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Having carried out an extraordinarily meticulous work in libraries and archives, Martial Robert resorts to written and recorded sources in lieu of the more usual personal recollections to provide a chronological coverage of Schaeffer's life and works, comprising an engrossing 49-page narrative of his activities under the Vichy régime (a seldom tackled and potentially controversial issue). Two volumes shall follow. This could have been a definitive title, if style were not apologetic, if text analyses were more focused and if writing were not heavy with overly meaningful metaphors. [*]

Table of Contents
 

Figure I. Pierre Schaeffer round 1950	7
PREFACE by Jean-Claude Risset	11
FOREWORD	15
TOPOGRAPHY OF THE PRE-EXPERIMENTAL FIELD	19
A. The Familial Declivity	21
1. Familial Sediments	21
2. Coexistence of Layers	22
3. Traces of Infiltrations	25
4. The Burn of a Sun	28
B. Youthful Earthwork	30
1. Nancy Manure	30
2. Slowing-downs of a Digression	32
3. Discovery of the Gene	34
4. A Not Very Serious Clearing	37
C. The Seeds of a Void	37
1. "Radio-jeunesse": an Innocent Seed	37
2. An Ineluctable Thrust: Jeune-France	41
a) Roots	41
b) Missions of a Sap	46
c) From Buds to Fleurons	49
d) Straw	63
3. The Vichyist Disturbance	69
a) >From Ingestion...	69
b) ...to Accommodation	71
D. Fruits and Wastes	76
1. Ripening of a Germ	76
2. The Historic Kernel	76
3. Threats of a Rotting	83
REFLEX VISION	87
A. Transparency of a Radio	89
1. An Ambiguous Qualification	89
2. The Revealer	91
3. From Radio to Art	93
4. From Expression to Oeuvre	97
5. In Quest of the Author	102
6. From Cliché to Treasure	103
B. Genesis of a Poetics	105
1. Resurgence	105
2. Approach	107
3. Reflections and Études	111
4. Reactions to Concerts	113
5. The Providential Man	116
6. The Last Two Violations	117
a) From a Courteous Symphonie...	117
b) ...to the Act of Orphée	121
7. An Intrinsic Poetry	123
THE ASCETIC OBJECTIVE	127
A. The Empirical Connection	129
1. Warning	129
2. Methodological Roots	130
3. Incision into the Object	134
4. The Engineer's Inventions	136
B. A Poorly Perceived Filter	141
1. On the Subject of Precursors	141
2. Battle Around a Definition	151
3. Four Confusions	157
a) Aestho-technics	157
b) Instrument-machine	158
c) The Object Component	160
d) To Relearn Natural Listening	164
4. From Mishearing to Misunderstanding	165
a) Impertinence of an Oeuvre...	165
b) ...And of a Man	168
5. From the Question to Fundamental Answers	171
a) Identity Problem	171
b) The True Question	173
THE HOMO FABER VIS-À-VIS THE HOMO SAPIENS	175
A. Compositional Trouble	177
1. Culture Medium	177
2. Revealing Ferments	188
a) Symphonia Solitarium	188
b) Object Yeast	190
3. Appendices of Tradition	192
a) Backwash of Continuismo	192
b) Guilt	198
c) Temptation to Open Up	209
4. Composer's Caliber	212
a) Ingredients of Attitude	212
b) Doses of Drive	218
c) Fears of a Remainder	219
B. Essential Aversions	222
1. External Blocking-Up	222
a) A Language That Witnesses...	222
b) ...The Influence of an Immersion	223
c) ...Into Systematic Essences	228
2. A Devastating Virus	230
a) From the Field of the Present...	230
b) ...To the Future	233
3. Schaefferian Remedies	236
a) A Word for a Vaccine	236
b) Back to Basics...	239
c) ...In a Civilized Manner Though	242

A GUIDE TO TREATISE ON MUSICAL OBJECTS	243
A. A Discourse on Method?	245
1. Delimited Sterility	245
2. The Temptation of Numbers	246
a) A Difficult Graft	246
b) A Correlation in Question	247
c) Proofs by Discoveries	249
d) Different Manners of Looking	252
3. Misestimation of Tools	253
a) Unsuspected Perceptions	253
b) The Instrument Reappraised	259
4. Classifications to Think About	261
a) Pierre's Classes... (Systema Naturae)	261
b) ...Towards a New Solfège ("Terrae Incognitae")	269
5. Reconsideration of the Field	276
a) The Stretch of a Compromise	276
b) Organic Guide	276
c) The Collection at Work	284
d) Identification of Barriers	291
e) Sounding of the Depths	294
f) At the Parting of the Ways	298
6. Eloped Finalities	302
a) A Disturbing Aesthetic Layer	302
b) Research: Directions for Use	304
B. Free-Entrance Building Site	310
1. A Controversial Relief	310
a) Critical Aspects	313
c) The Realm of Reception	317
2. Defense of a Point of View	319
a) A Situation to Be Identified	319
b) Dotted Perspectives	322
POSTFACE	325
Figure II. Recommendation by Alfred Bachelet	327
Figure III. Recommendation by Nadia Boulanger	328
Figure IV. The first musique concrète studio	329
Figure V. The keyboard Phonogène (1951)	330
Figure VI. The three-track tape recorder	331
Figure VII. System for spatial diffusion by field effect	332
Figure VIII. Tentative Notation of the Étude aux allures (1958)	333
Figure IX. "Eurydice and the Violins" (Orphée 53)	334
Figure X. The cover of Treatise on Musical Objects (1966)	335
Figure XI. The three intentions of listening	336
Figure XII. Music research program, the four operations and the objective of the solfège	337
Figure XIII. Analytic score of the first movement ("Objets exposés") of Schaeffer's Étude aux objets (1959), by Denis Dufour, 1978 (first three pages)	338
ANALYTIC AND COMMENTED LISTS OF RECORDS, RECORDINGS, FILMS AND VIDEOS	341
A. Discography of Pierre Schaeffer's Works	341
B. Recordings	346
C. Film and Video	365
SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY	369
A. Libraries and Archives Prospected	369
B. Thematic Bibliography	370
1. General Points -- Biography	370
2. History -- Administration	375
3. Radiotelephony -- Radio Broadcasting, Cinema, Television (Relay-Arts) -- Communication	378
4. Music -- Arts	386
5. Science -- Research	408
6. Literature -- Philosophy	409

[*] For a more detailed review, see Carlos Palombini, "Martial Robert: Pierre Schaeffer, des transmissions à Orphée", Computer Music Journal 25 (1): 66--67, 2001.




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