Für Augen und Ohren: von der Spieluhr zum akustischen Environment. Objekte, Installationen, Performances (1980) [German]

Catalogue for a large-scale exhibition of sound art and mechanical and electronic music devices. Curated by René Block and Nele Hertling for the Akademie der Künste, West-Berlin, the exhibition included seven large gallery halls of sound sculpture, early electronic devices from the 1930s and 1940s, and sound environments.

With essays by Dieter Krickeberg, Siegfried Wendel, Wolf D. Kuehnelt, Juan Allende-Blin, Billy Klüver, René Block; chronology by Helmut Danninger.

Edited by René Block, Lorenz Dombois, Nele Hertling, and Barbara Volkmann
Publisher Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 1980
ISBN 3883319147
312 pages

Documentary directed by Detlef Michael Behrens, 1980
German language
33 min

Radio report (Charles Amirkhanian, KPFA-FM, 1980, EN)

WorldCat

Documentary: MP4 (107 MB, Vimeo)
Catalogue: PDF (88 MB, no OCR)

Pierre Schaeffer: De la musique concrète à la musique même (1977) [French]

Collection of Pierre Schaeffer‘s writings from 1938-1977 published as triple issue of La Revue musicale (303-305).

Edited by Sophie Brunet
Publisher La Revue musicale, Paris, 1977
252 pages
via Rub

WorldCat

PDF (49 MB)

Pierre Schaeffer: In Search of a Concrete Music (1952/2012)

“Pierre Schaeffer’s In Search of a Concrete Music has long been considered a classic text in electroacoustic music and sound recording. Now Schaeffer’s pioneering work—at once a journal of his experiments in sound composition and a treatise on the raison d’être of “concrete music”—is available for the first time in English translation. Schaeffer’s theories have had a profound influence on composers working with technology. However, they extend beyond the confines of the studio and are applicable to many areas of contemporary musical thought, such as defining an ‘instrument’ and classifying sounds. Schaeffer has also become increasingly relevant to DJs and hip-hop producers as well as sound-based media artists. This unique book is essential for anyone interested in contemporary musicology or media history.”

First published as À la recherche d’une musique concrète, Seuil, Paris, 1952.

Translated by Christine North and John Dack
Publisher University of California Press, 2012
ISBN 0520265742, 9780520265745
225 pages

Reviews: Daniela Cascella (Los Angeles Review of Books, 2013), Brian Kane (Organised Sound, 2013), Warren Burt (SoundBytes, 2014).

Publisher

PDF, PDF (7 MB, updated to an OCR’d version via Marcell Mars)

More from Schaeffer on Monoskop wiki (writings), UbuWeb (recordings), and Artsonores (films).