Eric Humbertclaude

to Alain Neveux

The Challenge of Tristan Murail's Work

Éric Humbertclaude
humbertc@club-internet.fr

translated from the French by Jacqueline Rose

I. The Work of Tristan Murail from 1975 to

1985:
"Trans-scrire"
❍ Models that simulate electronic music
processes
❍ Models based on spectral simulation
❍ Models that simulate a pulsation process
II. Tablature, readapted
III. What lies Ahead

What is the specificity of Murail's works? It is to have invented a sort of

musical time, that while being irreversible and nostalgic, exists before the
score is composed; a time without beginning, in the process of being
constructed. Murail's music : an aeolian harp?
This innovation, originating in France between 1975 and 1985, will perhaps
create a snarl in musical history. Here is why.

I
The Work of Tristan Murail from 1975 to 1985:
"Trans-scrire"

Between 1975 and 1985, Tristan Murail (1947 - ) laid the foundations for a

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style of musical notation no longer derived from the symbolization of

instrumental figures, which had, under Boulez's influence, reached
spectacular heights.
During a conference held at IRCAM in April 1985, Murail distributed the
following summary-program:

A Brief Personal Itinerary Concerning Spectral Composition

Initial experiences with spectra (1973-1977)
❍ The harmonic spectrum as a point of departure (Grisey: Périodes,
Partiels , Murail: Sables)
❍ Analogies between standard electronic techniques and the spectral
sphere: ring modulation, initial frequency calculation (Grisey: Partiels,
Modulations , Murail: Territoires de l'Oubli, Ethers )
❍The era of the pocket calculator
Systematization of spectral calculations (1978-1980)
❍ The systematic application of ring modulation for an entire work (Les
Courants de l'Espace )
The use of frequency modulation as a spectral model (Gondwana )
❍
❍ The era of the pocket computer and the PDP-10
Formalization and computerization (1980- 1984)
❍ Generalization of the spectral idea; the use of functions to define note
values and frequencies
Non-linear spectra
❍
❍ The era of the graphic screen and the personal computer
Toward a true workstation for the composer (1985 - )
❍ Orchestral simulation
❍ Toward a treatise on computerized orchestration?
❍ The era of home synthesis

Once he began writing music, Murail, much like György Ligeti, endorsed a
way of listening that was global but which avoided being "probabilistic".
He designated composers Olivier Messiaen and Giacinto Scelsi as sources
of inspiration. However, his pursuit of a "role model" disappeared with his
first significant work Mémoire/Erosion(1975-1976), in favor of the
"trans-scription" of dynamic acoustic phenomena.
"Trans-scription", by all means! Henceforth, composition would consist of
simulating the psychoacoustic properties of timbre, such as fusion and
fission, through the use of suitable algorithms, and then making them
audible by choosing the instrument best corresponding to this or that
psychoacoustic characteristic. By grasping easily identifiable procedures
exposed during a work, (such as the delay and treatment process in
Mémoire/Erosion or the bell sounds in Gondwana ), the listener identifies
a group of acoustic forms and comprehends their internal dynamic and
evolution as the singularity of style.

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These forms will be called perception models. A model implies the notion
of analogy and must satisfy criteria whose choice depends on the intended
result. The ensuing object does not render all of the model's possibilities
and responds to only a limited number of correlations, otherwise, both
model and object would be identical. On the one hand, using a model
allows noticeable data from a given object to be formalized inductively,
and on the other hand, grants it a prospective quality which incites bringing
apparently different models together.
Murail's works, from the decade being considered, contain perception
models falling into two general categories: models using simulation, and
models using flexion. Since the composer's use of flexion models is limited
( see part IX of Désintégrations , or pages 42-43 of Time and Again ), this
article will concentrate on only simulation models, and more precisely,
with archetypes of this sort.

