Spectral music... for the piano
Guillaume Grenier
idiom"... and I'm not having much success.
My starting point was Murail's "Territoires de l'oubli", which knocked
me off my feet when I first heard it (a recording by Roger Muraro which
I'm now looking for; since then, I've acquired Dominique My's version
of it).
Besides Murail's other works for the instrument ("Comme un oeil
suspendu et poli par le songe", "Estuaire", "Cloche d'adieu et un
sourire...", "La Mandragore" and an all-new one commissioned by Marilyn
Nonken, "Les Travaux et les Jours"; incidentally, I'm anxiouly awaiting
the release of her Murail integral), there doesn't seem to be much in
that field.
The other two big names in the French spectral manner -- Grisey and
Dufourt -- don't seem to have any works for piano solo. There are a
couple of Études by Michaël Levinas and a more recent piece called
"Anaglyphe", but from what I could gather from a small review, that
last piece doesn't seem to exploit the spectral approach.
There also seems to be some early pieces by Iancu Dumitrescu
("Diachronies" II & III, "Collages", "Spectres" [for prepared piano]).
That is pretty much all I've found. It seems that composers working
within the spectral paradigm tend to favor orchestral or chamber music.
And, I guess, the tempered nature of the keyboard probably seems
limiting to some of them.
I now have two questions to submit to the readers of this group:
1) Are there other spectral piano pieces I've forgotten? (I've excluded
works like Scelsi's and Messiaen's, which predate the usage of the term
"spectral" associated with the "Itinéraire" group but anticipate some
of their ideas.)
2) Is the spectral aesthetic in music still alive? I've seen/heard the
words "post-spectral" thrown around... What do they refer to? What are
the criteria used to define a piece as "spectral" or "post-spectral"?
Ideas/comments are anxiously anticipated.
--
g.
email: @renier-@ a t videotron-ca
(@=g; -=.)
MagmaSystems
has a CD of a piano concerto ("The Quest"), and also a disc of piano
sonatas.
TomD
> I'm trying to survey the works written for piano (solo) in a "spectral
> idiom"... and I'm not having much success.
>
> My starting point was Murail's "Territoires de l'oubli", which knocked
> me off my feet when I first heard it (a recording by Roger Muraro which
> I'm now looking for; since then, I've acquired Dominique My's version
> of it).
>
> Besides Murail's other works for the instrument ("Comme un oeil
> suspendu et poli par le songe", "Estuaire", "Cloche d'adieu et un
> sourire...", "La Mandragore" and an all-new one commissioned by Marilyn
> Nonken, "Les Travaux et les Jours"; incidentally, I'm anxiouly awaiting
> the release of her Murail integral), there doesn't seem to be much in
> that field.
>
> The other two big names in the French spectral manner -- Grisey and
> Dufourt -- don't seem to have any works for piano solo.
Hugues Dufourt *has* written for solo piano. A few years ago, I heard
Dominique My perform a piece in NYC. Don't recall the title,
unfortunately, but I remember not finding it "spectral" in approach.
My has recorded another Dufourt piece, "An schwager Kronos"
(definitely not the one I heard), about which I know nothing; details
at
Samuel Vriezen
> I'm trying to survey the works written for piano (solo) in a "spectral
> idiom"... and I'm not having much success.
>
> My starting point was Murail's "Territoires de l'oubli", which knocked
> me off my feet when I first heard it (a recording by Roger Muraro which
> I'm now looking for; since then, I've acquired Dominique My's version
> of it).
>
> Besides Murail's other works for the instrument ("Comme un oeil
> suspendu et poli par le songe", "Estuaire", "Cloche d'adieu et un
> sourire...", "La Mandragore" and an all-new one commissioned by Marilyn
> Nonken, "Les Travaux et les Jours"; incidentally, I'm anxiouly awaiting
> the release of her Murail integral), there doesn't seem to be much in
> that field.
>
> The other two big names in the French spectral manner -- Grisey and
> Dufourt -- don't seem to have any works for piano solo.
The Murail pieces are absolutely wonderful; we did a concert with
Marilyn Nonken at Tot en Met in Amsterdam and I was deeply impressed.
The composer in French spectralism who I find strongest, however, is
Horatiu Radulescu, who has written 5 piano sonatas. These (as far as I
know them) are stunning pieces.
