Through the Spectrum: The New Intimacy in French Music (II)

Author(s): Tristan Pugin

Source: Tempo, New Series, No. 217 (Jul., 2001), pp. 38-44+47
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/946870 .
Accessed: 02/06/2011 10:07
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. .
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Tempo.

http://www.jstor.org

TristanPugin
Through the Spectrum:The New
Intimacy in French Music (II)
The first part of this article, a considerationof a mostly associatedwith large-scale works just or
numberof younger'post-spectralist'
Frenchcomposers
as about to be written. One thinks of the many
illustratedby someof theirrecorded
works(therecord- sketches of the cat sleeping at the feet of the
ings are detailedin an annexe to thispart) appeared Virgin in Francesco Barocci's 'Annunciation' as
in Tempo 212. Thatpartconcluded
witha discussion it is awakened by the soundless arrival of the
of PascalDusapin and his expressiveprogramme'to angel. The second of the solo flute pieces, Culte,
draw a wrackedlyricismfrom his materialthrough uses most of the techniques developed over the
sensuously tangiblestrategiesof constraint.As we yearsby the flautistPierre-YvesArtaud,so much
shall soon see, youngercomposers
have beenquickto so that one suspects gentle irony in the title; but
take this up to theiradvantage...')
already the ease with which Tanguy weaves his
white sound and special effects into his plastic
ERIC TANGUY
iter transcends the typically later-20th-century
Je laisseles concours
auxjeunes...'
genre of the virtuoso solo piece. Azur C is an
altogether more fibrous affair,following on as it
One of these is Eric Tanguy. Tanguy began his does from the sustained lyrical writing of the
musical training early both as a composer and as 1990 Violin Concerto.
The Concerto itself takes off from Dusapin's
a violinist. His official studieswith GerardGrisey
and Yvo Malec at the Paris Conservatoire were large-scale use of mixed wind and brass. Only
supplemented by informal study with Horatiu Tanguy saw the possibility in it of creating an
Radulescu, who found in the boy not only equivalent to string legato that could frame the
enthusiasm and talent but an exceptionally fine solo violin line without impinging upon it. The
in which
musical ear. Their work together centred on result is a kind of timbral depaysement
microtonality and harmonics which Tanguy the string sound keeps its magic throughout like
could lear from him in an intuitive and practical a single actressin an otherwise all-male cast. The
way without the theoretical carapaceof spectral- Violin Concerto is very difficultto play, not least
ism, since for Radulescu (as for Roger Sessions), because of the highly expressive use of microthe only 'nature' relevant to composition is the tones: which must be made to sound as 'true'
nature of human hearing.
intervallically as should be the case with conL'avenementde la ligne, one of Tanguy's first ventional tuning, ratherthan as a ready-to-hand
fully mature works, was written for organ in form of musical deconstructionism. Yet the
1988. This was at a time when Radulescu him- affinity of Tanguy's concerto writing is not with
self had been improvising on the organ of the virtuoso concerto but with, say, the Poemeof
Speyer Cathedraland had composed a Kyriefor Chausson, however different the actual idiom.
organ in a style unexpected for those who know In his Concerto for flute and 16 instruments,
only the freer compositional manner of works Tanguy adopts shifting gradations of contrast
like his pieces for solo strings. But Radulescu rather than the built-in contrast of the Violin
was a student of Aurel Stroe, who instilled in Concerto. A telling example of this is the lead
him a love of the music of Josquin and of in to the cadenza,when the flute is momentarily
Pierre de la Rue. In L'avenementde la lignethis entwined with another flute, and the lead out
taste for luminous polyphony is heightened both from it - then the flute is met, as it were, firstby
timbrically and spatially in a way that moves an oboe and then by a clarinet before brass
forward (at last!) from Messiaen's Livred'orgue. chords bring back a sense of chamber orchestra
It also reveals another constant in Tanguy's art heft. Wadi for solo flute was a first essay in the
which has only grown stronger with time - his peculiarly ductile figuration Tanguy knew he
fascination with extended forms of modality. would have need of, given the plan he had
Tanguy's numerous solo pieces have something doubtless alreadyin part worked out for the subof the artist'sdrawing about them since they are sequent Flute Concerto.

