DOCSLIB.ORG

Jean-Claude Risset: in Memoriam

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Jean-Claude Risset: in Memoriam Jean-Claude Risset: In memoriam MARC BATTIER Jean-Claude published many articles, often the result Jean-Claude was a generous man and I had the of his lectures across the world, but sometimes chance to experience this first hand. Whilst still a appearing in hard-to-find journals. Fortunately, young researcher when he was at IRCAM as head of a large number of his writings have recently been the computer department, he entrusted me with the collected and published, thanks to musicologists co-organisation of the 1978 Unesco computer music Marta Grabocz and Pierre Michel.1 Opening this workshop, which was shared with Barry Truax and book takes you through an impressive journey into held in Aarhus, Denmark. Barry and I oversaw the some of the most significant landmarks of computer scientific and artistic organisation of the international music. When musicians had to adapt to the new workshop, at a time when the computer music com- digital technology, Jean-Claude, through relentless munity was beginning to structure itself. This was an research, investigated the very nature of musical extraordinary act of generosity and trust on his part. sounds. His discoveries have transformed the fields At the same time, I was one of the few composers of musical acoustics and psychoacoustics, and he invited to produce a piece using the MUSIC V pro- received a gold medal, the highest award, from the gram that he had installed in the acoustics laboratory CNRS, the French national research centre. Fifty of Marseille, at a time when such tools as MUSIC V years after his first investigation at Bell Labs, where were almost non-existent in France. Indeed, many Jean-Claude introduced us to both how musical others have experienced his kindness and altruism. sounds behave in time and what to look for when we Of course, many people have first known him perceive them, his findings have become ingrained in through his unique musical works. A point of our culture. convergence between his research and his deep In turn, young musicians were so inspired by his knowledge of contemporary music, including electro- work that they invented a new form of music, later acoustic music, his works are above all the result of called ‘spectral music’. The influence of Jean-Claude’s a true artist. They will remain amongst the most research on Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail was convincing and artistic pieces of the late twentieth indeed determinant in the creation of spectral music, century repertoire. For this, as much as for his research and these young composers, at the beginning of the and discoveries, and also because he was such a gentle 1970s, recognised the role of Jean-Claude’s discoveries and friendly human being, Jean-Claude Risset will on their musical thought. continue to live in our memories. 1Jean-Claude Risset. 2014. Composer le son. Repères d’une exploration du monde sonore numérique. Écrits, vol. 1.Paris:Hermann. Organised Sound 22(1): 5 © Cambridge University Press, 2017. doi:10.1017/S1355771817000012 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 43.130.79.121, on 04 Oct 2021 at 21:21:13, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771817000012.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • USC MUCO 572 Syllabus Spring 2017
    MUCO 572: Comparative Analytical Techniques: Spectral Music (2 units) MUS 303 Spring 2017, Thornton School of Music Sean Friar email: [email protected] | office hours: by appointment | office: MUS 201 _____________________________________________________________________________________ COURSE DESCRIPTION This course will follow the development of spectralism in the 20th and 21st centuries. Spectral music – in the most general sense – is music that focuses on timbre above all other musical parameters, and derives its musical material from the acoustic properties of sound itself (sound spectra), the overtone series, electronic music techniques, and psychoacoustics. Though spectralism was initially developed by a small group of young Parisian composers in the 1970’s, its influence has since spread around the world, seemingly achieving wider use and acceptance with each new generation of composers. Over the semester, we will consider the different ways composers have incorporated these ideas into their music. * This course is concerned both with the aesthetics and the rigorous analysis of spectral music. It will sometimes involve (fairly straightforward) math. Course Materials Scores, recordings, and readings will be distributed throughout the semester via Blackboard and in-class handouts. There is no textbook. Grading! Attendance/participation 10% Weekly readings/assignments 30% Final paper 40% Final presentation 20% Weekly Readings and Assignments Each week, students will be assigned listening/score study, readings, and/or assignments. It is important that students do the required listening and reading prior to each class, as the lectures and discussion will assume that students have done the work. Attendance/participation As the class only meets once per week, it is important to attend every lecture.