Recently, a disc of three of them was released on CPO. I haven't heard
it yet, but I know that the performance on the discs is at some crucial
points highly inaccurate. It is not a disc that HR seems to support.
Apart from French spectralism, there's also a bit of an american
tradition that people hardly ever think of much for some reason. But I
suppose there must be a 'spectral' piano piece in James Tenney's
catalogue somewhere.
Finally, my friend Rozalie Hirs, who studied with Murail and with
Andriessen, has recently written a tryptich for piano solo which has
spectral elements called article 1 to 3.
--
samuel
concerten.free.fr
http://composers21.com/compdocs/vriezens.htm
TomD
> Apart from French spectralism, there's also a bit of an american
> tradition that people hardly ever think of much for some reason. But I
> suppose there must be a 'spectral' piano piece in James Tenney's
> catalogue somewhere.
I've only heard a couple of James Tenney pieces, but one is "Spectral
Canon for Conlon Nancarrow", recorded on the Cold Blue label (the
compilation CD, Cold Blue 008).
Mark Steven Brooks
elat...@aol.com (Mark Steven Brooks/Elaterium Music)
Jerry Kohl
> I'm not familiar with the term 'spectral music'. Could someone please explain?
> elat...@aol.com (Mark Steven Brooks/Elaterium Music)
A largely French school of composition, which came into existence in the
1970s. They use the spectrographic (or similar) analysis of a particular
timbre (or sometimes a small number of successive timbres) to formulate
the large-scale elements of an entire composition. The harmonic structure,
for example, may be derived from the changing overtone envelopes, while
rhythms may be derived from the vibrational relationships amongst those
overtones. Another tactic is to progress gradually from the model of one
spectral structure to another (e.g., muted trumpet to pizzicato double bass).
The method can be seen as a specialized extension of the ideas
Stockhausen developed in his article "...How Time Passes..." and in
compositions like Gruppen (1955-57), though the spectralists often
employ nonharmonic spectra as models (e.g., bells, gongs). Some of the
best-known composers of this school have already been mentioned in
this thread (Murail, Grisey, Radelescu, Dufourt), though the Finnish
composer Kaija Saariaho should also be mentioned as someone who
sometimes employs this technique, and the Mexican composer Julio
Estrada has indicated that something similar lies behind the structures
of some of his compositions. As far as I am aware, James Tenney
(who has been tentatively suggested) has never composed anything
along these lines, but I believe.
--
Jerry Kohl <jerom...@comcast.net>
"Légpárnás hajóm tele van angolnákkal."
Steve Layton
news:20040308005628...@mb-m21.aol.com...
> I'm not familiar with the term 'spectral music'. Could someone please
explain?
It's too late to start typing, but here's a quick excerpt from this page by
Rozalie Hirs (So weird! This is the first useful thing I found, and it turns
out to be the woman that Samuel mentioned earlier! Synchronicity...), that's
not too bad for starters:
http://www.rozalie.com/2A_essay_main.asp
"The second and the third approaches are generally discussed under the
category of Spectral Music, a term coined by Hugues Dufourt in the
mid-seventies, well after the first pieces had been written by Gérard Grisey
and Tristan Murail. The term describes an attitude towards composition that
sought to free itself from the discrete, cellular, sequential, linear and
combinatorial nature of the serialist aesthetic prevailing in Europe in the
fifties and the sixties. Rather, the spectral approach turned to the world
of sound itself: the scientific knowledge offered by the analysis of sound.
At first, only static sound analysis was available, resulting in the
frequency content of one single moment of sound. During the nineties, the
dynamic analysis of sound became possible, resulting in a time-dependent
spectrum of frequency components (partials). It is the application of this
new analysis technique that has inspired a whole new thinking on harmony and
timbre in related time processes. The acoustic model is literally
orchestrated through instrumental additive synthesis, a technique borrowed
from electronic music, where the different partials from the analysis are
designated to the different instruments in the score. Similarly, other
techniques from electronic music are applied to instrumental composition,
such as filtering, amplitude modulation, ring modulation, frequency
modulation, frequency multiplication (distortion) and frequency shifting.
These processes all concern themselves solely with frequency data, and are
only translated into musical notation at a final stage. Several works of
Tristan Murail and Gérard Grisey are discussed as representatives for these
techniques. Another spectral approach without the use of experimental data,
the mere calculation of frequencies and the use of the harmonic spectrum, is
represented by works of Claude Vivier and Horatiu Radulescu."