1
Models that simulate electronic music processes
The following works are based on the imitation of procedures analogically
exported from electronic music technology.(1)

Mémoire/Erosion (1975-1976), for horn and nine instruments, simulates

the delay and treatment process:
"The solo horn produces sounds which will be 'recorded' by a purely
imaginary setup. As in the case of electronic sampling, each phrase
played by the horn will be heard again, repeated after a certain period of
time. The other instruments obviously provide the replay. However, the
original phrase or sound will never be repeated as is. With each
repetition, the erosion process enters into action, so while the original
structures derived from the horn solo are being destroyed, new structures
are progressively being constructed. These will then also be subjected to
the erosion process, and so forth. Many types of erosion are at work in
Mémoire/Erosion : timbral erosion, smoothing or rounding of edges,
proliferation, interference. (...) Each of the horn's interventions can be
compared to a planted seed that germinates and develops, but is
overcome by entropy. By the end of the score, all that remains is white
noise, complete disorder, and total lack of differentiation."(2)

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Territoires de l'oubli (1975-1976), for piano, thoroughly exploits the echo

process:
"Take the phenomenon of echo. Considering that a normal echo repeats
steadily and identically - which is not of great interest - it is possible to
imagine a type of echo, which, for example, slows down through each
consecutive repetition, and at the same time modifies the repeated object
according to certain rules. The following example shows a sound (the
note C) which is subjected to this type of imaginary echo. In this case,
the harmonics of C appear progressively and are lowered an octave with
each repetition, to produce increasingly complex timbre-chords (this is
the opposite of a natural echo, which tends on the contrary, to filter)."(3)

Ethers (1978), for six instruments and ad libitum electronic setup, develops
various techniques of filtering that follow the phasing process.
"A person can also be inspired by the process called 'phasing', which
produces a sort of shifting filter. Translated into instrumental writing, this
process generates internal movements in the harmonic mass; a manner of
sweeping through all of the frequencies. I used it particularly in Ethers."
(4)

Treize couleurs du Soleil Couchant (1978), for five instruments and

electronics, owes its whole harmonic structure to the ring modulation
process.
" This type of process can be put into general use to organize a passage,
or even an entire score with a system that creates successive pitches.
Formulated in this way, the laws of harmonic progression will easily
encompass all categories of complex, intermediary or unstable sounds,
etc. ... obliging theses sounds to be used. The total structural form of
Treize couleurs du Soleil Couchant and certain passages of Partiels by
Gérard Grisey are based on diagrams of this type.

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The sound generator (a) creates its own harmonics (by passing through
an intermediate stage (a') where the timbre breaks down), harmonic 1
creates its own harmonic (c). The sounds (c) and (d) react on each other
as in a ring modulator, making difference ( ) or sum tones ( ) audible;
( ) then serves as a sound generator, etc. ..."(5)

2
Models based on spectral simulation
Spectral simulation first appears with Gondwana (1980), for large
orchestra. It consists of reproducing specific aspects of a "natural" spectrum
(derived from the acoustic analysis of instrumental timbres) or an
"artificial" spectrum (derived from frequency algorithms). The spectrum's
internal make-up is based on theories of differential fields and the
superimposition of multiple components interacting between themselves,
which force the composer to write for a sizable orchestra and to use specific
instruments.
Two examples reveal how the "mysteries of the sound spectrum" are
simulated:
● Gondwana , in which Murail simulates natural spectra (the sounds of
bells and trumpets) which link together or are derived from each
other,
● Time and Again (1985), in which a "machine" (the DX7 synthesizer)
triggers the creation of a set of artificial spectra played by the
orchestra.

Simulating natural spectra

In the Eighties, many composers were fascinated by the sound of bells; this
being the first non periodical complex timbre to be precisely reproduced
(cf. Mortuos plango, Vivos voco (1980), for tape composed by Jonathan
Harvey).
A bell's tone, even though perceived in time as a distinct and unmistakable
timbre, is very difficult to hear with regards to a specific pitch; it causes a
large number of partials to vibrate, which are not whole multiples of the
reference frequency. Such a sound is called an "inharmonic", as opposed to
a "harmonic" sound where all the partials are whole multiples of the
fundamental. These sounds are unstable at a fixed and defined pitch,

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because the perceived pitches vary greatly from one hearing to the next. It
is however possible to "experience" an impression of pitch due to what the
ear assigns as a "mean pitch" (this not necessarily being the lowest
frequency).
The timbre of a bell is determined by the shape of its spectral sound
envelope, the model being: a short attack followed by an exponential decay.
The envelope controls frequency durations and the amplitude ratios
imposed on the partials. The ear detects and easily recognizes the shape of
an envelope; if the outline changes in the course of time, the timbre will be
perceived differently. Since bell sounds are non periodical, the acoustic
cycles of each partial will not coincide in time, and their respective periods
will be constantly out of phase. Murail used this psychoacoustic fact to
compose Gondwana : joining two inharmonics makes perception
unpredictable, and moreover, uncontrollable.
The first section of Gondwana is based on the transmutation of an
inharmonic (simulated bell spectrum) into a harmonic (simulated trumpet
spectrum), while the strings successively play twelve different types of
envelopes that have been enhanced with subtle accelerandi and
ritardandi. With each hearing, the ear attributes a different pitch sensation
to this passage, just as for a bell, always choosing a unique trajectory
irreducible with the previous one. This remained to be proven!

