres-dures 125

than in Paris, with one journalist noting that the Ferienkurse audience
broke into laughter at the work's end 33.
Antoine Gola, also presented the concert of musique concrte at the
following year's Ferienkurse, on 27 July 1953, probably recycling material
from his lecture on 15 June 1953 at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris
for the Dcade de la musique exprimentale , Tendances de la musique
concrte , though a letter from Michle Henry indicates that Gola
asked for and received a new tape between his lecture at the Dcade and his
presentation at Darmstadt. This tape included a great number of new
works from Henry and at least some fragments of Timbres-dures if not
the whole work 34 . Gola's 1953 Darmstadt conference took place at
22:30 after a concert Elektronische Musik I and was titled Neue
Artbeiten der Musique Concrte (mit musikalischen Demonstrationen
und Filmvorfhrungen) .

Timbres-dures in America

Little notice has been given to the early lectures and concerts dedicated
to musique concrte in the United States. The first example seems to be the
pair of choreographies created by Merce Cunningham to Symphonie pour
un homme seul , during Leonard Bernstein's Creative Arts Festival at

friend Goeyvaerts. Gola insisted that the Belgian Goeyvaerts did not have a
sufficient mastery of German and managed to convince Steinecke and Messiaen
that he was the best man for the job. The correspondence between Messiaen and
Steinecke from the spring of 1953 in preparation for the following summer's
courses reveals how faithful Messiaen had become to Gola. Messiaen insists upon
the retention of Gola's services as an interpreter as well as demanding that Gola
take his meals and be housed and fed separately from the students, along with
Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod. This time spent together during two summers at
Darmstadt would later allow Gola to begin his book of interviews, Rencontres
avec Messiaen , in January 1956.
33. Tz. (Anonymous), Zwischen Ur-Gerusch und reinem Klang , Die
Rheinpfalz , 24 July 1952 ; see also Albert Rodemann, Ein Tag des Experimen-
tes , Darmstdter Tagblatt , 23 July 1952.
34. In fact, Timbres-dures was featured twice during the concerts ot the
Dcade : once at Gola's lecture, and second time on 17 June 1953 in a lecture by
the engineer Jacques Poullin on spatialization. This, assumedly, was the last
occasion that Timbres-dures was heard in conditions allowing for Henry's spatia-
lization. Brochures for the Dcade are conserved in Pierre Schaeffer's archives at
the IMEC in Caen. Gola's text, Tendances de la musique concrte was printed
in a 1957 special edition of the Revue musicale, Vers une musique exprimentale , op.
cit., p. 36-44. Autograph letter from Michle Henry to Antoine Gola, dated 13
July 1953 and conserved at the IMEP in Namur. She writes, Le montage est fait
dans l'ordre que vous m'avez indiqu, avec des blancs entre chaque exemple de
Timbres-dures et chaque morceau pour le reste. Toutefois, je vous signale que
Pierre Henry m'a demand de mettre Antiphonie en entre et d'ajouter votre liste
Vocalise. L'ordre du montage est donc celui-ci : Antiphonie, Vocalise, Batterie
Fugace, Tam-Tam IV et le reste est inchang.

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 126 Revue de Musicologie , 9611 (2010)

Brandeis University, 14 June 195 2 35. On 22 December 19

lez and Henry Cowell presented a concert of French music
bia University Composer's Forum at the McMillin Thea
dures was featured on the program. Henry Cowell would
he preferred the electronic music produced by Cage a
noting :
We found comments after the recent concert very interesting indeed because
they supported our opinion that the American version of Musique Concrte
is more musical and shows better organization. Musicians and critics agreed
that even so experienced a composer as Messiaen in his Timbres-dures
selected material of only moderate interest, and that the form he employed
was rather childish in its simplicity. 36

It is unclear whether Cowell's comments were made upon fragments of

Timbres-dures or the complete fifteen-minute work. Cowell also reported
that the music was played at an unpleasantly high volume from only
two speakers.
John Cage, who had met Messiaen on a number of occasions, played a
role in the dissemination of Timbres-dures in the United States 37 .
Towards the end of 1952, probably during the same period as the concert
at Columbia, Pierre Boulez would give John Cage tapes of musique
concrte including un extrait de l'tude de Messiaen 38 . It is possible
that these were the same tapes used in the concert at Columbia University.
On 22 March 1953, Cage would improvise his own spatialized version of
Timbres-dures on the same concert at the Festival of Contemporary Arts
at the University of Illinois as the premiere of his own Williams Mix 39.
Cage described the concert to Boulez in a letter dated 1 May 1953,
enthusiastically reporting the circulation of Timbres-dures through eight
different speakers surrounding a scandalized audience 40.
There exist traces of a third series of American demonstrations featu-

