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Luc Ferrari

Luc Ferrari (1929 – 2005) was a French composer, particularly noted for his tape music. In 1954, Ferrari went to the United States to meet Edgard Varèse, whose Déserts he had heard on the radio, and had impressed him. The use of ambient recordings was to become a distinctive part of Ferrari's musical language. Ferrari's Presque rien No. 1 (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. 

Luc Ferrari (1929 – 2005) was a French composer, particularly noted for his tape music. In 1954, Ferrari went to the United States to meet Edgard Varèse, whose Déserts he had heard on the radio, and had impressed him. The use of ambient recordings was to become a distinctive part of Ferrari's musical language. Ferrari's Presque rien No. 1 (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. 

Radio Cologne Sound Das Studio für Elektronische Musik des WDR
Small repress available! Biggest Tip possible! ** English/German edition. 288 pp + 5CD plenty of incredible music, most of which have never been heard before **  From the Wolke Verlag imprint, who've already brought us incredible books like Karl Berger's "The Music Mind Experience", "FMP Free Music Production - The Living Music", Peter Brötzmann's Along the Way, and George Lewis' "Composing While Black. Afrodiasporic New Music Today", to name only a few and a great many more - comes one of the m…
Perspectives (Book+2CD)
Very rare artist's book! A full-color book with 56 pages of paintings and visual works by Wolfgang Meyer-Tormin and Luc Ferrari, with photographs by Alberto Ricci. Limited private edition, 200 copies - 75 pages and 2 CDs, English - German - French Disc 1 – Wolfgang Meyer Tormin– Vom Klavier pour Klavier IV – Sieben Stücke (1987)– Aspekt II (1983)– Vom Klavier pour Klavier IV – Neuen kleine Stücke (1985)– Zwölf Klangfelder (1968)– Aspekt IV (1983)– Von Fern Her (extrait de Vom Klavier pour Klavie…
Through the lense of B&L Ferrari – Pictures 4 – Legs
** Limited edition of 50 copies for each series ** A selection of pictures shot in the '70s by Luc and Brunhild Ferrari, organized by thematics, to be kept as a treasure, to display, or to send as postcards. Pictures printed on fine 250 g/m² uncoated paper, inserted in silk-screen printed and numbered glassine paper sleeve.Limited edition of 50 copies for each series. Co-founder of the Groupe de Recherche Musicales in Paris (GRM) with Pierre Schaeffer in 1958, Luc Ferrari (1929-2005) is a pionee…
Presque Rien n°2 – Ainsi continue la nuit dans ma tête multiple
** Bilingual edition (English / French) 24 x 32 cm (spiral bound), 40 pages (ill.)  ** Facsimile scores and documents about the work recorded by Luc Ferrari during summer 1977 and premiered in 1979 during Festival d'Automne at Centre Pompidou, Paris. "Ten years ago, 'Presque Rien n°1' bore the subtitle 'Sunrise at the Seaside'. This piece of magnetic tape was in fact a sort of report on this daily event. Thinking about Presque Rien later on, I wondered what it was about. Looking for almost nothi…
Presque Rien n°1 – Le lever du jour au bord de la mer – 1967-70
** Bilingual edition (English / French) 27 x 35 cm (spiral bound), 37 pages (ill.)  ** Historical pictures, texts, indications about project, list of recorded sounds, full edit plan & manuscript facsimile of the piece achieved by the composer at Deutsche Grammophon studios in 1970 in Hannover, from the recordings dated July 1967 in Vela Luka, Croatia. "Following the total disappearance of abstract sounds, this piece could be considered a sonic photographic slide, the outcome of a whole evolution…
Through the lense of B&L Ferrari – Pictures 3 – Cars
** Limited edition of 50 copies for each series ** A selection of pictures shot in the '70s by Luc and Brunhild Ferrari, organized by thematics, to be kept as a treasure, to display, or to send as postcards. Pictures printed on fine 250 g/m² uncoated paper, inserted in silk-screen printed and numbered glassine paper sleeve.   Co-founder of the Groupe de Recherche Musicales in Paris (GRM) with Pierre Schaeffer in 1958, Luc Ferrari (1929-2005) is a pioneer and a major figure of musique concrète an…
Through the lense of B&L Ferrari – Pictures 2 – Women & Flowers
** Limited edition of 50 copies for each series ** A selection of pictures shot in the '70s by Luc and Brunhild Ferrari, organized by thematics, to be kept as a treasure, to display, or to send as postcards. Pictures printed on fine 250 g/m² uncoated paper, inserted in silk-screen printed and numbered glassine paper sleeve.   Co-founder of the Groupe de Recherche Musicales in Paris (GRM) with Pierre Schaeffer in 1958, Luc Ferrari (1929-2005) is a pioneer and a major figure of musique concrète an…
L'Escalier des aveugles – Recueil de nouvelles
Bilingual edition (English / French) 27 x 35 cm (spiral bound), 101 pages (ill.)  Facsimile scores and documents about the radiophonic work created by Luc Ferrari in 1991. This publication around "L'escalier des aveugles" features never released before contents; including notes from the editor, full transcription of the dialogues (Spanish/French/English), historical documentation about the project, sound map, facsimile manuscript from the composer & afterword.Through these 101 pages, you will ha…
Perspectives And Echoes / Tautologos III