Throughthe Spectrum:The New Intimacyin FrenchMusic (II)

39

The willingness to pose such problems and

to go about solving them has much to do with
the air of intelligence that pervades his music.
Another attribute - that of mercurial inventiveness in the handling of detail - comes to a
degree from the study of Sibelius, a composer
important also for Dusapin. But whereas it is the
Sibelius of the long line as evident in the Fifth
Symphony and Tapiola that haunts Dusapin,
Tanguy seems fascinated by the Sibelius of the
last two symphonies with their suggestion of
constantly-changing cloud patternsblown across
a flat horizontal sky. It is interesting that the
influence of Sibelius's approach to musical form
is only now making itself felt in a radicalway, an
influence of a differentorder and qualitythan that
which he exercised on the conservative symphonists of his day - who, whatever else they
learned from him, simply failed to understand
the progressive aspects of his formal thought.
PHILIPPE HUREL
'L'important
pour moi n'est donepas d'etreexpressif
mais degererla tensionet la detente,le passaged'un
sonores.'
desanamorphoses
pBlea un autre,d'organiser
Philippe Hurel is an exact contemporaryof Pascal
Dusapin. His early training with Yvo Malec and
Betsy Jolas, both committed to ecritureas the
fundamental tool of musical expression, was
followed by two years of study with Tristan
Murail when he was closely involved with
acoustic theory and computer applications. He
was one of the first to seek out a synthesis
between these two seeming opposed approaches
to composition. This has led one of his admirers,
paradoxaux'.
Guy Lelong, to speak of his 'parcours
In fact what Hurel has been doing, with
resourcefulness and patience, is a natural and
even necessary step in the evolution of French
music and has been perceived as such by a
younger generation of composers. For from the
moment when la musiquespectralecould be seen
to have a style it could become a part only of a
composer's equipment. This was particularly
important to Hurel, not so much because of his
talent for polyphony as such but because of his
harmonic thinking, which remains close to that
ofDutilleux, Messiaen and through them to that
of French music from the earlier part of the
century. Listening to Opcit for solo clarinet
(1984) even in the revised version of 1993,
makes it clear that he could not have followed
the road of Dusapin since the shaping of line is
far less instinctive to him.
In the polyphonic pieces this is more than made
up for by an exceptionally inventive formal

Philippe Hurel (photo: Bruno Mace, courtesyof United Music

Publishers)

imagination. Thus it has been possible for him

to project forms independent of spectral models
within the context of that spectral mimesis
and transformation characteristic of L'itineraire.
Perhaps the most important sign of this is
Hurel's punctual application of subliminal transformation not to the iterof an entire piece, as so
often happens in spectral composers of strict
obedience, but to something very like a formal
transition.Thus Pourl'image(1986/87) consistsof
a series of variationswhich fade into one another
so that it is impossible to specify just where one
variation ceases and another one begins. Far
from being contradictory or even a tourdeforce,
this solution was there for the taking once spectral
device could be distinguished from spectral
theorizing. The so-called 'anamorphic'effect is a
result of fruitful ambiguity of a kind occasionally
present in Stravinsky'suse of variationtechnique
not only in the late sets of variationsbut already
in the soft serialism of 'neo-classical' works like
Dansesconcertantes
and the Sonatafor Two Pianos.
An even more impressive formal virtuosity is
to be found in the Six miniaturesen trompel'oeil
(1991/93).' In them Hurel takes up one of the
more responsible aleatoric procedures of the
1960s, the multimovement through-composed
work with fixed opening and closing movements

