MSM CPP Survey EC

7. Spectralism
“We are musicians and our model is sound not literature, sound not mathematics,
sound not theatre, visual arts, quantum physics, geology, astrology or acupuncture.”
Gérard Grisey

Hugues Dufourt (*1943)

Le Deluge d’apres Poussin (2001)

Horatiu Radulescu (1942-2008)

Das Andere, Op. 49 (1984)

String Quartet No. 5, op.89 - “before the universe was born” (1995)

Gérard Grisey (1946-1998)

“I would tend to divide music very roughly into two categories. One is music that involves
declamation, rhetoric, language. A music of discourse. Berio and Boulez are in that
category -- just as Schoenberg and Berg have a way of saying things with sounds. The
second is music which is more a state of sound than a discourse. It's the difference
between Monteverdi, which mainly says things, and the music of Ockeghem, which says,
"This is the world." And in that category, you can put Xenakis, for instance. You can put a
large part of Stockhausen -- though he's very often both. And I belong to that also. I would
put myself in this group. Maybe I am both, I don't know. But I never think of music in terms
of declamation and rhetoric and language.” Interview, 20th-Century Music. March, 1996.

Partiels
— Prologue (1976) for solo viola
— Périodes (1974) for 7 musicians
— Partiels (1975) for 18 musicians
— Modulations (1977) for 33 musicians
— Transitoires (1981) for large orchestra
— Épilogue (1985) for 4 solo horns and large orchestra
MSM CPP Survey EC

Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012)

String Quartet No. 1 (1977)

Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco (1980)

Tristan Murail (*1947)

Gondwana (1980)

Terre d’ombre for orchestra (2004)

Claude Vivier (1948-1983)

Wo bist du Licht! for mezzo soprano, percussion, strings and tape (1981)

Per Nørgård (*1932)

Voyage into the Golden Screen (1968-69)

Magnus Lindberg (*1958)

Kraft (1983-85)
Violin Concerto (2006)

Marc-André Dalbavie (*1961)

On spectralism: “This music has determined my whole musical life.”

“As soon as I heard the first bars of [Grisey’s] Partiel, it appeared to me is following the
ambiguous sound object that opens the piece is both a chord and a timbre and that...
means there simultaneously is an electronic sound and a reference to classical
harmony. .. I have sought to reintegrate harmony in this new sound space."
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"A technique I've used a lot in the time I was composing Thresholds, is one that involves
spectraliser chords... I transcribed in the spectral world, chords that belonged to
traditional harmony… By integrating this capability to slide or swing from a timbre to a
chord, I gained the possibility moving through all harmonic spaces, including traditional
harmony " Marc-André Dalbavie, sound in all directions, pp. 63-64. Google Translate.

Concerto pour flûte (2006)

Melodia (2009)

“I started with vertical music and I have moved progressively towards horizontal music,”
is how he has put it. (A new chamber work, Melodia, which Dalbavie has described as
a “symbol of my evolution,” was premiered in New York in December.)

Other related composers:

Georg Friedrich Haas
Thierry Alla
Philippe Hurel
Kaija Saariaho
Gérard Pesson
Wolfgang von Schweinitz
Rozalie Hirs
Rand Stieger
James Tenney
John Chowning
Donnacha Dennehy
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