Simulating artificial spectra

During the Eighties, the DX7 was the most famous of all numerical
synthesizers. It had the advantage of being able to create a multitude of
complex harmonic or inharmonic sounds, impossible to produce with an
analog synthesizer. Each user could elaborate a "personal" sound with a
finely controlled level of inharmonicity. Murail, like so many other
composers, discovered that this instrument enriched spectral material. He
could "interpolate" timbres without resorting to manipulating technology
that was difficult to access (such as the IRCAM computers).
In Time and again , the DX7 is used for specifically structural purposes,
treating the orchestra with a dual function: "amplifier" and "prism".

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Section C of the work begins with an amplification relationship. The DX7

plays the partials contained in the timbre of its own spectrum (inharmonic)
while the piano and the other orchestral instruments enrich this spectrum
with approximate partials belonging either to this spectrum, or to the
potential fundamentals which would be composed by the DX7. Each note
on the DX7 keyboard is orchestrated with a specific instrumental color.

At the end of section C, the DX7 produces spectral supports, while the
orchestra diffracts the partials of the resulting spectra by using a filtering
process or a defective doubling process. Like a prism, the orchestra
deviates and breaks down the partials of each spectrum created by the DX7.
The effect is particularly striking.

3
Models that simulate a pulsation process
Simulating a pulsation process, implies looking for immediate emotional
stimulation. This simulation, which is present in almost all of Murail's
works, is produced when numerous qualifying factors converge, and only
one resultant emerges, which itself is the result of temporal relationships
between sound events and the energy that produces them. Two aspects of
this sort of simulation will be explored: simulating
accelerando/ritardando and the simulation of a spectral collision in
Désintégrations (1982-1983) for tape and ensemble.

Simulating "accelerando/ritardando"
When Murail writes an accelerando or a ritardando, he does not organize
the sound events according to an arithmetical progression. His only concern
is the representation of a logarithmic system that translates durations into
real time perception. In this way, he transforms this information's usual
function. See, for example, the three pieces in the cycle Artisanat furieux
from Boulez's Marteau sans Maître , which present every conceivable
manner of fluctuating tempo:

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● Avant l'Artisanat is written with a fixed metronome marking that is

constantly being inflected by the indications poco ritardando and
presser.
● L'Artisanat furieux is based on three tempi with irrational
arithmetical relationships. Their organization creates a
quasi-permanent mobility of the time flow, even though the change
from one tempo to another is abrupt.
● Après l'Artisanat , combines the techniques from the two preceding
pieces.
In this cycle, Boulez composes "tempo dynamics". Oscillating between
metronomic but wonderfully flexible speeds (the rhythm supervises the
tempo), durations are perceived with reference to the relationships found
between short and long note values. Conversely, Murail lets us hear the
relationships between impulses so clearly, that duration is actually
perceived as a continuum of events (one reference, among others: the
ritardando at letter E in Gondwana ).
When Murail superimposes an accelerando and a ritardando by making
dynamic contours confront each other (see letter I in Ethers, for flute and
five instruments), the listener perceives an auditory illusion dear to
Jean-Claude Risset: the "paradoxical rhythm" of an overall pulsation
becoming increasingly rapid while at the same time slowing down.

Simulating a spectral collision

In the first section of Désintégrations , a spectral collision is simulated
when two spectra, whose fundamentals are a minor third apart, fuse to
obtain a resultant spectrum that sounds like a bell. Murail makes them pass
from one to another, like an irregular pendulum, in non-linear time ratios.(6)
The spectra are filtered differently each time.(7) The listener, captivated by
the swing between spectra, is caught constantly waiting for the fusion,
while at the same time sensing that it is imminent. The tension reaches its
peak when Murail perturbs the perception of organized durations with a
logarithmic ratio used to simulate accelerando/ritardando.