40

Throughthe Spectrum:The New Intimacyin FrenchMusic(II)

but with two or more different itineraries

between them. A particularlysuccessful 'classic'
example is Nine or Ten Hosannasby Anthony
Gilbert, where the choice of central movements
can vary in number and order though with an
eye to proportion and to careful interpretation
on the part of the conductor. In Gilbert's piece
there is necessarily an element of risk, though
one quite in keeping with the spirit of the times.
But Hurel, in going back to a scheme which
neither Malec nor Jolas would rule out whether
or not they choose to use it personally, found
himself after his work with Tristan Murail in
possession of a art of transition too fine (and
deliberatelyso) for the ear to perceive sectionally.
By applying this art to what had been a nonspectral,necessarilysectional form or para-form,
Hurel simply invented a new kind of Satztechnik
to realize his vision and at the same time to
satisfy his instincts as a composer. For what he
does in fact is to organize a six-movement piece
so it can be cogently played with in a straightforward 123456 order or in an alternativeorder:
142536. Hurel's ingenuity, indeed his wit, can
be seen even in the assignmentof these numbers
to his miniatures since it is the 'aberrant'order
which produces a continuum- or, if you like,
an impression of symphonic structure- whereas
the 'normal' order yields a suite.
All this comes about because in Hurel's music
the conventional approach to formal scansion
has been turned inside out: that is to say, the
transitions are more significant formally than
what they separate. Leconde chosesgoes a step
further in making the complex play of variation
and transition depend on the tension between
ornamental foreground and structural background, as when a painter brings his formal grid
into the composition of his canvas, through
architecture perhaps or crossed branches, while
very nearly effacing it through his representation
of clouds overhead. Only in the present case the
fleeting melodic sequences that seem on the
point of coalescing (Sibelius again) in the third
and final 'section' produce an effect uncannily
like that of the closing pages of D'Indy's Istar
where the theme appears only after a set of
variations upon it.
The artificial way (in the baroque sense)
Hurel goes about justifying his invention is to
some degree obscured by remnantsof L'itineraire
theorizing. Oddly enough the reason for this
would seem to lie with the generallyconservative
nature of Hurel's musical sensibility, which as I
have already suggested is not without parallels
with a composer like Dukas. One example of
this is the contrasthe makes between composers

who 'se soucientpeu defaire percevoirles structures

qu'ils mettenten oeuvre,parcequ'ils sont davantage
interesses
par unecertaineforme
gestuelled'expression'
and composers like himself who try to make
their forms readable.This is to forget that form,
even spectral form, is even more a result of
ecritureor its equivalent than it is a fixed point of
reference. It is only in academic manualsthat all
sonata movements are essentiallythe same. And
in fact no form worthy the name is ever wholly
readable. The simplest minuet by Leopold
Mozart becomes mysterious as soon as two or
three bars of it have slipped by. Notes, like
words and images, have a way of changing their
shape as they pass from the field of perception to
the field of memory. Even the densest page of
Ferneyhough may issue on something very like
Donne's 'goldto aery thinnessbeat' - or, if you
prefer, a doughty twirl of Uncle Toby's stick.
Whereas computerized shapes legitimized by
'scientific'models (as in the more naive examples
of L'itinerairemusic-making), despite the busy
sophistication of their surface texture, can give
the formal effect of a sonorizedBarbie doll.
Then there is the idea that intuitive writing is
to be avoided because by so doing 'onnepeut que
retombersur des chosesconnues.'The example of
Scelsi is there to prove the opposite, unless
Hurel meansby 'intuitive''routine',in which case
his argumentis circular.Hurel's practice is that of
one who has learned to live with his strengths
and weaknesses, his sensibility and his pace. It is
also that of one who adopts, and when need be
extends, the techniques available to him in the
interests of an aesthetic vision which has only
the most tenuous of connexions with that
20th-century mountebank's notion, 'the truth
about sound'.
FRANC(OIS PARIS
'[la necessited'une loi preeatablie]alieneplus qu'elle
n'exalte, exigeplus qu'elle ne propose,disposeplus
qu'ellene soutient.'
Francois Paris has gone a step further in the
recuperationof spectralnovelty for the aesthetic
mainstream.Of the song cycle Leschampsde l'ombre
a
blanche,IvankaStoianovaremarks'Contrairement
la pratiqueetablied'ecrire
pour dispositiftechnologique
donne, FrancoisParis demandea la technologiede
realiserce qu'il ecrit. En ecrivantdans la partition
de maniereassezprecise- doncassezpeu
l'electroniqe
le compositeur
prcise quela musiqueinstrumentale,
son
la
techniciens
du
aux
responsabilite
confie
au memetftrequ'au chefet aux instrud'interpretes
mentalistesde l'ensemble.'It is important to realize
that this is indeed an aesthetic criterion and not