35. A program for the 1952 festival is consultable online at : www.brandeis.edu/

arts/festival/images/ 1952program.pdf. This concert was organized by Irving Fine,
who was already in contact with Pierre Schaeffer during the summer of 1950.
See Phillip Ramey, Irving Fine , An American Composer of His Time (Hillsdale,
NY : Pendragon, 2005), p. 166-167.
36. Henry Cowell, The Current Chronicle , The Musical Quarterly , 39
(1953), p. 254-255. Vladimir Ussachevsky (191 1-1990) was a composer and Ame-
rican pioneer in tape music who taught at Columbia University.
37. Cage played his music for Messiaen's class in 1949 and would see Messiaen
again later that year during his visit to New York for the New York premiere of
Turangalla- Symphonie. Messiaen makes reference to Cage's innovations in his
short text for the May 1952 concerts of musique concrte , Attendre 200 ans . See
P. Hill and N. Simeone, op. cit., p. 185, 193, 200.
38. Jean- Jacques Nattiez, ed., Correspondance Pierre Boulez-John Cage (Paris :
Bourgois, 1991), p. 216.
39. David Revill, The Roaring Silence, John Cage: A Life , (London :
Bloomsbury, 1992), p. 149 ; Richard Kostelanetz, John Cage (New York : Praeger,
1970), p. 130
40. J.-J. Nattiez, ed., op. cit., p. 226-227.

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Christopher Murray : A History of Timbres-dures 127

ring fragments of Timbres-dures noted in letters to Pierre Schaeffer from

Roger Maren 41 . Maren, a sometime music writer for the popular Ameri-
can magazine The Reporter and an acquaintance of Varse, asked for and
received demonstration tapes of musique concrete from Schaeffer in
19 5 3 42 . Maren's letters to Schaeffer express his frustration at not being
able to hear Timbres-dures in its spatialized version, and at having only
received fragments of what he considered to be a very important work 43.
According to his letters, Maren conducted several conferences on musique
concrte beginning on 17 November 1953. Maren also served as a
go-between for Schaeffer and Moses Asch, the director of Folkways
Records who had released the recording of Schaeffer announcing the
liberation of Paris and who wanted to release a record of musique concrte
on the American market. This project did not come to fruition, but Maren
still published an essay on musique concrte in the liner notes for a
Folkways release of works by Cage, Cowell, Varse and others where
Maren briefly (and favorably) mentions Timbres-dures and other experi-
mental works by Messiaen 44.

Timbres-dures after 1953

Although fragments of Timbres-dures were published in a wide variety

of contexts during Messiaen's lifetime, public concerts featuring his col-
laboration with the young Pierre Henry all but ceased after 195 3 45. Some
authors indicate this was according to the composer's wishes, but it would
seem that Timbres-dures simply no longer represented the most innova-
tive and recent work of musique concrte coming out of Schaeffer's studio
and were cast aside in favor of other works. As noted earlier, Messiaen

41. Fonds Schaeffer, IMEC, box 986.

42. It was Maren who put Schaeffer back in touch with Varse in 1953, perhaps
leading to the latter's creation of Dserts. See Sacher Stiftung, Varse collection,
MF 231.1, p. 1946. Maren also wrote one of the first English language texts to
discuss musique concrte in detail, see Roger Maren, "Music by Montage and
Mixing," The Reporter , 6 October 1955, p. 38-42.
43. Fonds Schaeffer, IMEC, box 986.
44. Roger Maren, Concrte Music , liner note for Sounds of New Music ,
Folkways Records, 1957. See also Maren's article on musique concrte for The
Reporter , Music by Montage and Mixing, vol. 13, no. 5, 6 October 1955,
p. 38-42.
45. Examples of Messiaen and Henry's score for the work were hrst printed in
the programs for the Parisian premiere on 21 May 1952 and reprinted in Fritz
Winckel ed., Klangstruktur der Musik, Neue Erkenntnisse musik-elektronischer
Forschung (Berlin : Verlag fr Radio-Foto-Kinotechnik, 1955) ; Antoine Gola,
Tendances de la musique concrete Vers une musique exprimentale , a special
edition of La revue musicale , no. 236, 1957, p. 36-44 ; George Hacquard, La
musique et le cinema , (Paris : PU. F., 1959), p. 41 ; and multiple translations and
editions of Erhard Karkoschka, Das Schriftbild der neuen Musik, (Celle : Moeck,
1966).