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II
Tablature, readapted

1
Pieces composed by Murail between 1975 (Mémoire/Erosion ) and 1985
(Time and Again ) result from the work of sampling orchestrated spectra.
They do not contain a referential spectrum, and in addition, are written with
numerous models that are occasionally combined. From time to time,
Murail lets fragmented models be heard during the same piece, but in any
case, a single model never suffices.
"All procedures have direction and meaning, or even significance, that
allow the listener to sense that he is being taken somewhere, and that
there is someone in the driver's seat. Vectoring the musical discourse
inevitably creates sensations of tension and release, of advancement or of
stagnation, and plays on the comfort of the expected and the pleasure of
surprise, on the phenomena of thresholds, or, on the reversal of insidious
trends, which creates the dynamism of discourse; in a nutshell, that
which, beyond writing styles and styles in general, and beyond
superficial revolutions and sterile arguments, directly summons the
mental schemata of the occidental listener."(8)
How does perception find its way through Murail's music? Since the
composer has defined a dialectic system of tension/release, or rather
"inhalation/exhalation", each piece wavers constantly between groups of
one-to-one relationships of the sort: sound/noise, harmonic/inharmonic,
recurring/non recurring, static/dynamic, that are analog to the natural
evolution and vicissitudes of a sound's life. Through these relationships
(real two-dimensional references for the listener) it is possible to situate the
perception models' development at any moment. When defined within the
immediacy of hearing, these relationships enable a more or less
rudimentary syntax to be established for the works, based on the fact that:
a) The composer uses sound to define a typology for perception:
This sound, through spectral sensitivity, can easily be detected and
controlled directly by the ear; the algorithms (most of which come
from techniques of sound synthesis) enable frequency units to
self-generate with both a global (constitution of harmonics and
inharmonics) and local perspective (formants, sum tones, difference
tones, and folding frequencies in the case of frequency

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modulation)(9). This explains why it is not necessary to resort to

other types of formalization, since each instrument is chosen only for
a particular specificity, with regards to what the perception model
must render audible.
b) Tablature stores the transcription of sound:
Tablature is a notational system midway between a program, which
records a list of mechanical operations to be accomplished, and an
actual score, which uses a group of symbols to permit a sound event
to be represented by various signs. Tablature is characterized by the
practical spirit of the instructions it contains, these being resumed by
concrete indications of manipulation, most often directly accessible
to the instrumentalist; which is why tablature does not possess the
universal character of symbolic notation.(10)When compared to a
score, tablature does not embody the composer's actual intention.
Thus, it is impossible when reading a score by Murail, to imagine
what will actually be heard. As an intermediate process between the
composer's intuition and what the interpreter produces, tablature is a
set of instructions which has the advantage of immediacy, while at
the same time superbly ignoring certain concepts. (Founding an
aesthetic on sound matter comes down to conceiving musical time as
the object of what the timbre's internal nature carries within as latent
duration.)

2
The "trans-scription" of a model, is an immutable writing process; that is to
say, the choice of a simulation and the description of its psychoacoustic
characteristics which can be formalized as:
a) finding a "logic of expression" which lets the expected simulation
develop while actually integrating a series of imposed constraints,
b) creating a model in which we recognize the initial data system.
"To trans-scribe" means writing a "program" or set of instructions that
allows a given series of operations to be carried out. Once the material has
been chosen, the composer creates a network of transformations on the
"interior and exterior" of each model, making its structure vary by rules
specific to that model. Most of these rules are based on elementary acoustic
laws which instruments put into practice.
A model consists of an outline (produced by the interaction between
envelopes and temporal functions) and of dynamic spectral components.
This polymorphous property will be, in many respects, illustrated by the

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comparative study of all the ritardandi in Murail's works - from the

ritardando in Tellur (1977), for guitar, to the ritardandi in Time and
again (1985), for large orchestra. The same is true for the
delay-transformation process in Mémoire/Erosion : Changing the material
and/or the instrumentation will not significantly alter the work. A model
represents the result of a correlation, in which the outline's autonomy
can be noted in relation to the sound material.
During his first ten years of composition, Murail was looking for just this:
the form of a type of perception drawing its resources from only the
"enthusiasm to create".

