Gérard Grisey

This paper provides a brief survey of composition in which field recordings or other referential sounds are transcribed for acoustic instruments. Through a discussion of how electroacoustic music and scholarship has conceptualised the notion of mimesis, and how various forms of contemporary acoustic music have adopted electroacoustic techniques, it identifies a recent musical practice in which these concerns are brought together. The paper proposes the term mimetic instrumental resynthesis as a way of describing the common threads behind works that employ electronic-assisted or computer-assisted techniques toward instrumental imitations of environmental and extra-musical sounds. The paper also highlights some of the conceptual and aesthetic questions emerging from such a practice, including the idea of transformation, issues of referentiality, listening, the influence of different technologies and their aesthetic implications, and the tension between abstract and concrete conceptions of the works discussed. Finally, the paper raises concerns surrounding the language of discussing what is necessarily an interdisciplinary venture.


Die Studie behandelt die Entwicklungen der westeuropäischen Avantgarde-Musik in den 80er Jahren und basiert auf der These, daß zwischen der Poetik verschiedener Komponisten und deren Auseinandersetzung mit dem poststrukturalistischen Denken (wie es sich besonders in den Werken der Philosophen Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault und Jean-François Lyotard manifestiert) eine grundsätzliche Verbindung besteht. Durch ausführliche, die Skizzen einbeziehende Analysen einiger Werke Helmut Lachenmanns, Brian Ferneyhoughs und Gérard Griseys untersucht der Autor, inwieweit und auf welche Weise die explizite Rezeption des Poststrukturalismus bei diesen Komponisten und ihrer Musik zum Tragen kommt.

Ce chapitre montre que le concept de timbre a émergé d'une pensée théorique et musicale de la seconde moitié du vingtième siècle, et examine également sa pertinence dans les répertoires historiques et ceux relevant d'autres sphères culturelles. Des exemples de Risset, Grisey, Beethoven, Purcell, du répertoire religieux tibétain et du groupe My Bloody Valentine illustrent le propos.

This text is a translation of the introduction to the thesis presented at the University of São Paulo in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Music. The work was advised by Adriana Lopes da Cunha Moreira, PhD, and may soon have the other parts translated to English.

Il pensiero polifonico, inteso non solo come presenza di più voci contemporaneamente, e quindi in opposizione con l’espressione monodica, ma anche e soprattutto come rete di livelli correlati, e senza subordinazione, è profondamente radicato nella cultura musicale occidentale. Il Novecento, in modo particolare, ha visto un rinnovato interesse verso la polifonia, scaturito dalle pratiche compositive dodecafoniche, che ha trovato un terreno fertile nei linguaggi del secondo dopoguerra. L’interesse persistente per il concetto di polifonia e le sue molteplici letture viene testimoniato dalle modalità secondo cui i compositori ne studiano e sperimentano le potenzialità, e di cui abbiamo traccia nei materiali preparatori. Da questa prospettiva, gli schizzi – considerati non più solo come fonti per lo studio della genesi, della tecnica, del processo compositivo – possono suggerire letture più trasversali stimolate dai più recenti studi sulla creatività. Un quadro introduttivo sullo stato dell’arte dello studio degli schizzi, alla luce dei cambiamenti recenti, delinea il contesto per il successivo esame dei tre specifici casi di studio di Ligeti, Lachenmann e Grisey. [Polyphonic thought, defined not merely as the simultaneous presence of multiple voices in contrast to monodic expression, but rather – and primarily – as a net of correlated layers without subordination, is deeply rooted in western musical culture. The 20th century, in particular, saw a renewed interest in polyphony. This was generated by dodecaphonic compositional practices and found a fertile terrain in the musical languages that flourished after the second world war. Testimony to the persistent interest in the concept of polyphony and its multiple readings is to be found in the ways in which composers studied and experimented with its various possibilities, evidence of which may be found in their preparatory materials. From this perspective, the sketches – when these are no longer considered merely as sources for the study of the genesis and technique of their compositional pro- cesses – can suggest more transversal readings, especially in the light of recent studies in creativity. An introduction to the current state of sketch studies illustrates the context for the subsequent examination of the three specific case studies of Ligeti, Lachenmann and Grisey.]