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 128 Revue de Musicologie, 9611 (2010)

declared the work to the SACEM, and to date I have

interdiction of Timbres-dures' s broadcast or circ
myriad interviews 46 . Messiaen himself would say littl
his own experiment in musique concrte in later years.
evoked his electroacoustic experiment, Messiaen wou
his work in a few words before changing the subject 47
both in print and in recorded form, though the INA da
two broadcasts of Timbres-dures between 1953 an
Musique in 1985 and 1996 respectively. In the early 1
versions of Timbres-dures , began to circulate among
electroacoustic music by way of the IDEAMA (In
Electroacoustic Music Archive) 48. In 2004, the GRM
recording of the complete but non-spatialized vers
forgotten experiment, allowing detailed analyses of the
time since its composition 49 . Though a spatialized v
would be simple to recreate, its author, Pierre Henry, ha
a project to come to fruition. In his words :
Je pense que c'est une curiosit, c'est une uvre unique,
Rcemment on m'a propos, parce que c'est l'anne Mes
concert les Timbres-dures , d'enregistrer la version spat
je n'y crois pas. Je crois que c'est une uvre qui doit reste
les oubliettes des dbuts de la musique concrte 50 .

This is not to say, however, that musicologists can aff

Timbres-dures when considering either the develop
music in the early 1950s or the development of musiqu

46. The copies of Messiaen's manuscript and Henry's ori

concrte scores in Henry's private archives both bear a SA
[16 JUIL 1952-670,818]. See also letter from Olivier Mess
MF 261 . 1 , p. 2746 (ms. no. 979), mentioning Messiaen's desir
the arranger of Timbres-dures.
47. Claude Samuel, Entretiens avec Olivier Messiaen (Par
p. 211 ; Philippe Carles, Entretien avec Olivier Messiae
n 26, avril 1972, p. 44-96.
48. In 1990, a European selection committee for the ID
Franois Bayle was a member) selected 708 works of electro
of preservation. The first version of Timbres-dures to be f
archive was a six-minute fragment, created by Bayle for his
mathque , the 1985 broadcast noted above (Franois Bayle
the author, 17 October 2009). IDEAMA would later add a
Timbres-dures to its archive, presumably a pre-restaurat
GRM archive. Though inferior in quality to the 2004 INA
version if Timbres-dures seems to preserve vestiges of the
in its stereo movement.
For more on the IDEAMA, see on 1 .zkm.de/zkm/institute/mediathek/
IDEAMA/, (consulted 5 February 2010).
49. Archives GRM , disc one, Les visiteurs de I aventure concrete (track 12),
INA C 1031 ADD-750 276512.
50. Pierre Henry in an interview with the author, 6 February 2008.

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Christopher Murray : A History of Timbres-dures 129

politics of promotion in Pierre Schaeffer's studio at the RTF. To the

contrary, Messiaen's lone experiment in tape-music forms a critical link
between the Livre d'orgue, the Messe de la Pentecte and his Merle noir
and Rveil des oiseaux. The story of Timbres-dures tells us as much about
Messiaen's attitudes concerning criture , rhythm, natural sounds, and
technology at a critical juncture in his creative life, as it does about
Schaeffer's attempts to promote and valorize his studio's innovations at
Darmstadt and in the United States.

*
* *

RSUM

De nombreux documents conservs dans le fonds Pierre Boulez de la fonda-

tion Sacher et PINA rvlent que Messiaen fut impliqu ds 1950 dans la
diffusion des innovations de la musique concrte de Pierre Schaeffer et Pierre
Henry, et avec une intensit croissante jusqu'en 1951. Pierre Schaeffer, qui savait
Messiaen intress par un travail sur la nouvelle technologie des bandes enregis-
treuses du studio, lui proposa de l'exprimenter avec un des six nouveaux stagiaires
qui l'entouraient l'automne 1951. Messiaen prfra cependant travailler avec
Pierre Henry, en se concentrant sur ses propres recherches rythmiques, dvelop-
pant des ides prsentes dans le Livre d'orgue. Timbres-dures , le rsultat de cette
collaboration entre Messian et Henry, reut un accueil mitig, mais fut utilis pour
la promotion des innovations du studio de Schaeffer en Europe et aux Etats-Unis
en 1952 et 1953. Malgr une relative perte d'intrt pour Timbres-dures , des
enregistrements et des fragments de partition continurent circuler jusqu' la
rdition de sa version complte et restaure par l'INA/GRM en 2004.

ABSTRACT

Multiple sources from Pierre Boulez's archives in the Sacher Stiftung and
INA sound archives reveal that Messiaen was involved in promoting the in
tions of Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry's musique concrte as early as 1950
with increasing frequency into 1951. Pierre Schaeffer knew that Messiaen
interested in working with the new tape technology of the studio and propo
possible study for Messiaen to realize with one of his six new stagiaires from
fall of 1951 . Messiaen chose instead to work with Pierre Henry and to concen
on his own rhythmic research, further elaborating ideas addressed in the
orgue. Though the result of Messiaen and Henry's collaboration, Timbr
dures , would receive mixed reviews, it was nevertheless used to promote
innovations of Schaeffer's studio in Europe and the United States during 195
1953. Though Timbre-dures fell out of favor, recordings and score fragm
continued to circulate until the re-release of the complete restored version by
INA/GRM in 2004.

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