Throughthe Spectrum:The New Intimacyin FrenchMusic (II)

41

PhilippeLeroux(photo:Guy Vivien,courtesy
of UnitedMusicPublishers)

solely an attempt to humanize technology. For

only if the electronic stream of a composition
flows with the same elasticity as the acoustic
streamdoes the overall result cohere in a spontaneous way. Varese understoodthis so well that he
chose to alternate tape and ensemble in Deserts,
allowing them to clash in transitionaloverlap as
if to underline the point he was making. All this
works quite well in Champswhere the art of
transition is less important than the ductile
continuum which allows foreground effects to
drift by like constellations before a distant
galaxy. The vocal lines smack at times of Berio,
but this is quite in keeping with the choice of
ofItalo Calvino,
literaryreference- Le cosmicomiche
a tiresomely written but not unsuggestive book
which allowsfor generousamountsofhi-tech tone
painting. As with Voyagerby Mefano, fairy-tale
cosmology has here produced that great rarityin
radical contemporary music, divertimento-like
charm and grace.
An altogether more disconcerting affairis the
ensemble piece with electronic keyboardsin real

time: Surla nuquede la mrer

etoilee.The title is taken
from a 1917 poetic text by the German expressionist painter, Ludwig Meidner, which describes
an inner journey, this time in terms of careering
nocturnal flight through the outskirts of a town
where the poet feels dogged by his own
grotesqueshadow. The music is conceived as three
panels, each with its own prevailing colours.
The first grows out of rhythmic figures on the
crotalesclosely associatedwith moon and starlight,
the twinkling gradually diffused through the
surrounding textural continuum. In the central
panel it is the frantic careering that comes to the
fore with that thicket- and woodland-haunting
instrument, the horn; while in the third panel
unpitched wooden and then metal percussion
evoke the crotales of the opening, but as if
blunted by darknessand fatigue. The unabashed
electric timbre of the keyboards finds literary
justification in the non-pastoral side of what one
sees when poussevers la ville while the progressive tightening of the interval structure of the
scales involved (which reaches eighths of tones

42

Throughthe Spectrum:The New Intimacyin FrenchMusic(II)

in the third panel) read maybe as the galloping

anxiety of the lines 'le crisdes nuagesme cement,
les buissonsvacillent'['the clouds' cries close in on
me and the bushes stagger']. All this is not to
imply that Sur la nuquede la meretoileecannot be
subjected,and impressivelyso, to a purely musical
analysis. But it underscores the exceptional
literary sensibility of Paris, which in a composer
invariably means the ability to pursue a musical
argument seamlesslyon both formal and associative levels. For the text in this case (as so often
with Debussy) is an inscription over the lintel
that divides the music from the rest of the
world, to linger then in the back of the mind
like what one knows of the life of a person one
is talking with. In the midst of so many tasteless
and irrelevanttitles on the part of those trying to
flog their wares to a post-modern age, this is an
encouraging sign that something of the poetry
of Les barricadesmysterieuseshas not altogether
passed out of the French tradition.
L'octobreseul for violins, 2 clarinets, 'cello and
harp is also associatedwith a poem, this time by
Christian da Silva. Its touching disquiet, made
from images no sooner introduced than cut
free from their denotations, is reflected in the
enigmatic tone of this music, a certain forlorn
quality in its inflections rather than anything
pictorial. In some ways this is a more 'spectral'
piece in the deep sense than the pieces by Paris
that use recognizably spectral technology. The
harp is differently tuned in each octave, something that continues to be the case throughout
all pedal changes. Xylophone and 'superballe'
sticks are used in addition to normal plucking.
The choice of two clarinets has nothing to do
with juxtaposed tessiturasor virtuoso figuration.
The main purpose is to obtain a pure microtonal
intonation, in keeping with that of string
double-stopping but not with that of woodwind
multiphonics. Another is to ensure uniformity of
articulationin the many paralleland overlapping
scalarpassages.
Even from such elementary descriptions it
should be easy to see how asymmetricalconjunct
motion permits an oblique rapprochement to
those harp and ensemble pieces - by Ravel and
Debussy to be sure but also by Koechlin, Cras
and Caplet - which are one of the collective
glories of French music. In fact the harp writing
itself, with its vague murmurings as if buried
under the swirlingleaves of the 'quartet'textures,
is some of the strangest since Caplet's Conte
fantastique.The leaf image is no idle description
but the very essence of the autumnal dissolution
of the music and its formal iter, in the last bars
of the score, where the scalar passages drift

