Pierre Henry - Le Voile D'Orphee

Pierre Henry's 1953 Veil of Orpheus is the first example of symphonic "musique concrete," (the use of non-traditional sources and real sounds like trains, dogs barking, footsteps, etc. in place of actual instruments and then electronically manipulating these sounds in new ways), originally composed for an opera (Orpheus 53, written with movement founder Pierre Schaeffer for the Donauescliingen Festival). Despite the quantum leaps made in the field of electronics over the past 50 years, this initial experiment still manages to convey its original importance. The piece uses "concrete sounds" much in the same way a traditional orchestra would use individual instruments. Besides two versions of Veil Of Orpheus (the original 27 minute version and the second 15 minute version used in the Maurice Bejart/Pierre Henry ballet Orpheus in 1958), there are two shorter pieces ("Entity" and "Spiral"), which evoke an unsetting search for meaning that is so often associated with Henry's work.