-bRt- group for music creationGaudenz Badrutt, live electronics / Estelle Beiner, violin / Jacques Demierre, piano / Jonas Kocher, accordion (Tautologos III) / Stephen Menotti, trombone / Manon Pierrehumbert, harp / Christian Wolfarth, percussion Artistic direction: Gaudenz Badrutt & Jonas Kocher Liner notes by Lê Quan Ninh:Free improvisation is defined, among other things, by its practioners' refusal to rely on a form composed by others. Partially, perhaps, from pride, but above all from playfu…
…et après (2Lp)
After an already productive year, Alga Marghen, in the guise of their sub-imprint, Planam, delivers, “…et après”, an astounding double LP of archival material documenting the collaboration between Luc Ferrari and Ensemble Laborintus. Issued in a limited edition of 250 copies on vinyl, and bristling with tense electroacoustic sonorities at the forefront of electronic and experimental chamber music, it's among the most challenging, exciting, and engaging albums we’ve heard all year.
Atelier de Libération de la Musique
**Much needed repress.** Often, when looking back over the history if experimental music in France, easy divisions can be seen to emerge. There are the pioneers of improvised music, usually associated with jazz, and there are the pioneers of electronic music, including tape, synthesis, and electroacoustic practice. This separation is convenient and serves historians well, providing simple answers for the what and why of what occurred, but, in most cases, fails to represent the true spirit of any…
Ephémère
This album tells stories about wind, ocean and a village feast in the southern France… The listener is led into a poetic journey  about freedom and impermanence.  It brings together three Ferrari-related works: by Luc Ferrari himself, by Ferrari’s wife Brunhild Meyer-Ferrari and an improvisation by Royer to one of Ferrari’s soundscapes. Luc Ferrari was very interested in collaboration. New music violist Vincent Royer began collaborating with Ferrari following their meeting in 2001.Regardin…
Visitation
** Edition limited to 350 copies. ** Visitation, created on April 1st, 2011 is a very unique kind of collaboration between two French sonic artists, master Luc Ferrari and eRikm. Here is eRikm's direct testimony about this work: "When the sun set on April 1st, 2011 I heard through the windows of my house the repetitive song of a night bird. Madeleine brought me immediately back to Luc Ferrari¹s electroacoustic piece Presque Rien N° 2. I became curious about comparing the bird that was officiatin…
Madame De Shanghai - Après Presque Rien - Visage 2
This is Luc Ferrari’s second disc for Mode and it features three pieces from different periods and for different ensembles, two of which are first recordings. “Visage 2” is for brass and percussion and was written in 1955-56. This is an early work for Ferrari and it is informed by his study of serialism at Darmstadt, yet is based on the confrontation between two sexual bodies (note the lovely nude woman on the cover with Ferrari as he looks over his composition on the page). The music itself is …
Les Grandes Répétitions
Two films, part of a series made for French television in the mid 1960s, of concert rehearsals. In the earlier film it’s Stockhausen’s Momente that’s being rehearsed (with long sections of performance) interspersed with KS speaking about himself and his work and the thinking behind his work. Just buy it. It’s completely exceptional, in every way. Stockhausen himself is both eloquent and profound, and speaks as he composes, with thought behind every word. His intensity at work, which is gripping,…
Ephemere I & II
Alga Marghen presents Éphémère I & II (for tape, or to be played with various instruments) -- two previously-unpublished masterpieces which represent for several reasons a very specific moment in the creative life and catalog of Luc Ferrari. Even if Ferrari's perfect skill in creating some of the most beautiful sonic works ever is now well known to the large audience appreciating his music, the undetermined character marking the two works presented here is quite surprising. Luc Ferrari was tempt…
Les Arythmiques
One of his final works, Les Arythmiques finds the late musique concrète veteran Luc Ferrari engaging with the cardiac condition that struck him towards the end of his life. Inspired by the jolt of electricity that was prescribed to combat his arrhythmia, this album is a collection of all the sounds Ferrari recorded on his travels over the final few years of his life - an assemblage of images he bluntly describes: "as one says of a drowning man's life passing before him". The forty minute montage…
Dialogue Ordinaire Avec La Machine
Few copies back in stock, long out of print. After the publication of Danses organiques, Elica is pleased to present two previously unreleased compositions by Luc Ferrari from the early 80's: the stereo magnetic tape piece Dialogue ordinaire avec la machine coupled with Sexolidad, a composition for fifteen instruments. Both pieces share with the Danses a deep sense of sexual curiosity, a penetrating matter for the composer's musical explorations. This album is yet another fine testament to the F…
Volume 1: Chansons Pour Le Corps
With recent releases on John Zorn's Tzadik label among others, Luc Ferrari is enjoying a well deserved renaissance. After studies with Messiaen and formative visits to Darmstadt in the '50s, Ferrari (born Paris, 1929), with Pierre Schaeffer, was one of the co-founders of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales in 1959. In the sixties he worked with the Ensemble Instrumental de Musique Contemporaine de Paris and made the first French television documentaries on new music, between 1964-69, he ta…
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