Luc Ferrari

(Sub Rosa) Releases

Luc Ferrari: "I have made works that more or less depart from purely musical concerns. Some of them call for a meeting between different branches of what may be the same tree. The problem is to express in different ways the passing ideas, feelings and intuitions; to observe daily life in all its realities whether they be social, psychological or sentimental. These could come out in the form of texts, instrumental works, electro-acoustic compositions, journalism, films or shows."

Even if his art is historically linked to the musique concrète school, Luc Ferrari (born in Paris in 1929) is above all a man with a freedom of spirit rarely equalled in the history of music, who has repeatedly left what he excelled at for new territory still unexplored; thus he is par excellence the composer of new fields of investigation.

Ferrari joined the Groupe de Musique Concrète in 1958 and remained a member until 1966; he collaborated with Pierre Schaeffer in setting up the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (1958). By 1963-4 he had begun Hétérozygote, an extended tape piece in which ambient sounds unfold in narrative form, suggesting a dazzling variety of incidents, all unexplained. He was Professor of Composition at Cologne's Rheinische Musikschule from 1964 to 65. In 1965 and 1966 he produced Les Grandes Répétitions, a series of television documentaries with Gérard Patris on the subject of contemporary music, specifically Olivier Messiaen, Edgard Varèse, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hermann Scherchen and Cecil Taylor.

(Biography Last updated 22 March 2004)

‘Didascalies’ by Luc Ferrari

Release date 21 May 2007
CD In Stock £10.00 buy

"The idea of bringing together Rencontres fortuites, Didascalies and Tautologos III - two recent works for piano, viola and electronics, and one open-ended work - imposed itself at a concert at the Boendael Chapel in Brussels. A few months later, we found ourselves in the legendary Brème studios, having to ... [more]

‘Didascalies Limited Edition’ by Luc Ferrari

Release date 10 May 2007
2DVD Limited Stock £12.00 buy

Luc Ferrari takes out an old score, Tautologos III, to record it at La Muse en Circuit in the summer of 2005. The "score" is actually a set of three rules:

1. Each musician freely decides on a theme an length of silence to be repeated for 21 minutes.

2. Each musician ... [more]

‘Son Mémorisé’ by Luc Ferrari

Release date 16 January 2006
CD In Stock £10.00 buy

"Right from the start, the idea had been to release three very different CDs: one hörspiel, concrete music (new and older pieces) and instrumental works. Les Anecdotiques was the first step: the first work he played for me at his post-billig workshop. I was so stunned that I wanted to ... [more]

‘Les Anecdotiques’ by Luc Ferrari

Release date 15 May 2004
CD In Stock £10.00 buy

Luc Ferrari's diverse work and aesthetics continue to have a singular impact on the sunsequent generations of electronic musicians and artists. The corpus of his work is immense and includes hundreds of compositions of all kinds. Les Anecdotiques, his last composition, is a vast sound-film of more than an hour, ... [more]

‘An Anthology Of Noise & Electronic Music Volume 2 Second A-Chronology 1936-2003’ by various artists [Sub Rosa]

Release date 21 May 2003
2CD In Stock £12.00 buy

This second volume of Sub Rosa's anthology explores the early days of pre-electronic music; rare and unpublished pieces by influential composers of electronic music; unreleased tracks by cornerstones of the 90s electronic, acid and industrial scenes; free-jazz... and some rare stuff from Captain Beefheart, Daphne Oram, Alan R. Splet...

Over the ... [more]