    [Show full text]
  • Spectralism in the Saxophone Repertoire: an Overview and Performance Guide
    NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Spectralism in the Saxophone Repertoire: An Overview and Performance Guide A PROJECT DOCUMENT SUBMITTED TO THE BIENEN SCHOOL OF MUSIC IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS for the degree DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS Program of Saxophone Performance By Thomas Michael Snydacker EVANSTON, ILLINOIS JUNE 2019 2 ABSTRACT Spectralism in the Saxophone Repertoire: An Overview and Performance Guide Thomas Snydacker The saxophone has long been an instrument at the forefront of new music. Since its invention, supporters of the saxophone have tirelessly pushed to create a repertoire, which has resulted today in an impressive body of work for the yet relatively new instrument. The saxophone has found itself on the cutting edge of new concert music for practically its entire existence, with composers attracted both to its vast array of tonal colors and technical capabilities, as well as the surplus of performers eager to adopt new repertoire. Since the 1970s, one of the most eminent and consequential styles of contemporary music composition has been spectralism. The saxophone, predictably, has benefited tremendously, with repertoire from Gérard Grisey and other founders of the spectral movement, as well as their students and successors. Spectral music has continued to evolve and to influence many compositions into the early stages of the twenty-first century, and the saxophone, ever riding the crest of the wave of new music, has continued to expand its body of repertoire thanks in part to the influence of the spectralists. The current study is a guide for modern saxophonists and pedagogues interested in acquainting themselves with the saxophone music of the spectralists.
    [Show full text]
  • Melody on the Threshold in Spectral Music *
    Melody on the Threshold in Spectral Music * James Donaldson NOTE: The examples for the (text-only) PDF version of this item are available online at: hps://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.21.27.2/mto.21.27.2.donaldson.php KEYWORDS: spectralism, melody, liminal, Bergson, Gérard Grisey, Claude Vivier, Georg Friedrich Haas, Kaija Saariaho ABSTRACT: This article explores the expressive and formal role of melody in spectral and “post- spectral” music. I propose that melody can function within a spectral aesthetic, expanding the project of relating unfamiliar musical parameters to “liquidate frozen categories” (Grisey 2008 [1982], 45). Accordingly, I show how melody can shift in and out of focus relative to other musical elements. I adopt Grisey’s use of the terms differential and liminal to describe relationships between two musical elements: differential refers to the process between distinct elements whereas liminal describes moments of ambiguity between two elements. I apply these principles to Grisey’s Prologue (1976), Vivier’s Zipangu (1977), Haas’s de terrae fine (2001), and Saariaho’s Sept Papillons (2000). Received February 2020 Volume 27, Number 2, June 2021 Copyright © 2021 Society for Music Theory [1.1] In the writings by figures associated with the spectral movement, which emerged in early 1970s Paris, references to melody are rare. As the group focused on the acoustic properties of sound, this is perhaps unsurprising. Nevertheless, the few appearances can be divided into two categories. First—and representative of broadly scientizing motivations in post-war post-tonal music—is the dismissal of melody as an anachronism. Gérard Grisey’s 1984 “La musique, le devenir des sons” is representative: with a rhetoric of founding a new style, he is dismissive of past practices, specifically that there is no “matériau de base” such as “melodic cells” (Grisey 2008 [1978], 27).
    [Show full text]
  • Perspectives on Harmony and Timbre in the Music of Olivier Messiaen, Tristan Murail, and Kaija Saariaho
    University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 5-2019 Liminal aesthetics : perspectives on harmony and timbre in the music of Olivier Messiaen, Tristan Murail, and Kaija Saariaho. Jackson Harmeyer University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Part of the Musicology Commons Recommended Citation Harmeyer, Jackson, "Liminal aesthetics : perspectives on harmony and timbre in the music of Olivier Messiaen, Tristan Murail, and Kaija Saariaho." (2019). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 3177. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/3177 This Master's Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The nivU ersity of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The nivU ersity of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LIMINAL AESTHETICS: PERSPECTIVES ON HARMONY AND TIMBRE IN THE MUSIC OF OLIVIER MESSIAEN, TRISTAN MURAIL, AND KAIJA SAARIAHO By Jackson Harmeyer B.A., Louisiana Scholars’ College, 2013 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Music of the University of Louisville in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Music in Music History and Literature Department of Music History and Literature University of
    [Show full text]
  • Entrevista Con Tristan Murail: Diálogo Y Reflexión En Torno a La Música Espectral
    Entrevista con Tristan Murail: Diálogo y Reflexión en Torno a la Música Espectral IntervIew wIth trIstan MuraIl: DIalogue anD thoughts on spectral MusIc entrevIsta coM trIstan MuraIl: DIálogo e reflexão eM torno à MúsIca espectral Encuentre esta entrevista en http://www.javeriana.edu.co/revistas/Facultad/artes/cuadernos/index.html Ricardo Alonso Velasco Trujillo* Abstract This interview was given by French composer Tristan Murail during the International Laboratory of Contemporary Music, which took place in Bogotá, Colombia between October and November of 2004. Conducted by Ricardo A. Velasco, the interview creates a dialogue with who is widely considered to be the main exponent of Spectral Music, addressing fundamental issues for the understanding of one of the most complex currents in both contemporary musical practice and acoustic research. Resumen Esta entrevista fue concedida por el compositor francés Tristan Murail en el marco del Laborato- rio Internacional de Música Contemporánea que tuvo lugar entre Octubre y Noviembre de 2004 en Bogotá, Colombia. Dirigida por Ricardo A. Velasco, la entrevista constituye un diálogo con quien ha sido ampliamente considerado como el principal exponente de la Música Espectral, abordando cuestiones fundamentales para el entendimiento de una de las más complejas co- rrientes tanto en la práctica musical como en la investigación acústica contemporáneas. * Maestro en Música con Énfasis en Composición y Producción de la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana y candidato al título de Magíster en Estudios Culturales de la Universidad de los Andes en Enero de 2011. Actualmente, es profesor de la cátedra de Apreciación de la Música para Cine en la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana de Bogotá.