down into pools of harp 'scordatura'sprung by

the wayward slither of the baguettesuperballe.
L'octobreseul marks an important step in the use
of spectral spoils to enhance the feigned arcadia
of Western chamber music.

PHILIPPE LEROUX
'... est un compositeur
apollonien'(DominiqueDruhin)
Philipe Leroux has dealt less with l'heritage
spectralethan with its patrimoine,taking up what
is useful to him among other items of invention.
In fact what distinguishes him from the composers discussed above is his attachment to the
figure. This has to do with his sensibilityand not
at all with any reticence on his part to seek out
new territory, for he does just that. Leroux likes
to tell stories, and for that he needs charactersso
we can know what is happening to whom and
when it is happening. Only the charactershe
deals with are musical figures. The use of figures
in music need not be more 'traditionalist'than
in painting. It all depends on how they are used,
or if you like on what adventures they are sent.
This is of course where la musiquespectrale
comes
into the picture, though certain aspects of
minimalism, intelligent minimalism, are there as
well. None of this could go without humour Apollonmusicienis not without a certainwit - and
Leroux's pieces are some of the most genuinely
entertaining to be written in these last years. If
he wrote plays no doubt that they would remind
us of Musset and Marivaux.
Fleuveis a key work in Leroux'sfiguraldevelopment. The original, four-movement, version has
its dark incantatory moments and something of
de
that 'dynamiquede la sonoritepar transmutation
la masse' that Suzanne Demarquez finds in
Varese. Hearing it one would think that Leroux
might very well have followed the path opened
up by Dusapin in the early ensemble pieces. But
alreadyin the second - three-movement- version
the colours are brighter, the rhythms bolt free
from the mass and, as one might expect, the
figurative profile of each movement is more
compact. First there is a 'study' in glissando, or
better in all sounds slippery and slidy, next a
'study' in sounds repeated and sustained, and
then an eddying of the two of them together, till
both fuse in an ornamental arborescence.
Though peculiar events do occur in Fleuvethe
piece is on the whole serious in its manner, as
befits a young composer bent on giving a show
of the tricks he can turn in a quarterof an hour
with a well appointed ensemble. Phoniedoucefor
oboe, saxophone and cello takes a rather differ-

Throughthe Spectrum:The New Intimacyin FrenchMusic (II)

ent approach. The piece begins with a plethora
of sauce-thickening devices like written-out
accelerandi on a single note, scalarpouncings on
some all-too-expected note, all-too-expected
chords prolonged by crosswise stammerings and
stutterings...until quite soon an art of transformation, of displacement, at times of caricature
intervenes, more suggestive of the craft-conscious
minimalist than of any spectral composer. Yet
something of the anamorph slinks around
what by now have become quite unexpected
manipulations.
Air-re for violin and marimba/vibraphone
and PPP for flute and piano both take up the
problem of conflicting intonation and articulation
which surfacedin the Romantic violin and piano
sonata - earlier the timbric gentility of the
fortepiano did much to soften the clash. Leroux
takes pleasure in sharpeningthe conflict through
a figural elaboration that gives each instrument
its head. But it is the quintet for flute, clarinet,
violin, cello and piano, Continu(ons),that best
combines the various sorts of device in a riot of
virtuoso writing whose final keyboard flourish
seems almost a blusteringcomplaint at the timbric
melting pot around it. Telemann would have
approved; Haydn as well. And the Couperin of
Les dominos;ou les folies franfaises. The wit of
Philippe Leroux is an excellent example of how
technical innovation can be dissociated from the
stylistic conjuncture of its birth to live through
quite different adventures.

