GRM—Le Groupe de Recherches Musicales: Cinquante ans d’histoire (review)

The work of Pierre Schaeffer and the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) has, for more than 60 years, been a pioneering, productive force for electroacoustic music in the world. In 2007, GRM celebrated its 50^th anniversary (the occasion for the publication of book here under review); in 2008, 60 years of musique concrète was also celebrated. Between 1948 and 1957 there was activity in the studios that Schaeffer launched, of course, and that earlier history is not ignored here. In fact, author Évelyne Gayou looks back even further, to the activities and influences that led to the creation of the studio and the first compositional, conceptual, and technical efforts. The aim of the book is ambitious: to tell the story of the GRM, through the people, the music, the technological developments, the research, and the place of the institution in the musical and cultural milieu through this volatile period of modern history.

Ms. Gayou is well placed to tell this story. She has been affiliated with the GRM since 1975, working as researcher, composer, and producer. For some time she has overseen the print publications of the organization (extended to theWeb), which includes an informative series of short books on important figures in electronic music (the volume on Max Mathews was the first to be published in both French and English). She has known most of the people who figure in the narrative, and she has access to the extensive GRM archives. As she points out in her introduction, the focus of the people associated with the GRM has been invariably on creation, so there has not been, until her Herculean effort here, energy or resources to document its history and present that history in a comprehensive fashion to the general public. The book is written in French, so the general public would be one familiar with that language. A translation to English would be very useful, but then an English translation of Schaeffer’smagnum opus Traitè des objets musicaux would also be very useful and that hasn’t happened in the 40-some years since its publication (there are ongoing plans to do so, it should be said).

In her Introduction, Ms. Gayou posits some questions to serve as points of departure for her undertaking: (1) How to define the GRM? (2) Can one identify the production of GRM as a musical genre? (3) Is the GRM a school or a production studio? (4) What has the GRM added to the audiovisual (GRM is administered as part of Radio France under the umbrella of the Institut National de ‘lAudiovisuel [INA])? Why has it remained attached? Is this an explanation for its longevity? (5)What are the differences between musique concrète, electroacoustic music, acousmatic music, and électro? (6) The GRM was a part of the musical avant-garde in the 1950s. Is it still? (7) Given all the discoveries of 1948–1949, why did Pierre Schaeffer continue wanting to create a “Groupe”? (8) In what ways has the GRM changed? Is it plausible that it has survived for 50 years based on a single discovery, musique concrète? What is the importance of its past on its present? (9) What is the future of the aesthetic developed at the GRM? What are the notable works? These questions point to the ambitious scope of the book, no mere chronicle.

After the Introduction, the majority of the 500 or so pages of text remaining are organized in two main parts: (1)Mémoire des faits: Approche chronologique [Recollection of the facts: Chronological approach]; (2) Organiser l’oubli: Approche thématique [Organizing the forgotten: Thematic approach]. The chronicle that forms the first section of the book (taking up 300 pages or so) proceeds by...