Spectralism

[Mandryka]

I just want a place where I and others can make random notes about this idea. I couldn't find another suitable thread, though obviously there are ones about Murail and others.

[Mandryka]

And here's the fist, a link to an interesting looking essay by Nonken about some pieces by Dufourt

https://music.arts.uci.edu/abauer/5.4/readings/oxfordhb-Nonken_Dufourt.pdf

It's from The Oxford Handbook of Spectral Music, which hasnt't been published yet as far as I can see.

[Mandryka]

And Jann Pasler's Dufourt essay -- on general access I think 

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7757/persnewmusi.49.2.0198


Also on general acces, Ben Jonston's keynote address to the ASUC, which makes some interesting comments about spectral ideas in Debussy

https://www.jstor.org/stable/833326

(Maybe these things aren't on general access, I'm getting them via Oxford University.)

[Mandryka]

A couple of notes after listening to Dufourt

1. You really need a good hifi for this. Accurate speakers! The music depends on nuances of sounds, and you need to be able to hear it.

2. One of his techniques is to create unity in a piece through pulse, and the pulse is marked out by punctuating the duration of the music with complex chords. This is what I hear in Le Déluge, Part I of Le Philosophe, l'Afrique d'après Tiepolo. And that reminds me very much of Feldman - in particular For Samuel Beckett.

[Mandryka]

A worth single which it's easy to miss

[Mandryka]

Le Cyprès Blanc is a piece for viola and orchestra. I must say I think Gérard Caussé's playing here is excellent and this may be a very good way in for someone looking to dip their toe into Dufourt's music.

[Mandryka]

2. One of his techniques is to create unity in a piece through pulse, and the pulse is marked out by punctuating the duration of the music with complex chords. This is what I hear in Le Déluge, Part I of Le Philosophe, l'Afrique d'après Tiepolo. And that reminds me very much of Feldman - in particular For Samuel Beckett.

And reminds me of Schoenberg's Farben -- maybe that's the daddy of this sort of pulse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up5UwkKybJw&ab_channel=greatclassicrecords

And Messiaen's Banquet Celeste -- the Schoenberg 1909 and the Messiean 1928

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTyvgKdlIZc&ab_channel=mrSymphonic

[Mandryka]

Gerard Grisey's Did you say spectral?


https://kupdf.net/download/grisey-did-you-say-spectral_5d2643e7e2b6f50a043bcd90_pdf

[Mandryka]

 


This seems to me very much in the same vein as Debussy's Pelleas. Same language, same spookiness. Is it more "spectral" than Debussy? If so, I can't hear it.

  I certainly would like to be invited to see it in the dress circle.

[Mandryka]

On a pris l'habitude de ranger le piano parmi les instruments de percussion. C'est sans doute parce qu'on s'est trop laissé influencer par une certaine image du piano, romantique, impressionniste, image que l'on voulait détruire.

Au lieu de considérer le piano comme un simple instrument de percussion (des marteaux frappant des cordes). Territoire de l'oubli met l'accent sur son aspect le plus spécifique : celui d'un ensemble de cordes mises en vibration par résonance sympathique ou par action directe des marteaux.

Aussi la pédale est-elle enfoncée dès le début de la partition, et tient–elle jusqu'à la fin sans jamais être relevée. Signe que la pièce est écrite pour les résonances et non pour les attaques, prises comme un phénomène inévitable, mais secondaire, comme des cicatrices du continu. Les complexes harmoniques qui en résultent sont en évolution très lente et oscillent de structures simples et claires à des complexes beaucoup plus chargés, noircis. Les hauteurs sont choisies en fonction des résonances naturelles du piano, qu'elles renforcent ou contrarient selon le sens de l'évolution (vers plus de simplicité ou vers plus de complexité) à un moment donné. Certaines libertés de tempo ou de répétitions de fragments permettent au pianiste de tenir compte des phénomènes de résonance effective du piano sur lequel il joue.


Les rythmes revêtent des formes « sinusoïdales » (accel-rall-accel...), se désorganisent et se recondensent sans cesse, avec un attrait particulier pour le rythme de « cœur » (jambé ou quasi régulier), le tempo étant quant à lui totalement instable.


Enfin, des effets d'écho jalonnent toute la partition. L'interprète devra ainsi souvent veiller à contrôler l'intensité de nombreux plans superposés, en même temps que les évolutions indépendantes des dynamiques, du timbre, du tempo.

La pièce est dédiée à Michaël Levinas, qui en a assuré la création à Rome (Accademia Filarmonica, 22 mai 78) et beaucoup d'autres exécutions par la suite.

Murail's introduction to Territoires d'oubli -- which seems to me a clear expression of the ideas which motivated the so-called, self-called, spectralists in Paris in the late 1970s.

[Mandryka]

And here's Murail's earlier Comme un oeuil suspendu et poli par le songe (pretentions title!) -- comparison with Territoires is helpful to see the difference between this old (Messiaen inspired) way of thinking and the later spectral one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyNmATgL7Cw&ab_channel=MireiaVendrell

[Florestan]

On a pris l'habitude de ranger le piano parmi les instruments de percussion. C'est sans doute parce qu'on s'est trop laissé influencer par une certaine image du piano, romantique, impressionniste, image que l'on voulait détruire.

I beg your pardon, Mr. Murail? Which Romantic composer ever treated the piano as a percussion instrument? Go ahead, name one.

[Mandryka]

And here's Dufourt's tract Pierre Boulez, musicien de l'ère industrielle where he pretty clearly stakes his case as a musician of his time -- as opposed to Boulez, who was a musician of his time.


http://articles.ircam.fr/textes/Dufourt86a/

[Mandryka]

I beg your pardon, Mr. Murail? Which Romantic composer ever treated the piano as a percussion instrument? Go ahead, name one.

Luddy van B

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-PuqndNGV4&ab_channel=IlaryRhineKlange

[Florestan]

Luddy van B

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-PuqndNGV4&ab_channel=IlaryRhineKlange

This is not Romantic music.

[Mandryka]

This is not Romantic music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifGHHAWmkIw&ab_channel=NorfolkChamberMusicFestival

[Florestan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifGHHAWmkIw&ab_channel=NorfolkChamberMusicFestival

This is not Romantic music either.

[Mandryka]

Liszt

[Florestan]

Liszt

I'm surprised you haven't come up with him from the beginning.

Yes, there are (many) pieces of him which are quite percussive, but for every such piece there is at least a lyrical, cantabile one --- and even many of the percussive ones have lyrical, cantabile sections.

No, really, Romanticism was the Golden Age of the singing piano: Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Grieg, Faure, Tchaikovsky, Lyadov, Arensky, Rachmaninoff, to name just a few of the greats. Murail's claim that they used piano as a percussion instrument is extremely outlandish.

[Karl Henning]

Liszt

A classic! My introduction to Liszt, indeed.