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In the contemporary music world, no one quite knows what to make of this “offbeat” composer who seemingly strived to appear light, frivolous and nonchalant, whereas on the contrary each of his works is an invitation to reflection for the attentive listener. One thing everyone agrees upon, however, is the indefinable charm emanating from this art of sounds. This unique creator who challenged certainties, mov¬ ing across fields breaking down boundaries and musical taboos along the way, whose works regularly emphasize themes of humor, intimacy and sensuality that some would consider unworthy of “serious” music - this is the ever-changing man I have tried to follow step by step throughout his rich and diverse career. After studying with Alfred Cortot and Arthur Honegger and learning musical analysis from Olivier Messiaen, Luc Ferrari entertained as a young man the desire to meet Edgar Varese, which he did by travel¬ ing to New York on a cargo ship. This significant encounter would not later prevent him from actively challenging the particular organization of notes in serialism as established by Schonberg, before becoming one of the pioneers of musique concrete along with Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (grm). By juxtaposing and superimposing sound images borrowed from real life, for example in Heterozygote (1964), he would be the first one to break away from musique concrete’s orthodoxy with regard to manipulated sounds, thus initiating what he would call “anecdotal music” and which others would later take on under the heading of “soundscape.” In 1968 he produced the first of his major minimalist works entitled Presque Rien. Together with his electroacoustic experiments, Luc Ferrari car¬ ried out a vast work in instrumental composition, from his piano pieces (1952-56) and compositions for large orchestra (1966), through various 9 mixed works - for instruments and tape recorder - from 1963 onwards, and up to Jeu du hasard et de la determination in 1999. His curiosity and interest for everything that lies beyond the strict boundaries of music led him to work with images, directing a film about Stockhausen’s Momente and a “Homage to Varese” amongst others. Intrigued by radio’s ability to conjure up mental images in the listener’s privacy, he composed his first Horspiel in 1971 for the SWF in Baden-Baden. During the 1980s, he also engaged in experiments with music theater ... Luc Ferrari repudiated the institution of any pre-established path, any process, artistic system or doctrine. What mattered to him was to steer clear of academicism before it had a chance to set in, to refuse being subjected to a given ideology and to hold on firmly to his libertari¬ an stance. His refusal also extended to all mystical approaches, whether religiously or aesthetically motivated. His only credo was to stand out¬ side of any confinement, in freedom and openness ... Within the proliferation of musical directions that character¬ izes his work, I for one discern at least three permanent features and two fundamental attitudes. The first feature is a passionate attention to everyday sounds, whether of social, psychological or emotional resonance. This allowed him to bring into play subtle musical constructions as with Presque Rien n° 1, ou le lever dujour au bord de la mer in 1968, up to more recent pieces such as Far-West News in 1999. The second feature is his distinctive use of chance, in contrast with that of John Cage. Far from the machinic radicalism of American repetitive music, Luc Ferrari favored superimposed random cycles that would generate unforeseen musical riches through the play of their chance encounters and unanticipated frictions. Starting with the initial piece T'autologos I (1961), this concept, which he ironically called “Tautol¬ ogy,” would come to play an important part in his entire work. The third feature is the recurrent incursion into the realms of intimacy or sensuality, which was completely out of step with the musical 10 field’s emphasis on abstraction and rigor. These elements can be found in Presque Rien n° 2 ou Ainsi continue la nuit dans ma tete multiple from 1977, as well as in Symphonie dechiree from 1998. As for the two attitudes, the first one he shows is a clear fond¬ ness for playfulness. For him, the act of making music is a game: a game of chance, an irreverent game, a serious and at times critical game, but more often a perverse game. The second attitude consists in an obstinate rejection of all forms of power. Why would an artist who discovered concepts as strong as those of Presque Rien not want to exploit them or be acknowledged as the founder of a new aesthetic that influenced so many composers? Why refusing to occupy this position, or for that matter any stable position in relation to institutions? Why this fondness for outplaying seriousness through derision? Is it perversion? Self-doubt? A taste for the eccentric? Probably all three associated with a refusal to find himself in the position of leader: he would then have to be right, which means exercising a cer¬ tain form of power; and that, philosophically, he couldn’t accept. As they developed, Luc Ferrari’s preoccupations often echoed those of contemporaneous artistic movements in other domains. His se¬ ries of Presque Rien shares similarities with both Georges Perec’s “infra- ordinary” and the concerns of the Nouveau Roman. His work with every¬ day sounds puts him next to the Nouvelle Vague’s use of the camera-stylo. He is also close to the Hyperrealist painters who glorified an aesthetic of the everyday. When talking about himself through his work, he appropri¬ ates in some way the method of painters creating series of self-portraits. To some, such transpositions between what is acceptable in a discipline and rejected in another appeared as near blasphemous. Many a time his views passed him off as a provocateur, an accusation he objected to: he never set out to provoke, only to explore wherever he found it necessary. Unlike that of some radical creators, his career therefore does not resemble a straight line so much as a profusion of points in motion linked together