In many of his texts and interviews Gérard Grisey emphasized that spectral music draws its properties out of the nature of sound itself. This implies a tendency towards purism and a rigorous criticism of any reference to levels of signification and meaning. A closer scrutiny of Grisey’s music shows, however, that this apparent opposition can be questioned in several ways. Grisey’s musical thinking can be localized on the threshold between sound and meaning – it is a »liminal« music (musique liminale). Analytical comments on Grisey’s L’icône paradoxale for two female voices and orchestra (1992–94) exemplify this.

Il presente lavoro costituisce un tentativo di sistematizzazione delle varie tecniche compositive che considerano l'aspetto timbrico come parametro musicale fondamentale. Il percorso seguito parte dagli aspetti teorici, per rivolgersi quindi a quelli prettamente tecnologici.
Un inquadramento cronologico dei compositori che hanno utilizzato queste tecniche, e che formano un gruppo per certi versi trasversale, ha imposto la suddivisione del presente lavoro in tre distinti capitoli. Il primo di questi prende in esame i cosiddetti precursori; il secondo si occupa del movimento spettrale mentre il terzo si rivolge ai diversi aspetti dell’evoluzione post- spettrale contemporanea.

Analisi del brano "Anubis et Nuit" di Gerard Grisey del 1990, visione scientifica della musica spettrale, raccolta dati e proposta d'interpretazione.

Analysis of the piece "Anubis et Nuit" by Gerard Grisey from 1990, scientific vision of spectral music, data collection and interpretation proposal.

I attempt to locate the "stutter of form" as described in Craig Dworkin's essay of that title in the realm of contemporary classical music. Lachenmann's piece Pression serves as a starting point which leads me toward Sept Papillons, a piece for solo cello by Kaija Saariaho.

Zur 'Liminalität' der Musik Debussys und Griseys, in: Michael Kunkel (Hg.), Les espaces sonores. Stimmungen - Klanganalysen - spektrale Musiken, Saarbrücken: Pfau 2016, S. 99-112.

Der Begriff »Liminalität« (lat. limen = Grenze, Schwelle) wurde in den letzten Jahrzehnten in so unterschiedlichen Fachbereichen wie der Ethnologie oder der Literatur-und Medienwissenschaft diskutiert. Auch im Zusammenhang mit Neuer, insbesondere mikrotonaler Musik ist dieser Terminus relevant, geht das mikrotonale Komponieren doch häufig mit Grenz-und Schwellenphänomenen einher.

There is evidence to suggest that Grisey’s music of the 1970s and early 80s can be described by the paradigm of progressive metamorphosis. In the late 1980s, however – after Espaces Acoustiques – Grisey sustained a crisis which he tried to surmount through studies in psychology, ecology and linguistics. This lead to a gradual transformation of his musical language and a new approach which could be called the »archaeology of sense«. By trying to define Grisey’s late style, Dufourt refers to G. W. Leibniz who associated the beauty of nature with fissures and unexpected intervals, with a delight intermingling the species.