...........
And I did notice that this book:
Joshua Fineberg - "Spectral Music 1: History and Techniques"
is supposed to be published in April:
http://www.ecampus.com/bk_detail.asp?isbn=9057551314
Though interestingly it shows that "Spectral Music 2: Aesthetics and Music"
was supposedly already released last month!
This looks like the book version of this guy's Columbia dissertation from
1999.
--
Steve Layton
http://www.ampcast.com/stevelayton
For the sounds of music being made worldwide *today*
pay a visit to "NetNewMusic": www.netnewmusic.net
Samuel Vriezen
> As far as I am aware, James Tenney
> (who has been tentatively suggested) has never composed anything
> along these lines, but I believe.
Well, he definitely has pieces based on overtone series harmonic fields.
Jerry Kohl
> Jerry Kohl wrote:
>
> > As far as I am aware, James Tenney
> > (who has been tentatively suggested) has never composed anything
> > along these lines, but I believe.
>
> Well, he definitely has pieces based on overtone series harmonic fields.
Oh, certainly, though it is one thing to use harmonic fields *as* harmonic
fields, and quite another to project a timbral spectrum into rhythms and
large-scale form.
Scott Kurtz
Dufourt's "Saturne" is one haunting composition.
Ian Pace
(there are two other short piano pieces as well, Homage to Domenico
Scarlatti and The Origin). All are fabulous pieces - his piano concerto
'The Quest' also falls within these auspices. There is a movement from
Walter Zimmermann's 'Wanda Landowska's Verschwundene Instrumenten' which
uses a simple spectral group of pitches, together with rhythmic patterns
that give the impression of a type of 'spectral folk dance'!
Two composers who wouldn't necessarily be defined as 'spectral' but are
influenced by aspects of this movement are the Belgian Luc Brewaeys and the
Brit Julian Anderson. Both have works for piano (Brewaeys - Pyramids of
Siberia, Nobody's Perfect - Finnissy's Fifty, in between; Anderson - a
series of Etudes, can't remember how many have been completed to date).
Best,
Ian
Ryan Tanaka
I was wondering if there was any way to really be able to study and
research this composition method on my own, or are there elaborate
equipments and years of training to be able to utilize this...?
I've always been kind of interested in this idea.
Ryan
Steve Layton
"Ryan Tanaka" <yid...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:8db67b6f.04030...@posting.google.com...
> "Steve Layton" <dal...@speakeasy.net> wrote in message
news:<17SdnVZ9v8o...@speakeasy.net>...
>
> I was wondering if there was any way to really be able to study and
> research this composition method on my own, or are there elaborate
> equipments and years of training to be able to utilize this...?
>
> I've always been kind of interested in this idea.
>
> Ryan
Those two books I mentioned at the bottom of the post are the first books
I've seen on the subject (at least over here in the US). You could pick
those up, I suppose. The basic concepts aren't so difficult to grasp but
their application can be extremely varied. In some ways it's like "atonal"
or "granular synthesis"; it doesn't tell you so much *how* to compose, as it
does how to find what to compose *with*.
--
Steve Layton
http://www.ampcast.com/stevelayton
For the sounds of music being made worldwide *today*
pay a visit to "NetNewMusic": www.netnewmusic.net
Ryan Tanaka
> I've seen on the subject (at least over here in the US). You could pick
> those up, I suppose. The basic concepts aren't so difficult to grasp but
> their application can be extremely varied. In some ways it's like "atonal"
> or "granular synthesis"; it doesn't tell you so much *how* to compose, as it
> does how to find what to compose *with*.
>
> --
> Steve Layton
Does that book have like a "how to" guide attached to them? Lots of
theory books focus on the aesthetics of the music rather than the
method, and I'm mostly interested in the methology. Like what sorts
of software do they use to analyze the spectrums of frequencies? Can
these be easily obtained?
Ryan
Steve Layton
Well, the titles are less purely historical and do mention practice. I have
no idea, but I'd imagine that there'd have to be a fair amount of technical
description before he could begin to talk about general aesthetics. I doubt
very much you'll find a "How to Write Spectral Muisc" book, any more than
you will a "How to Write Minimal Music" or a "How to Write Indeterminate
Music" book. ;-) But there all kinds of books that discuss musical
acoustics, timbral spectrum and harmonics, resonance, the overtone series,
etc.
