Pierre Henry, 2008 © Droits réservés Pierre Henry, 1976 © David Henry
I feel like a man of music. I live for music, I think about everything around me musically, I structure what I see musically.
Music should be a reflection of the composer's 'self'.
My music is an instrument.
My music is a physiological need.
My music is my reason for existing.
MY MUSIC IS ME.
It is the resurgence of sounds buried since childhood that alone allows creation. I don't want my music to be analysed, I want it to be received, raw, as it is.
In « La Fin de Satan », Victor Hugo wrote : ‘Any noise listened to for a long time becomes a voice’. There is no such thing as noise, only sound.
I live in an extremely closed world where only my music exists. I am a professional at my own music, but I am not a professional at the music of the past or even the music of others. It seems to me that you can only love what you produce yourself, only your own music.
My first shock was not Olivier Messiaen, it was nature and Messiaen, it was organised nature. I have always been impregnated with the sounds of nature, whether they come from storms, wind or rain, or from animals, human beings or mechanised sounds such as those of the train. But for me they were more of a source than a ceremony. They allowed me to hear new sounds inside me, which meant that they were quite quickly magnified. There was a kind of alloy, a transmutation taking place inside me. You hear the sounds of nature once, but then you hear them again within yourself. You hear them again when you are alone, and that is when they're more incredible.
I have not really been a "sound hunter". All I need is a few days in the countryside, in a special place or in the studio to experience a new direction in my sound library, giving birth to a dozen or so 'new' tapes.
MY ONLY MAJOR INTEREST IN LIFE IS TO COMPLETE AND BRING TO FRUITION THIS WORLD OF SOUND THAT HAUNTS AND INHABITS ME
Pierre Henry
Also see : Elements of a biography par Franck Mallet - Pierre Henry as seen by Yves Bigot - Awards and distinctions