Objets retrouvés

In memory of Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1995)

Both a lamento and a funeral march, this paraphrase of Pierre Schaeffer’s Étude aux objets is not without connection to ornate, figured choral style. Three voices (in the contrapuntal sense of the term), developed from elements drawn from the first movement of the Étude, embroider and animate the long values of the original subjects that make up the “choral,” which constitutes the fourth voice of this polyphonic composition. The choice of a classical form, so important in Bach, was a conscious one that was designed to honor the memory of Schaeffer. I like to think that he would have enjoyed the allusion.

— Francis Dhomont [English translation: Tom Carter]

Objets retrouvés [Refound Objects] — 1st of the 4 works in the Cycle du son — was realized in 1996 at the composer’s studio with sound material obtained from the SYTER system of Ina-GRM, and it premiered on May 31, 1996 at the Hommage-Tombeau de Schaeffer concert as part of Synthèse, the Festival international de musique électroacoustique de Bourges (France, 1996).

Premiere

• May 31, 1996, Synthèse 1996: Hommage-Tombeau de Schaeffer, Théâtre Jacques-Cœur, Bourges (Cher, France)

AvatArsSon

To “the inventors of the treasure” (Bayle, Berio, Chion, Dufour, Ferrari, Henry, Malec, Parmegiani, Reibel, Risset, Schaeffer, Stockhausen, Teruggi, Varèse, Xenakis, Zanési, and others too numerous to name)

This presents an original aspect of the “new music” (as Schaeffer called it in 1950) one that, thanks to the concept of the sound object, brought about its accession to a multidimensional musical world. But it is above all a metaphor for, and a short cut across, some of the stages of the sound odyssey — heard for itself and for its unveiled “images” (Bayle) — and its performance. It also recalls the fertile guiding drift that allows the attentive ear to discover the furtive traces of homage.

— Francis Dhomont [English translation: Tom Carter]

AvatArsSon — 2nd of the 4 works in the Cycle du son — was realized in 1998 in the Syter studio of Ina-GRM and at the composer’s studio, and it premiered on May 11, 1998 as part of Ina-GRM’s Cycle acousmatique at the Salle Olivier Messiaen of the Maison de Radio France in Paris (France). AvatArsSon was a special commission of the Ministère de la Culture (France) and of Ina-GRM for the 50th anniversary of musique concrète. AvatArsSon was awarded the 1st prize at the 2nd Concorso Internazionale di Composizione Musicale Elettronica Pierre Schaeffer (Pescara, Italy, 1999) and, in a shorter version (14:20), a 2nd prize in the Musica Nova 1998 International Competition of Electroacoustic Music (Prague, Czech Republic). AvatArsSon was recorded on the disc 2°/3° Concorso Internazionale di Composizione Musicale Elettronica Pierre Schaeffer.

Premiere

• May 11, 1998, Cycle acousmatique Son-Mu 98: Concert, Salle Olivier Messiaen — Maison de Radio France, Paris (France)

Awards

• 2nd prize ex æquo, Category A (fixed medium), Musica Nova 1998, Prague (Czech Republic)
• 1st prize, Category A (fixed medium), 2nd International Competition of Computer Music Pierre Schaeffer, Pescara (Italy)

Novars

To musique concrète and Pierre Schaeffer, its ‘ill-fated inventor’

“… one moment transported in beautified memories of the first ‘concrète’ illuminations of my childhood […]. Perhaps I was the only one to be so moved by the sound of these last ‘measures’…”

— Marie-Claire Schaeffer-Patris, personal letter to the composer.

Novars salutes the birth of musique concrète, the Ars Nova of our century, by calling upon the resources of the computer. The intention is not to create a pastiche but, on the contrary, to testify that by the most advanced means a language has been passed on. It may also be possible to suggest, without establishing a simplistic symmetry, that there exists a link between these two theorists of a new art: Vitry and Schaeffer.

The ‘classical’ ear will perhaps recognize fragments from Schaeffer’s Étude aux objets (1959) and Guillaume de Machaut’s Messe de Nostre Dame (1364). These quotations, along with a third sound element — a sort of homage to Pierre Henry and his infamous door — are the sole materials giving birth to multiple variations.

A sign of change: ‘spectromorphologic’ (Denis Smalley) mutations give to sonorities of the Ars Nova and to ‘new music’ (as Schaeffer named it in 1950) the sound of our time. A sign of continuity: something from the original works (their colour, their structure…) remains present, indestructible.

François Bayle writes about Novars:

“In listening to the works of Francis Dhomont, one senses a unique voice.

One finds traits and signatures: long ‘breath-like’ trajectories, masterful alternations of deeply engraved forms and light refined lines, play with proportions and moving masses. Like in Chiaroscuro — one of his most successful — a baroque taste for timbral richness and shadowy contours, interrupted by identifiable fragments, often with vocal qualities, always alive.