Both Gerard Grisey and his posthumous philosophical apologist Hugues Dufourt emphasize Grisey’s innovative approach to temporality. Surprisingly, a processive model for analyzing Grisey’s forms has not emerged. Theorists have shied away from modeling formal processes in Grisey’s music perhaps because the appropriate modeling conflicts with Grisey’s and Dufourt’s ideological pronouncements grounded in anti-quantitative polemics of French process philosopher Henri Bergson. Yet, resisting or overcoming Bergson’s, Grisey’s, and Dufourt’s limitations, to instead offer a mathematical modeling of Grisey’s music, we achieve a more ecological understanding of its distinctive processive temporality and holistic character.
Grisey’s Vortex Temporum presents a motif from Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe, developed through naturalistic interaction between difference and repetition, a conceptual pairing celebrated by Bergsonian philosopher Gilles Deleuze. The motif changes are modeled (“curve fitted”) with basic mathematical equations also known for modeling such natural phenomena as circadian rhythms, respiration, climate cycles, sound, and hydrodynamics, including the spiral motion of vortices. Specifically: (1) The motif’s shape is modeled as “harmonically” related sine wave oscillators, a smooth, subtly complex, naturalistic wave, in a 2-dimensional plane: a twirling motion. (2) The motif’s timings are modeled as a sum of sinewave oscillation, linear trend, and random noise, relating to the fluidly semi-predictable teleology of these repetitions. (3) The motif’s transpositions are modeled as an exponentially amplifying oscillator; this amplifying oscillator form is shared with Ligeti’s Violin Concerto (Mailman 2016), composed only four years earlier. Both works exhibit a wavelike trend of increasing volatility, which can also be visualized as a spiral or vortex.
VIDEO:  https://medias.ircam.fr/x439b59

Tekst pierwotnie opublikowany pod tytułem Autoportrait avec L’Itinéraire, [w:] „Le Revue Musicale”, no. 421-424 (1991), red. Cohen-Levinas Danielle. Przedruk [w:]Gérard Grisey, Écrits ou l’invention de la musique spectrale, red. Guy Lelong, Éditions MF, Paris 2008, s. 191–202.

Analyseversuch von Aspekten aus "Vortex temporum" von Gérard Grisey
Publikation:
MS, "Die Schwelle des Hörens: 'Liminales' Denken in Vortex temporum von Gérard Grisey", in: ÖMZ 6/1999, S.21ff
Siehe auch den Grisey-Teil in: "Zwei Blumen der reinen Stimmung im 20. Jahrhundert: Harry Partch und Gérard Grisey", in: Komposition als Kommunikation. Zur Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts, hrsg. von C. Floros etc., Peter Lang, Frankfurt 2001, S.369-389.

Zwei Kompositionsverfahren prägen den Ersten der Quatre Chants von Gérard Grisey. Zum einen arbeitet er mit der Assoziation und Dissoziation von Text und Gesangstimme. Zum anderen kombiniert er das Prinzip der linearen Entwicklung mit dem Prinzip des Auseinanderdriftens. Das Ganze ergibt eine komplexe Überlagerung von Verhältnissen und Prozessen, die zu einer Klimax und anschließend zu einem Bruch führt. Die Aspekte der Assoziation und Dissoziation und die Prinzipien der linearen Entwicklung und des Auseinanderdriftens zu erläutern, ist das Hauptanliegen dieses Artikels.

Sonographic analysis offers composers of spectral music a wealth of scientific data regarding the internal and temporal structure of sound. Starting from these observations various techniques of instrumental synthesis have been elaborated, including sonogram simulation, ring modulation, frequency modulation, etc. These represent the basis of the spectral compositions of the Seventies. The grounding elements of the spectral attitude are based on one hand on the continuity of the acoustic field (from sine wave through various forms of harmonic and inharmonic spectra towards white noise)  and, on the other, on the continuity of the field of durations (from periodicity to the statistical distribution). Considering these perceptive points of orientation, the composers organize various transformational processes and by so doing they articulate the global form. The concept of directionality, abandoned during the integral serialism practice, is now restored thanks to the trajectories of transformational processes which shape the sound material in its restless becoming. Handling these trajectories from both the compositional and the perceptive point of view and inspired by Stockhausen’s “Veränderungsgrad”, Grisey theorizes the concept of pre-audibility. It reflects the composers interest in the perceptive dimensions and in the role the difference plays in the processes of building both the local and macrostructural trajectories. The early phase spectral processes time’s arrow (Seventies and early Eighties) seems irreversible. However, the extreme slowness and predictability of sound becoming introduce some new challenges to composers. The concept of temporal scale is theorized and it acts as factor of new macroformal dynamics as well as new temporalities.