THIERRY BLONDEAU
'C'est le momentque vous choissisezpour ne faire
entendreque l'harmonieet le timbreparceque vous
aimez beaucoupca.'
If Hurel declareshimself to be a contextualist: 'II
aimeplut6tque ses piecesformentun ensemble,qu'on
puisse saisirle parcoursqui les relie' (Guy Lelong),
Thierry Blondeau goes a step further, kicking
leaves over the already tangled paths that crisscross his charmingly involuted world by finding
actual traces of what comes after in what came
before. Thus 'toutde 'Ein und aus' [1995]... se
retrouve
dans'Plotzlich'[1994].' Blondeau'sexpressive world has something furtive about it. 'Ne
faire entendreque l'harmonieet le timbre'is 'putting
on a carnivalmask' or 'playinghide and seek in the
bushesbehindone's house'.So that when melodic
events nudge their way past the branches it is
like a squirrel or a fox that has a quick look and
then disappears should anyone happen to be
looking. Not only that but the nudging goes on
for a spell before the face wholly appears.

43

TliicrryBlondeau (phlto: coulrtteyof I JuitedMulsicPublishers

Thus Blondeau is not interested in Hurel's

long line which, however constellated, fills the
clear sky of the variations before the haze of
transition comes to freshen things up so all can
come back again in another season; nor in
Leroux's mischief-bent figures that have a way
of escaping from his busy hands so that for him
composition is in large part a matter of keeping
up with them. These vaguely spectralphrases,as
much in the metaphorical as in the technical
sense, have a way of making us think we know
how they sound when in fact we are only hearing
as much of them as they or their master wants us
to hear. To heighten this effect, microtones and
harmonics contrive to deform the material so as
to give the illusion that we only know it as we
do a stick bent in water. We had reason to
believe the stick is 'in reality'straight, but since
we never get a look at it in the air we begin to
wonder if it might not 'actually' be crooked.
Still there is an evolution to be surmised
between UpsandDowins,for five instrumentsfrom
1991 - though if Blondeau were to choose an
overall title for his work so far it would surely
be Ins and Outs - and Pliitzlich,for eight instruments, from 1995. Along the way lie Iciet la I and
Vis-a-vis.Blondeau affects dark colours: clarinet,
cor anglais,cello, contrabass.He also likes to have
pairs of the same or similar instruments to hand,
in part to muss up his transient melodies, in part
to further his faintly incestuous chattering. Thus
Ici et la I has a clarinetthat dialogues with itself in
real time, through echoes, of course, both tender
and mocking and through turnaboutimitation;or

44

Throughthe Spectrum:The New Intimacyin FrenchMusic(II)

as Blondeau himself puts it: 'la machine[repete

toutce quejouela clarinette,memece
machinalemant]
que la clarinetterepeted'elle-memepeut imiter la
machine...'These effectsdo exist in UpsandDowns,
but without the obsessive air they have taken on
here. Vis-a-vispits a trio of clarinetsagainsta string
trio in an agon of mirroringsmade more intense
by the uncanny resemblancebetween string and
clarinet harmonics when wisely chosen and disposed. While in Plotzlich the thicket is in full
evidence again with badgers and the occasional
otter to be seen thanks to added means. The
oboe and cor anglais of Ups and Downs are still
there, the single clarinet has been replaced by
the clarinet trio from Vis-a-vis, the violin and
viola may have gone but the cello can now
growl together with a doublebass, while an
accordion, a piano and selected percussion, not
so strangelyafter all, hold down that part of the
texture which might in other circumstances
have been 'rendered unto electronics'.
The accordion, by the way, serves to reclaim
machine-generated legato for the world of
acoustic instruments- just as the harp in Paris's
L'octobreseul handles its dense tangled murmuring better than any machine equivalent - passing however into its overtone range with an
exhilaratingsense of tourdeforceimpossible with
purely electronic means. Even more convincing
is the use of what once were 'extended playing
techniques' on the piano to achieve sonorities at
the same time rich and delicate and, need it be
said, utterly untempered. In fact the cadential
solution of the piece depends on this apparent
deconstruction of the instrument, 'apparent'
only in a wider and already outdated context,
for here Blondeau's piano is fully itself, bringing
down a swirling mist on the thicket of his
invention to give him cover while he prepares
the ground for further adventures.
What seems to me so important about pieces
like Plotzlichand L'octobre
seul is that they return
to the high tradition of French intimist lyricism,
with the booty of decades of researchextending
the expressive panoply of acoustic instruments
in a way unimaginable without it. Doubtless
French music, and with it European music, will
continue to forge ahead in search of suggestive
sonority as did the great French organ builders
of the 18th century, sonorities in search of
sensibility at times, but sure to find it as soon as
their novelty fades and the eyes of invention can
gaze on them at last with poetic detachment.

