> Volume 2: L'œuvres communes 1950-1953 et 1988 (with Pierre Henry)
This volume consists of 2 symphonies. The first one is Symphonie pour un homme seu. It starts off with percussive hits, vocals coming in and out as well as some orchestral bursts. The percussion at the end of Prosopopee I is staggering. A short twisted Partita follows that which sort of sounds like a prepared piano but I’m sure it’s just cut ups of piano and other elements. The waltz continues the madness with grand string orchestration being disturbed by Twin Peaks-ean vocal manipulations. Following piece, Erotica, is what I assume is a woman breathing that is either supposed to sound sexual or was sexual in the first place. The scherzo is 2 vocal samples played at the same time with some support of a piano in between these unnatural occurings. Collective is a piece that reminded me of Henri Chopin’s audiopoems which were probably influenced by this in the first place. The Prosopopee II is a reoccurrence of the creepiness from the first track and it leads to extreme industrial banging on Eroica. It’s a weird piece because after that it is mostly made from human sounds. And this woman, whose singing is reversed just sounds weird. The 9th movement of the piece is piano based with some occasional low-pitched vocal samples. I can’t imagine how long this shit would take to produce in the physical form. In the intermezzo Schaeffer plays around with a backwards cymbal sample as well as more human voices. The 11th movement works just as a build up for the final movement of this symphony. Strette sounds abrasive. It almost wants to target the lower and the more dissonant sounds. It is absolutely brilliant.
There is a very short intermezzo between the 2 symphonies and this Bidule en ut is yet another “prepared” piano simulation. It sounds playful with some funny sound effects.