3
How does innovation suddenly appear in musical composition?(11) It is no
doubt related to a perception code dating from a specific period, allowing
an inspired creator to understand how to define a particular function when
confronted by something unprecedented. Though radical innovation is
impossible, it is not necessary to appropriate the nostalgia for a work or
tradition from which the creator cannot be detached. Who has not one day
desired to be the genius author of a previously written score?
By reconsidering the relationship systems between sound events in a work,
through organizing sound material in a way that overthrows commonly
held compositional ideas, and by putting aside the concept of thematic
figures when writing a work, Murail proposed a new relationship to
musical time based on the association of technological gestures with
spectral sensitivity, which integrates each instrument into a work's genesis,
because the choice of instruments is based not only on acoustic pleasure (in
contrast to Boulez who wrote only for the instruments that he was fond of),
but also on submission to the particularities of writing with perception
models (for example: the orchestration of a spectral formant will require a
trumpet or a flute, depending on the instrument's level of harmonicity or
inharmonicity).
A final evaluation will of course be made someday, but that is not the
question. With absolute specificity, Murail has, through the processes
belonging to his first decade of creation, dared to relentlessly "trans-scribe"
the spectrum while only slightly evading traditional rules of composition.
But, that is not all. According to Prigogine, "time has neither beginning nor
end", "it precedes even the birth of our universe".(12) Is it not here that we
find the fundamental intuition which drastically differentiates the
propositions made by Murail from those of Boulez? Irreversible and
nostalgic, time exists before a work's composition, and is not consubstantial

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to it, due to the anteriority of the perception models. In a work by Murail,

an instrument's timbre is the "trans-scription" of the sound material, and the
absolute of notation which, for the interpreter and the author, becomes THE
finality of a work.
This is the challenge of tablature, because here, the future is not given, it
becomes.

III
What lies Ahead

After Time and again (1985), Murail composed Les sept paroles du Christ
en croix (1986-1989), Vues aériennes (1988), and Allégories (1989); as
many works dedicated to different instrumental ensembles, as responding
to singular aesthetic stakes, but all the while maintaining the specificity of
instrumental timbre and tablature as compositional absolutes.
"And Serendib (1991-1992)?And L'esprit des dunes (1993-1994)? Will
you smirch them as well with a new quest?", retorted someone to me, while
winking an eye. "Hasn't Murail, with Time and again , taken the decisive
step toward an opening of his musical language, which takes him away
from his former writing techniques?"
In 1996, twenty years after composing Mémoire/Erosion , Murail explains
his work in this way:
"What are your principal compositional preoccupations at present?"

"I am interested in what I call complex musical objects. This study began
with Allegories (1989), in which everything is derived from the structure
of a musical gesture exposed at the opening of the work: its spectral
envelope, and actual rhythmical implications and textures were
expanded, compressed and contorted in various ways throughout the
piece. Serendib (1991-1992), which was constructed from a sequence of
five waves with variable lengths, is another example. I looked for a
means of stretching and contorting these waves, while still maintaining a
coherent relationship between the transformations and the initial forms. I
even tried to reproduce this process to construct the overall form, but that
idea proved to be only partially feasible, since time obeys its own rules,
which are not geometric. In L'esprit des Dunes (1993-1994), I applied
this method to real instrumental sounds, among others "khöömi" singing

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from Mongolia, and the sound of a Mongolian jew's harp, and I thus
obtained motives which helped to elaborate the microforms as well as the
spectral content of the piece and all of the melodic outlines. Next, I asked
the computer to analyze spectra with various degrees of similarity or
dissimilarity, and to invent ways of connecting the different parameters
within the successive spectra. The computer proposed many possible
solutions to obtain these types of transformation, among which I selected
those which seemed most easily exploitable.