    [Show full text]
  • Program Mar 09.Indd
    San Francisco Contemporary Music Players David Milnes, Music Director Moving pictures, picture music Performers: Monday, 30 March 2009, 8 pm Tod Brody, fl ute Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum Carey Bell, clarinet (Paris) Peter Josheff , clarinet (Solbiati) Julie Steinberg, piano (Paris) Alessandro Solbiati, Sestetto à Gérard (2006) Ann Yi, piano (Solbiati) U.S. Premiere Christopher Froh, percussion (Approximate duration: 17 minutes) Graeme Jennings, violin (Solbiati, Paris) Roy Malan, violin (Paris) Philippe Hurel, Loops IV (2005) (Approximate duration: 7 minutes) Ellen Ruth Rose, viola (Solbiati) Daniel Kennedy, marimba Nanci Severance, viola (Paris) Leighton Fong, cello Tristan Murail, Cloches d’adieu, et un sourire... (Bells of farewell, and a smile) (1992) (Approximate duration: 4 minutes) and La Mandragore (Th e Mandrake) (1993) (Approximate duration: 9 minutes) Julie Steinberg, piano Intermission François Paris, À propos de Nice (2005) U.S. Premiere with Tonight’s performance is supported in part by: Jean Vigo, À propos de Nice (fi lm, 1930) Th e Ross McKee Foundation; (Approximate duration: 22 minutes) Th e French-American Fund for Contemporary Music, a program of FACE with support from Cultural Services of the French Embassy, CulturesFrance, SACEM, and the Florence Gould Foundation; Istituto Italiano di Cultura; Th e Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) at U. C. Berkeley. Program Notes in the not so easy world of music today...than to dedicate a ‘birth’ in music, a gradual explosion of vital energy.” Alessandro Solbiati [b. 1956] Like many contemporary composers, Solbiati has fostered working relation- ships with particular musicians, including pianist Jay Gottlieb, cellists Mario “I have always liked black and white photography,” writes Alessandro Solbiati: Brunello and Alexis Descharmes, and percussionist Dario Savron.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to the Pitch Organization of French Spectral Music Author(S): François Rose Source: Perspectives of New Music, Vol
    Introduction to the Pitch Organization of French Spectral Music Author(s): François Rose Source: Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Summer, 1996), pp. 6-39 Published by: Perspectives of New Music Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/833469 Accessed: 24/10/2010 16:30 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=pnm. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Perspectives of New Music is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Perspectives of New Music. http://www.jstor.org INTRODUCTION TO THE PITCH ORGANIZATION OF FRENCH SPECTRALMUSIC FRANCOISROSE INTRODUCTION G tRARD GRISEY(b.1946) and Tristan Murail (b.
    [Show full text]
  • An Interview with Tristan Murail
    Ronald Bruce Smith Center for New Music and Technology An Interview with University of California, Berkeley 1750 Arch Street Tristan Murail Berkeley, California 94720-1210, USA [email protected] Tristan Murail was born in Le Havre, France in of quasi-aleatoric experimentation. This was the 1947. Following university studies in economics, antidote to the structuralist trend in music. I was Arabic, and political science, he entered the com- not at ease with either of these approaches, nor position class of Olivier Messiaen at the were many of my friends. This was why we had to Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de find something different. Paris in 1967. Upon graduation in 1971, he was Smith: I believe that the term used in America was awarded the Prix de Rôme. On his return to Paris, “anti-establishment.” he founded the ensemble L’Itinéraire with com- Murail: In a way, serialism was the establishment. posers and former Conservatoire classmates It certainly became the establishment when Pierre Gérard Grisey and Michaël Lévinas. L’Itinéraire Boulez came back to Paris in the mid-1970s to es- soon became known as the starting point for an tablish IRCAM and the Ensemble aesthetic movement known as spectral composi- Intercontemporain. He was “establishment,” as he tion, its two main proponents being Tristan was heavily supported by the government. It Murail and Gérard Grisey. In a nutshell, much of seemed that there was little room for anything the material in a spectral composition is derived else. While there were other ensembles in Paris, from the frequencies of spectra and their behavior.
