Luc Ferrari is known as a famous electronic music pioneer. From 1959 to 1960, he was the director of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales. He has also worked with Pierre Schaeffer, who introduced the term ‘musique concrète’.

Schaeffer proposes that a sound should be identified by its morphology. By this he implied that a sound should be known by the way its structure has evolved in time. His ‘Traité des Objets Musicaux’ (Treatise on Musical Objects), which was published in 1966, included an arrangement of sounds which he addressed as ‘Solfège’, a term which indicates a scale of sounds rather than musical notes. Moreover, when Ferrari worked with the Groupe de Recherche Musicale, he adopted the basic concepts and ideas of musique concrète.

His piece “Presque Rien ou le lever du Jour au Bord de la Mer” is regarded as a composition which shows the break with the practises of classical electro acoustics. Moreover, the narration is one of the main features of the Presque Rien. This piece is not in its strictest sense created to impart a story, rather it aimed to make obvious the time by insinuating that something happens in a place.

Ferrari has been for a long period of time convinced that beauty is a concept of the past, and that beauty is like a shallow and redundant attribute. However, he altered this contention and said that people should be concerned with this attribute.

Name: Luc Ferrari

Date of Birth: 05 February 1929

Place of Birth: Paris, France

Luc Ferrari is a French composer. He was born on 05 February 1929 in Paris, France. He died on 22 August 2005 in Arezzo in Italy.

Since he was young, Ferrari trained in music and went on with his piano and composition studies. However, a case of tuberculosis cut short his career as a pianist. After this, he concentrated more on musical composition. When he was sick with tuberculosis, he got the chance to become familiar with the radio receiver. Music pioneers such as Berg, Schönberg, Webern and others supported him in his goal to distance himself from the teachings of his first conservatoires.

He took part in the ‘Internationale Ferienkurse Darmstadt’ from 1954 to 1958. By participating in these international vacation courses he was able to develop friendly associations with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, Luigi Nono, John Cage, Henri Pousseur, and Edgard Varèse.

Captivated by ‘Déserts’ from Edgard Varèse, he went to New York to visit this artist in 1954. He was able to compose various piano pieces while he was on this trip. Moreover, his collaboration with Pierre Schaeffer from 1957 to 1966 and his attraction to musique concrète led him to broaden the concept of abstract music. Portable tape recorders gave him the chance to gather the needed sound for his music piece ‘Hétérozygote’, his first composition which he called as ‘anecdotic music’.