"I took this idea even further in Le Partage des eaux (1995-1996), a
piece for large orchestra which I have recently finished, that I based on
the sound analysis of a wave breaking against the shore. Thanks to the
program 'Audioscript', (made at IRCAM for Macintosh) which I have at
my home, I analyzed the minutest details of the first seconds of the
wave's sound, and broke this sound down into some forty or fifty
successive segments. The first step then consisted of eliminating all of
the weakest components that did not play a fundamental role in the
sound, and then selecting those of the fifty samples which seemed most
interesting to me; in this case, the first eight. Their assemblage
constitutes a very unusual musical object, which places itself beyond any
notion of harmonicity or inharmonicity: the structure, extremely rich and
dense, is truly chaotic. Next, I orchestrated this object in the most direct
manner possible, principally using the fluidity of the flute and the
clarinets to reconstruct the core of the analyzed sound, which I colored
with the orchestra's highest instruments (piccolos, violin harmonics,
piano, etc.), before gradually contorting it, while still remaining faithful
to the initial orchestration, and introducing increasingly varied
orchestrations as the distortion augmented. I particularly used certain
polyphonic functions from 'Patchwork', employing functions that I had
myself programmed, to conceive and develop several simultaneous levels
of transformation and distortion carried out at different speeds. I also
used a technique of virtual vocoding, which enabled me to obtain a
hybrid timbre by applying the wave's chaotic sound structure to various
types of inharmonic or harmonic spectra.

"This way of working has the advantage of teaching a person to think of

the sounds from a different point of view than that of a composer: from
now on, we will no longer be confronted by lists of simple static
frequencies, as was the case about ten years ago. We work with
completely structured objects, truly multidimensional, which
consequently make the work of composition much more stimulating,
more passionate."(13)
Thus, Murail goes further, but subtly, without renewing his original
intuition; for these "complex musical objects", developed through advances
in the computer realm, are the technological prolongation of the spectrum
principle. On the other hand, they make a clean cut with the past in their
way of implementing the capacity to dictate the manner in which the
composer must describe them and the terms of their intelligibility. More
radical than the spectrum, this sort of object permits composition, that no
longer flirts with a creative context having a deterministic connotation ("we
will no longer be confronted by lists of simple static frequencies, as was the
case about ten years ago"). Here, creative activity is resolutely probabilistic
in construction; the model generates sound material that is not more

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definite, but is however feasible and irreversible (an illustration: Le partage

des eaux ). It remains to be seen, whether in the next pieces by Murail,
these objects will be capable of providing the expected "behavior" and
results, according to the situations in which the composer stages them. In
any case, Murail remains optimistic; he has given up nothing and yet
continues to evolve. In addition, his work is inspired by of one of the most
promising theories of physics belonging to this fin du siècle, that of
Prigogine. (In the simplest terms, processes of unbalance create dissipative
self-organization, from which a fundamentally oriented, but not essentially
phenomenological time emerges).(14)
Prigogine: "macroscopic irreversibility is the expression of aleatory
characteristics on the microscopic level".(15)
In fact, the only thing that matters to me in Murail's music, is the singularity
that, because the work as a whole does not create its own time, it never
ceases conversing with the global time that enables it to be heard.

Murail's, is a music with indistinct boundaries. Does a work actually begin

(see the introduction to Ethers )? When does the work end, if at the last
audible note one has the impression that an almost infinite number of
possible extensions still exist (see the end of Désintégrations )? In fact,
Murail's music makes me think of an aeolian harp in action. The aeolian
harp is the only "instrument" whose "music" is totally implicated in the
present.(16) Wind, ever changing and dependent on aleatory phenomena, is
the unstable and irreversible source, that passing through the harp, makes it
sound by causing its cord's (or tube's) harmonics and partials to resonate.
The same wind passing through the same harp at a later time or passing
through different harp placed in another location, will sound otherwise. The
wind, is what I consider musical time in Murail's music (the time being
independent from the piece's form), and the harp, the musical
composition.(17)
As a result, isn't the performer left feeling condemned to fulfill his role in a
reductive manner, having only "to refine his sound" (though such an
operation can prove itself to be difficult, as in Ethers for example)? In
Murail's music, the periods of pulsation are large, and blend into the
model's overall movement without allowing the performer to intervene, and
even if the performer shifted some element of the dialog slightly, nothing
fundamental would change for the listener. It is not that Murail's music
repudiates the use of rubato, it makes rubato rather permanent, and this is
what irritates the performer: having the rubato taken out of his competence,
and escaping him!(18) In fact, the specific characteristic of rubato, in its

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traditional usage, is that of not being written, because its strength is

precisely to permit constant osmosis between a piece's notation and the
performer's fleeting gesture.
The moment is approaching when it will basically no longer be possible to
compose as has been done for so long.