    [Show full text]
  • New Music After Grisey
    ART, Koch International, Mode, Musicworks, Nexus, oodiscs, SYR, Toshiba EMI, and New World, labels among others. After some early compositional attempts in the 1960s, Wolfgang von Schweinitz studied in 1968–76 with Esther Ballou at the American University in Washington, D.C., with Ernst Gernot Klussmann and György Ligeti at the Music Academy in Hamburg, and with John Chowning at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at the Stanford Artifi cial Intelligence Laboratory in California. There he composed the orchestral piece Mozart- Variations, which made his name in Germany in 1977. Returning from traveling in Mexico and Guatemala, he fi rst lived in Munich (1977–78), and then on study at the Villa Massimo in Rome (1978–79). In 1980 he was invited to lecture at the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt. Having stayed for two years in Berlin, he moved out to the countryside of northern Germany in 1981, where he spent twelve years in quiet seclusion. In 1993 he returned to Berlin. From 1994 to 1996 he worked as a guest professor for composition at the music academy in Weimar. Then he lived in Berlin again, and since September 2007 he is based in southern California, in the western tip of the Mojave Desert, about 30 miles north of CalArts (California Institute of the Arts), where he was invited to assume the succession of James Tenney (Roy E. Disney Family Chair in Musical Composition). LES ESPACES ACOUSTIQUES AND BEYOND: During 1977–96 he composed chamber music for strings and winds as well as a piano trio (Franz & Morton), a number of songs (“Die Brücke”, “Papiersterne”, “O-Ton, Automne— NEW MUSIC AFTER GRISEY Linguistikherbst”), a concert mass, a large-scale piece for music theatre (PATMOS, after the Apocalypse of John) and a symphonic cycle for cello and orchestra (wir aber singen).
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to the Pitch Organization of French Spectral Music Author(S): François Rose Source: Perspectives of New Music, Vol
    Introduction to the Pitch Organization of French Spectral Music Author(s): François Rose Source: Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Summer, 1996), pp. 6-39 Published by: Perspectives of New Music Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/833469 Accessed: 02/03/2010 10:41 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=pnm. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Perspectives of New Music is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Perspectives of New Music. http://www.jstor.org INTRODUCTION TO THE PITCH ORGANIZATION OF FRENCH SPECTRALMUSIC FRANCOISROSE INTRODUCTION G tRARD GRISEY(b.1946) and Tristan Murail (b.
    [Show full text]
  • An Interview with Tristan Murail Author(S): Ronald Bruce Smith and Tristan Murail Source: Computer Music Journal, Vol
    An Interview with Tristan Murail Author(s): Ronald Bruce Smith and Tristan Murail Source: Computer Music Journal, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 11-19 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3681847 Accessed: 24/10/2010 16:27 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Computer Music Journal. http://www.jstor.org RonaldBruce Smith Center for New Music and Technology An Interview with University of California, Berkeley 1750 Arch Street Tristan Murail Berkeley, California 94720-1210, USA [email protected] Tristan Murail was born in Le Havre, France in of quasi-aleatoric experimentation.
    [Show full text]
  • Hearing Images and Seeing Sound: the Creation of Sonic Information Through Image Interpolation
    Hearing Images and Seeing Sound: The Creation of Sonic Information Through Image Interpolation Maxwell Dillon Tfirn Charlottesville, VA B.M., University of Florida, 2009 M.A., Wesleyan University, 2012 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Music University of Virginia April, 2017 ii © Copyright by Maxwell Dillon Tfirn All Rights Reserved March 2017 iii Abstract This dissertation focuses on the compositional use of spectra, from the inception of this approach in the focus on acoustic characteristics of sound to my own approach, using images and raw data as spectral generators. I create these spectra using image interpolation and processing, and map them from the visual to the auditory domain. I situate my work in relation to the French and Romanian spectralists, the German Feedback Group, and other offshoots whose starting point is timbre-based composition. My own suite of software translates images into sound, allows for the creation and deletion of images, thus altering the sound, and supports analysis of the resultant spectra. Finally, the application of my software and techniques is illustrated in three of my compositions: Establish, Corrupt, Broken for 8-channel fixed media, Laniakea Elegant Beauty for Chamber Ensemble, and Invisible Signals for open instrumentation. iv Acknowledgements My dearest thanks go to my advisor, Judith Shatin. Her amazing insights and editorial expertise made this dissertation possible. I have enjoyed working with her during my years at UVA on a number of interesting projects and her continued support and critical questions have helped me to grow as a composer and artist.
    [Show full text]