Jean-Claude Risset - Sud, Dialogues , ... (2001)

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Jean-Claude Risset - Sud, Dialogues , ... (2001)

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Jean-Claude Risset - Sud, Dialogues , … (2001)
Avant-garde/Electronic | EAC (FLAC + CUE + LOG) | Scans | 263 MB

About the Artist:
Music studies piano, composition with Andre Jolivetl. Scientific studies at the Ecole Normale Superieure, During the sixties, worked with Max Mathews in the United States to develop the resources of computer sound synthesis, imitation of instrumental timbres, sonic composition, pitch paradoxes, catalog of computer-synthesized sounds, composition of mixed works for instruments and computer. Implements computer sound synthesis systems at Orsay [1970-71], Marseilles-Luminy [1974-81] and IRCAM, Paris. as head of the computer department between 1975 and 1979. Presently researcher in Marseilles [Laboratoire de Mecanigue et d’Acoustique]. Music works for instruments. voice and computer. Scientitic and musicological articles. Received since 1963 numerous distinctions. among which the Ars Electronica Prize [1987], the Grand Prix National de Ia Musigue of France [1990]. the first prize for digital music [1981] the Euphonie d’Or [1992] and the Magisterium prize at the international Bourges competition, the gold medal of CNRS [1999].

About the Music

Sud - 1985 - 23'35

“Sud” was commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture at the request of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) of the lnstitut National de l’Rudiovisuel (INR) The piece was realized at GRM.
“Sud” is based chiefly on sounds in the Calanques range at Marseilles. These sounds were processed by computer in Studio 123 at the GRM INA. I would like to thank Benedict Maillard and Yann Deslin who showed me how to use their impressive set of computer programs. My thanks also to Daniel Teruggi for intoducing me to Studio 116 where “Sud” was mixed.
The mixing elements also included seguences synthesized by computer at Marseilles using the MUSIC V program (Faculte des Sciences at Luminy and Mechanics and Acoustics Lab of CNNRS) In the first moments (and from time to time thereafter), “Sud” presents itself as a a sound photograph - a phonograph, to borrow François-Bernard Mache’s word - it alludes to Luc Ferrari, Knut Victor, Michel Redolfi, musician of the sea, Georges Boef and his abysses. and François Bayle’s “oiseau chanteur”.
The piece uses a small number of sound sequences - recordings of the sea, insects, birds, wood and metal chimes. brief “gestures” played on the piano or synthesized by computer which I multiplied by processing them in various ways (modulating, filtering, coloring. reverberating, spatializing, mixing and hybridizing). Cezanne wanted to “unite feminine curves with hilly shoulders”. Similarly, hybrid synthesis allowed me to work “in the very bone of nature” (Henri Michaux), to produce chimeras, hybrids merging birds and metal, or wood and sea sounds. I used this procedure mainly to transpose profiles and flows of energy. The pulse of recorded sea sounds is thus imprinted on certain other sounds, whereas at other times sounds reminding of breaking waves are unrelated to the sea.
A pitch scale (G - B - E - F Sharp — 6 sharp), first presented with synthetic sounds, is later used to color various sounds of natural origin. In the last part the scale becomes a genuine harmonic grid which resonates like an aeolian harp to birds and waves sounds. The
manifold sounds produced by computer can be located on a diagram resmbling a family tree: their layout in time brings several rhythmic levels into play and implies what might be called a logic of fluxes.

‘Sud” comprises three sections

9'45 The sea in the morning. The opening profile permeates the entire piece. Waking birds, from isolated peeps rising to a stretto.
Harmonic clouds.
Hybrid sounds emerge from the low frequencies.
Heat. Luminy, at the foot of Mount Puget real and imagined insects and birds.
5'49. A call — like a bell buoy animated by the sea.
Trepidations, drifts, north wind, tempest. telluric fire. or inner storms?
8'00. The sea’s profile becomes increasingly colored : noise turns into strident pitch.
Composite sounds in motion.
The harmonic grid emerges and vibrates under programmed impulses, birds raga, sea waves.
Ebb tide: the splash of the surf.

