Henri Pousseur

Henri Pousseur Born 23 June 1929 Malmedy Died 6 March 2009 Was A Belgian Composer. Pousseur Studied At The Academies Of Music In Liège And In Brussels From 1947 To 1953. He Was Closely Associated With Pierre Froidebise And André Souris. He Encountered Pierre Boulez Karlheinz Stockhausen And Luciano Berio And Thereafter Devoted Himself To Avant-Garde Research.
Beginning Around 1960 He Collaborated With Michel Butor On A Number Of Projects Most Notably The Opera Votre Faust 1961–68 . Pousseur Has Taught In Cologne Basel And In The United States At SUNY Buffalo As Well As In His Native Belgium. From 1970 Until His Retirement In 1988 He Taught At The University And Conservatory Of Liège Where He Also Founded The Centre De Recherches Et De Formation Musicales De Wallonie. Generally Regarded As A Member Of The Darmstadt School In The 1950s Pousseur's Music Employs Serialism Mobile Forms And Aleatory Often Mediating Between Or Among Seemingly Irreconcilable Styles Such As Those Of Schubert And Webern Votre Faust Or Pousseur's Own Serial Style And The Protest Song "We Shall Overcome" Couleurs Croisées . His Electronic Composition Scambi Exchanges Realized At The Studio Di Fonologia In Milan In 1957 Is Unusual In The Tape-Music Medium Because It Is Explicitly Meant To Be Assembled In Different Ways Before Listening. When First Created Several Different Versions Were Realized Two By Luciano Berio One By Marc Wilkinson And Two By The Composer Himself Sabbe 1977 175 N. 86 . Since 2004 The Scambi Project Directed By John Dack At The Lansdown Centre For Electronic Arts At Middlesex University Has Focussed On This Work And Its Multiple Possibilities For Realization. In Addition To His Compositional And Teaching Activities Pousseur Has Published Many Articles And Ten Books On Music Amongst Which Are Fragments Théorique I Sur La Musique Expérimentale Brussels Université Libre De Bruxelles 1970 Schumann Le Poète 25 Moments D'une Lecture De Dichterliebe Paris Klincksieck 1993 And Musiques Croisées Paris L'Harmattan 1997 . read less