Conference report: Spectralisms 2019 Robert Hasegawa The conference Spectralisms 2019, presen- Grisey found the label reductive – “just ted 12–14 June at the Institut de Recherche a sticker that we got at a certain period” – et Coordination Acoustique/Musique and misleading, drawing too much attention (IRCAM) in Paris, shows the extent to to a handful of harmonic techniques (such which scholarly interest in spectral music as “instrumental synthesis”) and not enough has flourished in the past decade. This is to more thoroughgoing innovations in tim- the second conference in the Spectralisms bre, texture, and temporality.2 Yet the term series; the first, organized by Jonathan remains useful to describe certain develop- Cross, was held at Oxford University in ments in contemporary music starting in the 2017.1 While twenty-five years ago spectral 1970s and building on the work of timbre- music was largely the domain of composers -focused precursors such as György Ligeti, and a few specialized researchers based Giacinto Scelsi, and Olivier Messiaen. mainly in France, each of these recent con- In its narrowest definition, spectralism ferences welcomed a broad variety of music is associated with the Paris ensemble and scholars from Europe, North America, and composers’ collective L’Itinéraire, founded as far afield as Japan, South Korea, and in 1973 by Hugues Dufourt, Gérard Grisey, Australia. With thirty-six talks at the Oxford Michaël Lévinas, Tristan Murail, and Roger conference and forty-nine at IRCAM, the Tessier. The adjective “spectral” was first conversation around spectral music has proposed by Dufourt in a 1979 article, broadened to include a wide range of com- making reference primarily to the use of posers and aesthetics as well as different the acoustical spectrum of sounds (their analytical and musicological approaches. unique constituent overtones) as a model The term “spectralism”, like many other and the privileging of a “dynamic continuity” “-isms”, has drawn complaints from the very in place of the discrete structures of seria- composers it purports to describe. Gérard lism.3 Characteristics of spectral music as 2 1 Programs are still available online for the conferen- Gérard Grisey, “Entretien avec David Bundler”, in ces at both Oxford (music.ox.ac.uk/spectralisms) and Écrits, ou l’invention de la musique spectrale, ed. IRCAM (spectralisms2019.ircam.fr). The IRCAM event Guy Lelong (Paris: Éditions MF, 2008), 265. was filmed, and videos of all the talks are now availa- 3 Hugues Dufourt, “Musique spectrale”, in Musique, ble in IRCAM’s online repository: medias.ircam.fr pouvoir, écriture, ed. Jean-Michel Bardez (Paris: /search/?q=spectralisms. Christian Bourgois, 1991), 335–340. ZPRÁVY { 190 practised by L’Itinéraire composers include today we might extend this still further to the use of acoustics and psychoacoustics include works by younger composers such as compositional reference points, a con- as Steve Lehman and Anthony Cheung.4 cern for the “sound itself” over symbol or In the course of this diffusion of spectral syntax, the gradual parametric development sounds and ideas, the approach of the of complex sound masses, and playing L’Itinéraire composers has been enriched on the ambiguity of timbre and harmony by encounters with diverse influences, through chord-timbres and timbre-chords. ranging from Norwegian folk music (as dis- The use of the plural “Spectralisms” cussed by Lasse Thoresen in a paper on in the title of these two conferences indi- his own compositions), soundtracks of tele- cates the organizers’ desire to recognize vision dramas (Robert Sholl on “Spectral the diversity of spectral practice, including Music in Nordic Noir”), and experimental developments parallel to (or even prece- electronica by Pan Sonic and Ryoji Ikeda ding) those of the L’Itinéraire group by (Riccardo Wanke on a cross-genre “ecsta- composers in Romania (Horațiu Rădulescu, tic-materialist perspective”). The music of Iancu Dumitrescu, and Ana-Maria Avram), Rozalie Hirs, presented by composer Bert the United States (James Tenney and Alvin van Herck, combines a spectral perspective Lucier), Austria (Georg Friedrich Haas), on harmony with a more diatonic sound lan- the United Kingdom (Jonathan Harvey guage based largely on perfect fifths – the and Julian Anderson), and Japan (Toshiro crisp sonorities of works such as Book of Mayuzumi). Even more than the Oxford Mirrors (2001) and Platonic ID (2006) have conference, the IRCAM edition of Spectra- echoes of Louis Andriessen’s