DIALOGUES - 1975— 10'30

Flute : Renaud François
Clarinet : Michel Arrignon
Piano : Carlos Rogue Alsina
Percussions : Jean-Pierre Drouet
Conductor : Michel Decoust

“Dialogues” combines four instruments (flute, clarinet, piano, percussion) with a tape of sounds synthesized by computer at the University of Marseilles
— Luminy.
It was created at the Ircam—Europalia session in 8russels by the soloists of Musigue Vivante conducted by Michel Decoust.

The composition is based on a nucleus of motives forming pitch and rhythm rows. The treatment of the motives gradually dissolves the rows and submerges them in residual harmonies. The piece attempts to bridge the worlds of instrumental and synthetic sound. The instruments and the tape carry on a dialogue they answer each other, clash with each other, extend each other or merge into each other. Thus, in the beginning, the flute and the clarinet stealthily emerge from the tape’s sounds; at one point the tape provokes the percussionist to react to its suggestions ; towards the end, the tape weaves and frays sound structures emanating from instrumental harmonies.

INHARMONIQUE - 1977 - 14'39

Irene Jarsky, soprano

“Inharmonigue” combines a soprano voice with a tape of computer-synthesized sounds. The tape sounds consist mostly of “inharmonic” components, whose freguencies do not relate to each other as the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4… Such configurations are rarely found in instrumental and vocal sounds. The sounds’ internal structure brings out different relations between them.
The piece opens with noise bands in motion. Pure sounds emerge and gather in increasingly rich layers. The voice first appars in filigree, but it eventually breaks through the screen ot artificial sounds ; it elaborates on the note A. whose harmonics are taken up by the tape. Intervals broaden. The tape introduces imaginary bells. composed like chords, which later break up into fluid textures (this is obtained by transforming the temporal profile of its components without modifying their frequencies). The voice becomes sparse but increasingly dramatic. The tape distantly echoes the voice (recorded and modified on the computer). The singer’s breath is submerged by surging bands of noise.
The tape was synthesized by computer at IRCAM. “Inharmonique” is dedicated to Irene Jarsky, who inspired it and whose own research enriched the vocal part. Irene Jarsky premiered the piece in a concert of IRCAM’s “Passage du XXe siecle” series.

MUTATIONS - 1969 — 10'26

Commissioned by the GRM, Mutations’ comprises only computer-synthesized sounds.
“Mutations” attempts to capitalize harmonically on the possibility offered by the computer to compose at the very level of sound, Thus the broken chord of the beginning is followed by a gonglike sound which is the chord’s shadow: harmony mutates into timbre. The title refers to the transformations taking place in the piece, as well as to sonic developments akin to the mutation stops of the organ. The computer unfolds a sound texture based on a chord the texture consists of harmonics of the notes of the chord, which wax and wane. The textures which thus emerge from harmonic structures exhibit increasingly close-knit frequencies the upper scale gradually dissolves into a continuous flux. A serial soon gets blurred tone pitches fluctuate, then split into components: the pitch moves continuously between low and high while remaining on the same note. then it begins to rotate and rise in an endless spiral. The upward spiral is initially pale, then more brilliant. After a bridge using John Chowning’s frequency modulation for the first time in a music work, the spiral resumes with a choral quality, and it is scanned by recalls of earlier elements, which converge to a final point where the high and low components of the initial chords are released. (Cf. “Mutations, interview with Jean- Claude Risset”, in Barry Schrader, Introduction to Electronic Music, Prentice Hall, New Jersey 1992, pp. 19W/201).
Realized at Bell Laboratories, “Mutations” was honored at the Darmouth Electroacoustic Music Competition (19701. It inspired a film by Lillian Schwartz using lasers and computer animation (Golden Cine Eagle Award, 1973).