Today, the sources of electronic and mixed music produced in the XXth century by analog means have entered the digital documentary domain. Therefore, the theoretical reflection on the ethics of preservation, restoration and re-issue of audiovisual documents cannot ignore the models of communication engineering: encodeing and decoding, audio signal processing – also implemented in the World Wide Web today – are of paramount importance. After World War II, a new musical research was born within the context of acoustical and electro-acoustical communication systems and it found a privileged thread in the Theory of Information. In the world of electronic and mixed music the technological system is an integral part of the compositional project, and the audio tracks represent a ‘projection’ of the production project. Audio recordings deliver to the editor an essential evidence for reconstructing the technical and theoretical world of the composers, which is to say their pre-post-history. In this paper, the meta-conceptual role of Information and Communication Theory is historized and it becomes an integral part of a systemic method for the restitution of the electronic musical work. With a wide range of examples (including works by Edgard Varèse, Luigi Nono, Bruno Maderna, Gérard Grisey) we show peculiarities and issues of the critical editing of this repertoire.

The traditional history of sound is the history of musical instruments, the anatomy of vocal and hearing systems, musical gestures, well‐established theories in treatises and its written notation codes. Can we safely say that more than 140 years of sound recording have managed to transform this historical background? And to what extent did sound recording influence the future of music?

Este artigo busca investigar a poética de Gérard Grisey (1946-1998) e a estrutura composicional na obra Prologue (1976) para viola solo. Esta pesquisa apresenta não somente uma análise da obra contida na partitura publicada, mas também explora os manuscritos e rascunhos contidos nos arquivos da Paul Sacher Stiftung (Basiléia, Suíça) para o ciclo Les Espaces acoustiques e uma versão de Prologue com live-electronics.

Per affrontare la critica delle fonti della musica elettronica e mista si rende necessario lo sviluppo di nuovi paradigmi interpretativi. A causa della natura non deterministica dei sistemi audio analogici, siamo infatti in assenza di testi codificati e di un piano neutro su cui poggiare l'analisi. Di conseguenza, un metodo critico di stampo strutturalista diviene improponibile. Ma altrettanto improponibile è il modello comunicativo emittente → canale → ricevente, a causa delle limitazioni fondamentali cui è soggetto il passaggio dal sistema storico di registrazione audio a quello di ri-mediazione. Le composizioni elettroniche, anche quando sono apparentemente chiuse su nastro magnetico, sono frutto di relazioni vive e mutevoli all'interno di sistemi aperti che interagiscono a più livelli con il contesto. L’espressione 'Opere chiuse’, che dà il titolo al volume, propone pertanto una prospettiva concettuale che si riallaccia agli studi sui sistemi complessi e auto-organizzati e l’approdo alla prospettiva autopoietica giunge dopo una disamina delle posizioni epistemologiche percorse dagli studi musicali negli ultimi quarant’anni, che supportano paradigmi nei quali è profondamente diversa la considerazione del ruolo degli interpreti e degli ascoltatori di musica. Un nuovo approccio sistemico allo studio della musica elettronica è qui esemplificato dalle ricostruzioni storiografiche di Déserts di Edgard Varèse, di Spiritus intelligentiæ Sanctus di Ernst Krenek, di Jour, Contre-jour di Gérard Grisey e di Malo večno jezero di Vladan Radovanović.
Questo libro può suscitare non solo l’interesse degli studiosi di musica, ma anche l’attenzione dei filosofi; è frutto di un'analisi e di una critica esercitata su materiali musicali che lasciano poco spazio a esercizi retorici ma esigono invece una pluralità di competenze musicali e tecnico-scientifiche.