Gérard Grisey

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

Biography

Gérard 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 György 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 "L’Itinéraire" with Tristan Murail, Roger Tessier and Michael Levinas, later to be joined by Hugues Dufourt. "Dérives", "Périodes", 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, Malmö, Göteborg, Los Angeles, Stanford, London, Moscow, Madrid, etc.)Gérard Grisey died at the age of 52 in Paris on 11 November 1998.

Among his works, most of which were commissioned by famous institutions and international instrumental groups, are "Dérives" 1974, "Jour, contre-jour" 1979, "Tempus ex machina" 1979, "Les Chants de l’amour" 1984, "Talea" 1986, "Le Temps et l’écume" 1989, "Le Noir de I’etoile" 1990, "L’Icône paradoxale" 1994, "Les Espaces acoustiques" (a cycle consisting of six pieces), "Vortex temporum" 1995 and "Quatre Chants pour franchir le seuil" 1998.

Musical style

His 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).

Works

Major works include:
* "Vortex Temporum" (1995)
* "Derives" (1974)
* "Talea" (1986)
* "Les Espaces Acoustiques" 1974-1985 (a cycle of six pieces for various ensembles of which "Transitoires" for large orchestra of 1981, "Modulations" of 1977 for 33 musicians, "Périodes" of 1974 for 7 musicians and "Partiels" of 1975 for 18 musicians are the most famous).
* "Quatre Chants Pour Franchir Le Seuil". (1998 - his final masterpiece)

ource

*Fineberg, Joshua (2006). "Classical Music, Why Bother?: Hearing the World of Contemporary Culture Through a Composer's Ears". Routledge. ISBN-10: 0415971748, ISBN-13: 978-0415971744.

External links

* [http://brahms.ircam.fr/textes/c00000037/index.html Biography and list of compositions of Gérard Grisey at IRCAM website (in French only)]
* [http://www.ricordi.com/Compositori/Dettaglio.asp?IdCompositore=193 Biography and list of Compositions from Casa Ricordi Publishing (English)]
* [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3870/is_199904/ai_n8843134 Obituary]
* [http://www.angelfire.com/music2/davidbundler/grisey.html Interview with the Composer]