post-minima- lisms featured talks on composers from the lism, a far cry from the dense microtonal margins of the spectral tradition, such as complexes of the L’Itinéraire composers. Rozalie Hirs (Netherlands), Riccardo Nova While the first wave of writings on and Fausto Romitelli (Italy), and Keith Hamel spectralism were largely by composers (Canada). Finland’s Kaija Saariaho was the associated with the movement, the IRCAM subject of a number of presentations, even conference offered many research pre- rivalling the long-canonized Grisey as the sentations adopting the tools of historical most discussed composer of the confe- musicology, including archival work on com- rence. posers’ sketchbooks and other documents. This shift towards a broader range of Work by Ingrid Pustijanac, Julie Delisle, and spectral practices reflects the dissemi- François-Xavier Féron drew on Grisey’s nation and adaptation of spectral ideas sketches (now at the Paul Sacher Stif- over several “generations”. Joshua Fineberg tung in Basel), and Landon Morrison and has traced the emergence of the “second Wataru Miyakawa discussed Saariaho’s spectral generation” (Saariaho, Philippe Hurel) and even a third (François Paris, 4 Joshua Fineberg, Classical music, why bother? Jean-Luc Hervé, and Fineberg himself): (New York: Routledge, 2006), 134–135. #10 2019 Živá hudba 191 } Conference report: Spectralisms 2019, Robert Hasegawa compositional processes. Since spectral schedule, bringing performers together music has always had a close relation- with musicologists to talk about spectral ship with electroacoustic music and ideas compositions from an interpreter’s perspe- from sound synthesis, many of Saariaho’s ctive. These workshops included Grisey’s “sketches” cited by Morrison are in fact Anubis-Nout with saxophonists Antonin computer scripts, printouts of code in the Pommel and Claude Delangle; Pascale programming environment CHANT used Criton’s Wander Steps with accordionists for the synthesis of vocal and quasi-vocal Jean-Étienne Sotty and Fanny Vicens of sounds in Vers le blanc. the Duo XAMP; Giacinto Scelsi’s Trilogia With some historical distance from with cellist Frances-Marie Uitti; and Horațiu the original formulations and polemics Rădulescu’s Das Andere with violist Garth of spectral thought, musicologists are Knox. beginning to reframe some of our central Of these four featured composers, only assumptions about spectralism: for exam- Grisey comes from the L’Itinéraire group. ple, in his paper “‘Et le nuage est spectre, François-Xavier Féron’s discussion with et le spectre est nuage’: Murail, Poetics, Delangle, the dedicatee of Anubis-Nout, Symbolism” Liam Cagney argues that the revisited the development of the work late works of Murail might be considered through sketch study and reminiscences as exemplifying a neo-Symbolist aesthetic. of the late composer. Scelsi can be seen as Some of the philosophical implications of an important precursor of spectral music, spectral thought (and in particular theo- with his microtones, sustained sounds, and ries of temporality) were explored in Dylan slowly shifting textures; both Grisey and Principi’s “Grisey’s Time and its Conceptual Murail cite his music as a major influence. Implications”, linking Grisey’s phenome- Uitti’s presentation on Scelsi’s Trilogia nological approach to musical time with (in dialogue with musicologist Sharon precursors in the writing of Bergson and Kanach) focused on the cellist’s one-on- Deleuze. Presentations on spectral music -one collaboration with Scelsi to develop from the perspective of specific instrumen- extended playing techniques, including the tal performance traditions included Tobias co-creation of customized resonators that Tschiedl’s analysis of Hugues Dufourt’s lend the strings a complex buzzing tone. writing for electric guitar and Jack Adler- The third workshop, by composer and -McKean’s “The Spectral Tuba”. musicologist Martin Suckling, delved into Given spectral composers’ fascination Rădulescu’s unique strain of experimental with the physical nature of sound, perfor- and mystical spectral thought, part of a les- mance practice has always been a central ser-known Romanian spectral movement concern. The hosts of Spectralisms 2019, that developed in parallel to the Parisian IRCAM musicologists Nicolas Donin and school. Pascale Criton’s music for micro- François-Xavier Féron, included four per- tonal accordion duo was the most recent formance workshops in the conference work featured in these workshops: her 2018 ZPRÁVY.