Jerry Kohl
It should also be pointed out that "software" doesn't generally enter into
the Spectral Music composers' work until relatively recently. The earlier
pieces were based on more traditional spectrographic/spectrogrammic
methods.
There are two articles (in English) of an analytical nature that might be
of interest, as well. One is "Introduction to the Pitch Organization of
French Spectral Music" by François Rose, in Perspectives of New
Music 34/2 (Summer 1996): 6-39. This focusses primarily on Grisey's
Partiels (1975), Modulations (1976-77) and Transitoires (1980-81),
and Murail's Gondwana (1980). The other article appeared in Tempo
magazine about a year later, but I'm afraid I can't recall the exact issue
or the author (Dalbavie? Hubertclaude?), but ISTR that this covered
some of the same pieces as Rose's article, and that the English was
rather badly translated out of the French.
Another article, "from the horse's mouth", so to speak, is Gérard Grisey,
"Tempus ex Machina: A Composer's Reflection on Musical Time",
Contemporary Music Review 2 (1987): 241-77.
There is also a 1996 interview with Grisey on the web, though it does
not go into any details of his composition technique:
<http://www.angelfire.com/music2/davidbundler/grisey.html>
Rod Stasick
your way:
"Acoustics, psychoacoustics and spectral music":
http://www.zainea.com/psymusic.htm
Rod
---
Now playing: Farida Mohammad Ali and the Iraqi Maqam Ensemble - Maqam
Rast (santur improvisation & instrumental Shouroq & djoza
improvisation)
Kurt
news:<070320041419317145%nos...@for.me>...
> I'm trying to survey the works written for piano (solo) in a "spectral
> idiom"... and I'm not having much success.
>
> My starting point was Murail's "Territoires de l'oubli", which knocked
> me off my feet when I first heard it (a recording by Roger Muraro which
> I'm now looking for;
FWIW -- It seems to be available at http://www.fnac.com . if you do a
search for Murail, it comes up. it's appended to a disc of Messiaen's
'Catalogue d'oiseaux Livre 3'.
k
Sonarrat
-Sonarrat.
Joe Adelaars
> Joshua Fineberg - "Spectral Music 1: History and Techniques"
> is supposed to be published in April: http://www.ecampus.com/bk_detail.asp?isbn=9057551314
>
> Though interestingly it shows that "Spectral Music 2: Aesthetics and Music"
> was supposedly already released last month!
Vols 1 and 2 (both edited) appeared in 2000 as journal issues, part of
vol 19 of Contemporary Music Review, published by Harwood Academic
Press, an imprint of Gordon and Breach (acquired by Taylor and Francis
-- gobble, gobble). TandF's web site doesn't list them as books, but
both vols do appear to have ISBNs, and the '04 pub dates suggest they're
being repackaged. I'll wander into the U of Toronto music library and
take a peek at them.
19/2 2000 Spectral Music: Techniques Joshua Fineberg (Edt)
http://bookmanager.com/pubstock/?isbn=9057551314 $23 US
19/3 2000 Spectral Music: Aesthetics and Music Joshua Fineberg (Edt)
http://bookmanager.com/pubstock/?isbn=9057551322
{BookManager's PubStock is a free tool for booksellers showing
distributor price and availability)
> This looks like the book version of this guy's Columbia dissertation
> from 1999.
No, they're edited vols.
