Grard Grisey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2/05/13 11:54 AM

Grard Grisey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Grard Grisey ( listen) (June 17, 1946 in Belfort, France November 11, 1998 in Paris) was a French composer of contemporary music.

Contents
1 Biography 2 Musical style 3 List of works 4 References 5 External links

Biography
Grard Grisey was born in Belfort, France on 17 June 1946. He studied at the Trossingen Conservatory in Germany from 1963 to 1965 before entering the Conservatoire de Paris. Here he won prizes for piano accompaniment, harmony, counterpoint, fugue and composition (studying under Olivier Messiaen from 1968 to 1972). During this period, he also studied with Henri Dutilleux at the Ecole Normale de Musique (1968), as well as summer schools at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena (1969), and in Darmstadt with Gyrgy Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis in 1972. Grisey won the highly coveted Prix de Rome and stayed at the Villa Medici in Rome from 1972 to 1974, and in 1973 founded a group called Litinraire with Tristan Murail, Roger Tessier and Michael Levinas, later to be joined by Hugues Dufourt. Drives, Priodes, and Partiels were among the first pieces of spectral music. In 1974-75, he studied acoustics with Emile Leipp at the Paris VI University, and in 1980 became a trainee at the IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique). In the same year he went to Berlin as a guest of the D.A.A.D., and afterwards left for the University of California, Berkeley, where he was appointed professor of theory and composition (1982-1986). After returning to Europe, he taught composition at the Conservatoire de Paris, and held numerous composition seminars in France (Centre Acanthes, Lyon, Paris) and abroad (Darmstadt, Freiburg, Milan, Reggio Emilia, Oslo, Helsinki, Malm, Gteborg, Los Angeles, Stanford, London, Moscow, Madrid, etc.) Among his notable pupils are Jrn Arnecke, Mark Andre, Rgis Campo, Pascale Criton, Stphane de Grando, Henrik Hellstenius, Javier Jacinto, Ramon Lazkano, Fabien Lvy, Magnus Lindberg, Fausto Romitelli, ric Morin, Arturo Rodas, Steingrimur Rohloff, and Erling Wold. Grard Grisey died at the age of 52 in Paris on 11 November 1998 due to a ruptured aneurysm. Among his works, most of which were commissioned by famous institutions and international instrumental groups, are Drives 1974, Jour, contre-jour 1979, Tempus ex machina 1979, Les chants de lamour 1984, Talea 1986, Le temps et lcume 1989, Le noir de Ietoile 1990, Licne paradoxale 1994, Les espaces acoustiques (a cycle consisting of six pieces), Vortex temporum 1995 and Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil 1998.
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Musical style
Grisey's music is often considered to belong to the genre of spectral music, which he is credited with founding along with fellow composer Tristan Murail, although he later disowned the label in interviews and writings. Nonetheless, he spent much of his career exploring the spectrum of tone colour between harmonic overtones and noise. In addition, he was fascinated by musical processes which unfold slowly, and he made musical time a major element of many of his pieces. He expressed the opinion that: "We are musicians and our model is sound not literature, sound not mathematics, sound not theatre, visual arts, quantum physics, geology, astrology or acupuncture" (Fineberg 2006, p.105).