Select Discography
PAUL MEFANO:

Paraboles; Involutive;Estampes
Inteferences;
japonaises;
Lignes;Signes/Oubli.'Sharon
Cooper (sop), Nouvel OrchestrePhilharmoniec.
Yves Prin. Veronique Fevre (cl), LilianeMazeron
(sop), Jacqueline Mefano (pno), Patrick
Petitdidier (hn), Boris Carmeli (bass),Ensemble
2e2m c. Paul Mefano. CD 2e2m 1007.
PlaceboDomino
mouvants';
Ondes/Espaces
in regionevivorum:;A BrunoMaderna';Mouvement
calme';Ensevelie; Voyager. 'Ensemble 2e2m c.
Paul M6fano, 'Renaud Francois; 'Ensemble
Voxnova; 'Renaud Francois (fl), Jacqueline
Mefano (pno). CD 2e2m 1006.
MEFANO:

ALAIN BANCQUART: D'unefougre bleue les veines;

Grandemelodie;Cinq dits deJean-ClaudeRenard.

Robin Clavreul (vlc), Pierre-Yves Artaud (fl),
Ensemble 2e2m c. Paul Mefano. Adda 581272.
Patatras!;Chant; Rogodon;Les
tenebresde Marc Monnet. Alain Meunier (vlc),
Quatuor de cors; Quatuor a cordes de Paris,
Ensemble 2e2m c. Paul Mefano. Harmonic
MARC MONNET:

Records H/CD 8614.

Chansons imprevues;Strange;Fantasia
oscura;Melodie;Le cirque;Erosmachina.Ensemble
Accroche-note. Disques Montaigne MO782008.
MONNET:

Item; Itou; To God; If

Indeed; Mimi; Il-Li-Ko; Anacolouthe.Ensemble
Accroiche-note. Harmonic Records H/CD 8721.
PASCAL DUSAPIN: Laps;

Fist; Hop; Musiquecaptive;Aks; Niobe.

Groupe vocale de France, Ensemble 2e2m c.
Paul Mefano. CD 2e2m 1008.

DUSAPIN:

Romeo &Juliette,opera in 9 numeros.

Soloists plus Groupe vocale de France,
Orchestre Philharmonique du Rhin-Mulhouse,
c. Luca Pfaff. Accord 201161 (2-CD set).

DUSAPIN:

Medeamateriel. Hilde Leidland

(Medea), Choeur de solistes, orchestre de la
Chapelle Royale c. Philippe Heerweghe.
Harmonia Mundi HMC 905125.
DUSAPIN:

DUSAPIN:

Time Zones (24 pieces de quatuorde

cordes); String Quartet III. DUTILLEUX: Ainsi la

nuit. Arditti Quartet. Disques Montaigne MO

782016.