There is a sense of accentuation and deep breathing, leading to a finely heard silence, framed and placed with the meticulousness of a photographer for whom every background detail counts as much as, and maybe more than, the foreground musical intentions.

Novars contains refinements that add fresh colour and new light to the work’s main purpose. The rhythmic cellular element is that of a slow dance based on a complex note, a pegged quotation (taken from the Étude aux objets by Pierre Schaeffer) and, detaching it from the ‘moiré’ vocal timbres (‘stirred up’ à la Machaut) projects on the work an evocation from the Pavane (for loved ones, certainly not dead!).

The breaths, thrusts, and ‘jetés-glissés’ (thrown-slid) of well choreographed gestures counterbalance the rhythmical accumulations forming a third sound character to this tale; a tale of time and contretemps, in riddle form.

Indeed, as the tale proceeds, it slowly unveils its sources of inspiration. Or rather: this unfolding comprises lengthy placements into perspective, of a distance towards quoted sources, with Tanguy-like otherworldly colours, of the beaches where this homage to the ‘revival’ evolves in “metal sky” (Giono) tonalities.

Dedicated “to musique concrète”, this piece gently illuminates its references and leaves us under its profound charm. As with … mourir un peu — is it its timelessness? — we are offered a strange yet beneficent moment of reflection.” (Paris, June 16, 1991)

[ix-91]

Novars — 3rd of the 4 works in the Cycle du son — was realized at Studio 123 of the Ina-GRM (Paris, France) and at the composer’s studio and premiered on May 29, 1989, as part of the 11th GRM Acousmatic Concert Series at the Grand Auditorium of Rthe Maison Radio France (Paris). This piece was selected by the 1990 International Computer Music Conference (ICMC ’90) in Glasgow (Scotland, UK), and by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) for the 1991 World Music Days in Zürich (Switzerland). The jury of the 1991 Stockholm Electronic Arts Award also selected it for performance at its award concert in Stockholm (Sweden). Special thanks to Pierre Schaeffer who has kindly allowed the quotation of a few sound propositions, now historic; and to Bénédict Mailliard, Yann Geslin and Daniel Teruggi without whose patience it would have been impossible to domesticate Studio 123 and the Syter real-time sound synthesis system of the Ina-GRM (Paris, France). Novars was commissioned by the Ina-GRM.

Premiere

• May 29, 1989, Cycle acousmatique 1989: Concert, Grand Auditorium — Maison de Radio France, Paris (France)

Awards

• Mention, Stockholm Electronic Arts Award 1991, Stockholm (Sweden)

Phonurgie

To Inés Wickmann and her found objects

Phonurgie — “making, working, and creating sound” — presents, fifty years after the first gropings, and at the verge of the century under examination, one of the current states of this new art, which has become an independent art of sounds.

Unlike the other pieces in the Cycle, Phonurgie quotes no more than a passing subject of Schaefferian study, bringing the sound of this legacy to a close; on the other hand, the first part, Objets retrouvés, draws all of its material and its structure from it. Paraphrased elements from Novars can, of course, be found — elements that themselves paraphrase Étude aux objets, making them commentaries on commentaries — while the opening and conclusion make reference to AvatArsSon. Nevertheless, in this fourth homage, the allusions to the origins melt away before the original propositions; filiation is not renounced, but here the child, finally grown, reveals its identity.

While technology may have changed considerably and the “sound colour” may no longer be the same, morphological thought and writing still remain, in all of their many forms, true to the ‘spirit’ of the first “concerts de bruit” (Noise concerts).

— Francis Dhomont [English translation: Tom Carter]

Phonurgie — 4th of the 4 works in the Cycle du son — was realized in 1998 in the Syter studio of Ina-GRM (Paris, France) and at the composer’s studio, and it premiered on September 25, 1998 as part of the Inventionen ’98 festival (Berlin, Germany). The piece was commissioned by Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD). Phonurgie won 1st prize at CIMESP 1999 (São Paulo, Brazil) and 1st prize at the 1st Concurso Internacional de Creación Electroacústica Ciber@RT (Valencia, Spain, 1999). In 1998 Phonurgie was included on the Inventionen ’98: 50 Jahre Musique Concrète disc (RZ 10009/10) and in 1999 on the Musica Maximalista 6: III CIMESP 1999 disc (CD 199008708).

Premiere

• September 25, 1998, Inventionen ’98: Concert concret, 1, Parochialkirche, Berlin (Germany)

Awards

• 1st prize, Concurso Internacional de Creación Electroacústica Ciber@RT 1999, Valencia (Spain)
• 1st prize, International Electroacoustic Music Contest of São Paulo 1999, São Paulo (Brazil)