List of works
Echanges, for prepared piano and double bass (1968) Mgalithes, for 15 brass players (1969) Perichoresis, for 3 instrumental groups (19691970) Initiation, for barytone, trombone, and double bass (1970) Vagues, chemins, le souffle, for clarinet and orchestra (197072) D'eau et de pierre, for 2 instrumental groups (1972) Drives, for 2 orchestral groups (197374) Les espaces acoustiques II Priodes, for flute, clarinet, trombone, violin, viola, cello, and double bass (1974) Les espaces acoustiques III Partiels, for 18 musicians (1975) Manifestations, for youth orchestra (1976) Les espaces acoustiques I Prologue, for viola and optional live electronics (1976) Les espaces acoustiques IV Modulations, for orchestra (197677) Sortie vers la lumire du jour, for electric organ and 14 musicians (1978) Jour, contre-jour, for electric organ, 14 musicians, and tape (197879) Tempus ex machina, for 6 percussionists (1979) Les espaces acoustiques V Transitoires, for large orchestra (1980) Solo pour deux, for clarinet and trombone (1981) Anubis, Nout, for Bb contrabass clarinet (1983) Les chants de l'amour, for 12 voices and tape (19821984) Les espaces acoustiques VI Epilogue, for 4 solo horns and large orchestra (1985) Talea, for violin, cello, flute, clarinet, and piano (1986) Le temps et l'cume, for 4 percussionists, 2 synthesizers, and chamber orchestra (198889) Accords perdus: Cinq miniatures, for 2 horns (1989) Le noir de l'toile, for 6 percussionists, tape, and live electronics (198990) Anubis, Nout, for bass saxophone and baritone saxophone (1990) L'icne paradoxale (Hommage Piero della Francesca), for 2 female voices and 2 orchestral groups (199294) Stle, for 2 percussionists (1995) Vortex temporum, for piano, clarinet (bass, Bb and A), flute (bass, C and picc.), violin, viola and cello (199496) Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil, for soprano and fifteen instruments (199798)

References
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Arrell, Chris (http://www.chrisarrell.com/). 2002. "Pushing the Envelope: Art and Science in the Music of Grard Grisey" (http://books.google.com/books/about/Pushing_the_Envelope.html? id=lzJ3GwAACAAJ). Doctoral Dissertation, Cornell University. Arrell, Chris (http://www.chrisarrell.com/). 2008. "The Music of Sound: An Analysis of Grard Grisey's Partiels". In Spectral World Musics: Proceedings of the Istanbul Spectral Music Conference, edited by Robert Reigle and Paul Whitehead. Istanbul: Pan Yayincilik. ISBN 9944-396-27-3. Fineberg, Joshua (2006): Classical Music, Why Bother?: Hearing the World of Contemporary Culture Through a Composer's Ears. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-97174-8, ISBN 978-0-415-97174-4. Grisey, Grard: "crits ou linvention de la musique spectrale" (edited by Guy Lelong and AnneMarie Rby), Rpercussions , Musica Falsa, Paris 2008 [388 p. ; ISBN 978-2-915794-31-1] Cohen-Levinas, Danile (ed): "Grard Grisey ou la beaut des ombres sonores. L'Harmattan / L'itinraire, Paris, 2004. Herv Jean-Luc: "Dans le vertige de la dure (Vortex Temporum de Grard Grisey)", LHarmattan, Paris, 2001. Baillet Jrme: "Grard Grisey, Fondements dune criture", LHarmattan, Paris, 2000. Grisey, Grard / Murail, Tristan: "Entretemps (8)", Paris, 1989. Levy, Fabien: "Grard Grisey, eine neue Grammatologie aus dem Phnomen des Klangs" [Grard Grisey, a new grammatologie from the Phenomenon of Sounds], in "20 Jahre Inventionen Berliner Festival Neuer Musik", ed. by I. Beirer/DAAD, Pfau Verlag, Berlin, 2002.

External links
(French) A biography (http://brahms.ircam.fr/composers/composer/1492/) of Grard Grisey, from

IRCAM's website. Biography and list of Compositions from Casa Ricordi Publishing (English) (http://www.ricordi.com/catalogue/composers/gerard-grisey/) Obituary (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3870/is_199904/ai_n8843134) Interview with the Composer (http://www.angelfire.com/music2/davidbundler/grisey.html) Excerpts from sound archives (http://www.musiquecontemporaine.fr/fr/search? disp=all&query=grisey&exp_inl=on&exp_aud=on&so=dd) of Grisey's works Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grard_Grisey&oldid=540432683" Categories: 1946 births 1998 deaths People from Belfort 20th-century classical composers French composers Microtonal composers cole Normale de Musique de Paris alumni This page was last modified on 26 February 2013 at 01:19. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

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