(continuedon page 47)

Book Reviews
two (p.88-9). Searchingfor 'structuralequivalents'
between sight and sound (p.14, from Dalcroze),
her basic thesis bears comparison with Lawrence
Kramer's notion of the 'structural rhythm'
between music and poetry, and at one point
Jordan even describesthe relationbetween music
and dance as itself'rhythmic' in nature (p.167).
As she quotes Edwin Denby, from a passage
which had implied that it is better choreographic
practice - by which he meant more human(e) to avoid demanding absolute synchronization of
the aural and the visual, 'The excitement of
watching ballet is that two very different things
- dancing and music - fit together, not mechanically but in spirit' (quoted p.77).
Indeed, in the wake of Stravinsky and
Balanchine, both of whom were more than
usually sensitive to its physical qualities, music is
commonly (and too simply [p.184-5]) said to be
visualized and given body by ballet, and by
watchedmovement in general.Bodily movement,
it is said, helps us to understandmusic as gesture.
This view may be no more than a defence of
Balanchine's own choreographic aesthetic, but it
is worth considering its correlate in the mode of
attention asked of the listener-viewer.
For, by virtue of the intrinsicallymetaphorical
nature of music's 'own' movements, the listenerviewer seems to be led to understand events in

47

front of his or her eyes as a creative response to

(ratherthan a mere replicationof) the intentional
object within his or her ears. The very invasiveness of the auralcomponent lends itself to being
understood as that which is mapped or modelled
by the physical movement, and the challenge of
understandinga ballet performance is to temper
what is seen (alltoo readilyinterpretedin terms of
an economy of light) with what is heard. This
involves not simply supplementingthe eyes with
the earsbut taming them, in orderthat the imaginatively constituted relation between these two
sensory components might provide (psychic)
pleasure, satisfaction, 'security and relaxation'
(p.88).
This is certainly not to dispute Jordan's basic
premise: that for the choreographer there is a
certain flexible and imaginative reciprocity
between ballet's aural and visual components,
even a 'struggle' as Stravinskyonce said (quoted
p.122). But at the end of the book, I am left with
a single question: whether, as a consequence of
the different structuresand temporalities of the
two main sense organs- earsand eyes - through
which ballet is enjoyed, the listener-viewer asks
for a different approach to that accorded the
choreographer. Perhaps such an inquiry might
inspireJordan's next book.
Anthony Gritten

(continuedfrom
page 44)
PHILIPPE HUREL: Six miniatures en

trompe-l'oeil;
Lefon de choses; Opcit'; Pour l'image. 'Alain
Damiens (cls), Ensemble InterContemporain c.
Ed Spanjaard.Compositeursd'aujourdhui- Ades
204562.
ERIC TANGUY: Violin

Concerto; Concerto for

Flute and 16 instruments. MARIUS CONSTANT:

la nuque de la mer etoil6e';

L'octobreseuf; Les champs de l'ombre blanche';
Roque4. 'Ensemble TM c. Laurence Cuniot;
2"Ensemble Itineraire c. Pascal Rophe, 'Cecile
Daroux (fls), Donatienne Michel-Dansac (sop),
'Florian Lauridon (vlc). Musique francaised'aujourd'hui MFA216006.
FRANCOIS PARIS. Sur

Violin Concerto. Rodrigue Milosi (vln), Pierre- PHILIPPE LEROUX: Continuo(ns); ppp; Air-re;
Yves Artaud (fl), Orchestre de Caen c. Claude Phonie douce;Fleuve. Ensemble Court Circuit
Bardon. Collection Chaminade-Salabert CHCD c. Pierre-Andr6Valade. Musique francaised'au5606.
jourd'hui MFA 216005.
TANGUY: Ocean, N.Y. Fantaisie;Solo; Azur C;

THIERRY BLONDEAU: Ein undAus'; Ici et la I and

Towards;Alloys; Azur B; Wadi; Avenementdu II'; Vis a vis'; Plotzlich4; Ups and Downs'.
ligne.Francois-Fr6dericGuy (pno), Gabin Linale 'Companie Zigzag, Armand Angster (cl),'Cecile
(vlc), Celine Nessi (fl), Jean Goffroy (perc), Daroux (fl), 4EnsembleCourt Circuit c. PierrePierre Dutrieu (cl), Michel Bourcier (organ). Andre Valade. Musique francaised'aujourd'hui

Salabert SCD 9408.

MFA216013.