Only the contents of vols 21 & 22 are listed at
http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com
(search using all words or exact phrase: contemporary music review)
Here is the index of journal issues:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/Leaflets/CMR_Issues.pdf
Contemporary Music Review Volume
1/1 1984 Musical Thought at IRCAM Tod Machover
1/2 1987 Listening 1 Joaquim Benitez, et al
2/1 1987 Music and psychology: a mutual regard Stephen McAdams
2/2 1988 Listening 2 Joaquim Benitez, et al
3/1 1989 Music, Mind and Structure Eric Clarke, Simon Emmerson
3/2 1989 4 1989 Music and the Cognitive Sciences Stephen McAdams, Irène
Deliège 5 1989 Music and Text Paul Driver, Rupert Christiansen
6/1 1991 Live Electronics Peter Nelson, Stephen Montague
6/2 1992 New Tonality Paul Moravec
7/1 1992 Contemporary Percussion: Performers’ Perspectives Bob Becker
7/2 1993 Time in Contemporary Musical Thought Jonathan D. Kramer
8/1 1993 Music, Society and Imagination in Contemporary France F-B Mâche
8/2 1994 Flute and Shakuhachi Jo Kondo, Joaquim Benitez
9 1993 Music and the Cognitive Sciences (1990) Ian Cross, Irène Deliège
10/1 1994 American Composers: the emerging generation David Froom
10/2 1994 Timbre Composition in Electroacoustic Music Simon Emmerson
11 1994 Reclaiming the Muse Sophie Fuller, Nicola LeFanu
12/1 1995 New Developments in Contemporary German Music Klaus-Michael
Hinz 12/2 1995 Contemporary Music and Religion Ivan Moody
13/1 1995 Aspects of Complexity in Recent British Music Tom Morgan
13/2 1996 Computer Music in Context Craig Harris
14/1-2 1996 Music and Mysticism (I) Maxwell Steer
14/3-4 1996 Music and Mysticism (II) Maxwell Steer
15 1996 A Poetry of Reality; Composing with Recorded Sound Katherine Norman
16/1-2 1996 American Women Composers Karin Pendle
16/3 1997 Musica Significans/1 Raymond Monelle
16/4 1997 Musica Significans/2 Raymond Monelle
17/1 1998 Musica Significans/3 Raymond Monelle
17/2 1998 Musica Significans/4 Raymond Monelle
17/3 1998 Musica Significans/5 Raymond Monelle
17/4 1998 Gagaku and Serialism: A Portrait of Matsudaira Yoritsune
Joaquim Benitez, Jo Kondo
18/1 1999 Luigi Nono: the suspended song Stephen Davismoon
18/2 1999 Luigi Nono: fragments and silence Stephen Davismoon
18/3 1999 Aesthetics of Live Electronic Music Marc Battier
18/4 2000 American Rock and the Classical Music Tradition John Covach,
Walter Everett
19/1 2000 Traditions, Institutions and American Popular Music John
Covach, Walter Everett
19/2 2000 Spectral Music: Techniques Joshua Fineberg
19/3 2000 Spectral Music: Aesthetics and Music Joshua Fineberg
19/4 2000 The Contemporary Harpsichord: a new revival Jane Chapman
20/1 2001 The Contemporary Harpsichord: new perspectives Jane Chapman
20/2-3 2001 Perspectives on Kurtág Rachel Beckles Wilson, Alan E.Willams
20/4 2001 Historicism in New American Music, 1980-1995 Robert Carl
21/1 2002 Performers on Performance Marilyn Nonken
21/2-3 2002 Xenakis Studies: In Memoriam James Harley
21/4 2003 Toru Takemitsu Memorial Edition Peter Burt
______
Cheers - Joe Adelaars, Toronto
Steve Layton
news:4053A303...@yahoo.ca...
> Book sleuthing:
Thanks, Joe, good information.
> > Steve Layton wrote:
> > This looks like the book version of this guy's Columbia dissertation
> > from 1999.
>
> No, they're edited vols.
I'd made the guess when I went to check out Feinberg on the web and found
this reference:
http://www.music.columbia.edu/dissertations/dissdef/Fineberg1999.html
Ryan Tanaka
Ahh, thank you. Those are interesting reads.
Lately I've been trying to do chordal arrangements based on the pitch
harmonics...but all my consonances have been turning into major chords
and all my dissonances have been 12 tone clusters. I thought it would
provide some more level of control like those "hyperconsonances"
Murail uses in his music..
Ryan
Scott Kurtz
these matters to some extent.
Sonarrat <myn...@nospam.hotmail> wrote in message
news:BC7776C4.232D%myn...@nospam.hotmail...
Scott Kurtz
and a book, generally in soft cover (like issues of Musical Quarterly used
to be).
> Deličge 5 1989 Music and Text Paul Driver, Rupert Christiansen
> 6/1 1991 Live Electronics Peter Nelson, Stephen Montague
> 6/2 1992 New Tonality Paul Moravec
> 7/1 1992 Contemporary Percussion: Performers’ Perspectives Bob Becker
> 7/2 1993 Time in Contemporary Musical Thought Jonathan D. Kramer
> 8/2 1994 Flute and Shakuhachi Jo Kondo, Joaquim Benitez