Notes
1. (Back to text) After working on spectral simulation, Murail
abandoned this type of imitation, probably as being too basic despite
the discovery of extraordinary sounds and shimmering forms.

2. (Back to text) Tristan Murail, La Révolution des Sons Complexes ,

"Darmstädter Beiträge" (Mainz: Schott,1980), pp. 81-82.

3. (Back to text) Ibid., pp. 82-83.

4. (Back to text) Ibid., p. 84.

5. (Back to text) Ibid.; p. 85.

6. (Back to text) For the time curve, see Spectres et Lutins,

"Därmstädter Beiträge", (Mainz:Schott,1982).

7. (Back to text) Elliot Carter had already used this collision

phenomenon in the introduction to the Double Concerto (1961), for
harpsichord and piano, but with radically different material than that
used in Désintégrations.

8. (Back to text) Tristan Murail, "Questions de Cible", Entretemps,

(Paris, 1989) No. 8, p. 157.

9. (Back to text) Concerning the origins of folding frequencies, see:

Murail, Spectres et Lutins.

10. (Back to text) Thus, when tablature appeared in history, during the
XVI century with the birth of instrumental music, its notational

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system permitted musicians to use instruments without knowing how

to read notes.

11. (Back to text) I wrote the bulk of this work in an earlier version. see
Eric Humbertclaude, "Le reflet d'une oreille", Images du XXème
siècle (Paris: Papiers/Sacem, 1986), pp. 62-69.

12. (Back to text) See Ilya Prigogine, La fin des certitudes, (Paris: Odile
Jacob, 1996), pp. 193-215.

13. (Back to text) Tristan Murail (an excerpt from an interview with
Julian Anderson, for CD linernotes, ADES, Paris, #205 212, 1996,
pp. 41-45).

14. (Back to text) As a matter of interest concerning the transfer of

scientific concepts into the human sciences, see the well known
example of Kant's application of Newton's laws in the development
of his philosophy (Kant, Essai pour introduire en philosophie le
concept de grandeur négative, Paris: Vrin).

15. (Back to text) Prigogine, La fin des certitudes, p. 69.

16. (Back to text) I will take the risk of saying: in the science fiction
atmosphere so revered by Murail. Will Murail's detractors still feel
the need to interpret these ideas in a derogatory fashion? Throughout
the centuries, and even before the appearance of science fiction, the
evocative powers of the aeolian harp did not escape poets and
writers.

17. (Back to text) Here as well, if I were sure that the following
suggestion would not be perceived as preposterous and fantastical, I
would dare to make a comment on the esoteric quality of Murail's
music, based on the composer's analysis of the spectrum's
immateriality as made in his articles, and secondly, I would underline
the singularity of certain titles chosen for his works which do not
seem to be the result of chance or of "poetic necessity", when taking
their origins into account (see C'est un jardin secret... , Gondwana,
Les sept paroles du Christ en croix). There is a line of thought,
existing, since the time of Pythagoras, which presents as an
elementary principle of life, the adequation and interdependence of
the microcosm and the macrocosm through sound. Because vibration
is born of number, thereby encompassing all vibratory phenomena,
the universe sings, and man, as a part of the universe, becomes a

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resonant note in the cosmic harmony. The resonance of a body

(microcosm) can be compared to work on the spectrum, while the
"music" of the spheres (macrocosm), is the resulting composition
(meta-spectrum). - This is the ancestral quest for spectral identity,
whose best known description is found in verse two of this text from
hermetic literature: The Emerald Table (Tabula Smaragdina). This
is only a very brief indication of my research (as a justification), but I
see no other way to interpret Murail's obsession with the valorization
Nature through certain titles of his works (Treize couleurs du Soleil
couchant). (The idea of Messiaen's influence does not hold up,
because in Murail's music, there is no simulation of animal cries.)
Finally, it must also be noted, that in the few articles written by
Murail (all concerned with the explanation of his compositional
techniques), the most important is entitled Spectres et Lutins
(Specters and Sprites)! This of course explains itself by an amusing
formula (the lutin in its computer definition, is a graphic entity,
while the spectrum is calculated by the computer), but...

18. (Back to text) Boulez's music also placed the performer in an

uncomfortable position by avoiding rubato (1. creating rhythm from
the smallest note value. 2. dressing the whole thing up to bend the
construction according to the composer's will).

MikroP 3.01 Contents Abstract

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