Stlukesguild

While I am currently engaged in a deeper exploration of Baroque music, I still have the "schizophrenic" need every now and then to explore something really different. Currently I am listening to two very unique composers: Tristan Murail and Harry Partsch.

Tristan Murail is a contemporary French composer (b. 1947). He studied economics and Arabic at the Ecole d'Hautes Etudes before entering the Paris Conservatoire to attend Messiaen's composition class (1967–72). Stimulated by Messiaen's research into resonance and his refinement of instrumental timbre, Murail and his contemporary, the composer, Grisey both used acoustics and the study of the perception of sound as the starting point for a new musical aesthetic which has since become known as "Spectral" music... which involved the use of the fundamental properties of sound as a basis for harmony, as well as the use of spectral analysis, FM, RM, and AM synthesis as a method of deriving polyphony. All of this is highly theoretical... and surely impossible for someone who cannot even read music to understand. Essentially, Murail's music is based upon sound and not upon any extraneous/non-musical considerations such as narrative, representation or suggestion of nature, emotional expression, etc... In spite of this theory... the resulting music is very evocative of nature... to a degree that places it firmly in the tradition of Impressionism and such Post-Impressionist composers as Messiaen. Like Impressionist composers such as Debussy... and especially Ravel, Murail is a master of orchestration. His choice of instruments are all highly evocative of color and mood.

This beautiful, sumptuous and gloriously colourful piece has finally made it onto YouTube:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utQAX...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdROh...eature=related

Gondwana is a short orchestral work and one of Murail's finest pieces. Gondwana is the name given to a southern precursor-supercontinent...



The music abounds in wave-like patterns of rise and fall, such as crescendo-decrescendo, acceleration-deceleration and tension-relaxation. If these waves of sound recall the legendary, sunken Gondwana, the geological Gondwana's turbulent history is vividly evoked in the music's more dramatic moments, especially in the volcanic "eruption" near the end of the work.

Harry Partsch is an even more unique character. Partsch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer and instrument creator. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonal scales. Microtonal music uses intervals of less than an equally spaced semitone. Microtonal music can also refer to music which uses intervals not found in the Western system of 12 equal intervals to the octave... music which contains intervals smaller than the conventional contemporary Western semitone. The term implies music containing very small intervals but can include any tuning that differs from the western 12-tone equal temperament. Microtonal music can be found especially in Asian and Middle-Eastern music... but may also be found in jazz, blues, and rock music where musicians may "bend" notes... between one not and the next on the traditional Western scale.

As a child, Partsch learned to play the clarinet, harmonium, viola, piano, and guitar. He began to compose at an early age, using the equal-tempered chromatic scale, the tuning system most common in Western music. However, Partch grew frustrated with what he felt were imperfections of the standard system of musical tuning, believing that this system was unsuitable for his ends. Partsch... who was largely self-taught... composed much of his music for custom-made instruments...





... often using found materials such as metal bowls, artillery shell casings, bamboo, liquor bottles, and hubcaps... that he built himself and tuned in unorthodox ways... to as many as 43 tones in a scale. He invented and constructed instruments that could underscore the intoning voice.

Partch secured a grant that allowed him to go to London to study the history of tuning systems and text-setting. While there, he met the poet, William Butler Yeats, with the intention of gaining Yeats' permission to write an opera based on the poet's translation of Sophocles' Oedipus the King. However, after his grant money ran out, he was forced to return to the U.S., at the height of the Depression. There, he lived as a hobo, traveling around on trains and taking casual work where he could find it. He continued in this way for ten years, chronicling his experiences in a journal named Bitter Music, parts of which he later set to music. In 1943, after receiving a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, Partch was able to dedicate more time to music. Partch created and maintained his own record label, "Gate 5", to release recordings of his works and generate income. Towards the end of his life, Columbia Records made recordings of some of his works, including Delusion of the Fury, which helped increase public attention to his work. He remains a somewhat obscure figure, but is well known to experimental musicians (especially those interested in microtonality) and instrument-builders.

One might explore some of Partsch' work here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6buNHKzS-Nc

I'm especially interested in his settings of the poems of Li Po which I have on order. Further examination of Harry Partch can be found in this BBC documentary (6 parts):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cKnTj2cyNQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFtOK...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OH0W...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfCjW...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZV3z...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNqHH...eature=related