Page 250 - HandbookMarch1

Viviana Moscovich

French Spectral Music: an Introduction

The composers belonging to what would later be research, the impact of electroacoustics on musical
called the 'spectral music movement' started their thought, and, above all, the collapse of the social and
careers in an unstable political period in France. mental barriers under which the [musical] profession
Between 1962 and 1974, under the presidency was becoming ossified.1
of Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou, Another reason for this change in aesthetic
France (the 5th Republic) was what we can call thought was related to the notion of timbre, for
a 'Gaullist Republic'. But in the middle of the since the beginning of the 20th century, two
1960s the economic policy of the government correlated factors have influenced the aesthetics
aroused the hostility of the French people. The of the musical world: the emergence of timbre
'Stabilization Plan' of 1-963 induced unemploy- as a fundamental factor in composition, and the
ment for the first time since 1945, and the development of new materials such as elect-
authoritarian character of a government which, ronics, transmission, recording, computers and
in 1967, legislated in the form of ordonnances, data processing. The use of timbre - instead of
turned the people against the presidential policy tones - is a choice based on technological and
in every domain. cultural parameters.
In May 1968 the crisis became a cultural The beginning of this change in musical
revolution. The main groups involved were the language and perception began in the 19th
students and the workers. Immense manifest-
century with the appearance of Fourier's sound
ations were organized following repressions by analysis of any continuous sound signal, giving a
the police. On 13 May red flags with the insignia
physical characterization to each and every signal.
'Ten years is enough!' (Dix ans ca suffit!) were raised Sound is not a nucleus but a whole, composed of
against the Gaullist government. The objectives different parts. A signal is therefore decomposed
of the movement of 1968 (the 'soixante-huitards') in series of harmonics and sound is represented
were: I. the revolt of the people; 2. to free the in the form of a mathematical formula. Sound as
individual; 3. to reverse the sodal order; 4. to a whole - and not only as a definite pitch -
change the way of life. On 30 May, de Gaulle becomes the composer's raw material, involving
announced the dissolution of the Assembly, and also factors such as the acoustic phenomenon of
on 30 June, in the parlimentary elections, the physical sounds, the human perception of these
Gaullist party obtained a vast majority. sounds, the psycho-physiological response to
After this period of crisis, and during the sound stimulus, and the choice of sound sources.
presidency of Georges Pompidou, there emerged This kind of compositional work called also for a
- mainly in France - a generation of young change in such notions as melody and musical
composers born in the 1940s. The most important timing.
were Johannes Fritsch and Mesias Maiguashca The forerunners of this composition technique
from Germany, Jonathan Harvey from England, in music are, in chronological order: Debussy,
Gilles Tremblay and Claude Vivier from Canada, Varese, Scelsi and Messiaen.
and Gerard Grisey, Tristan Murail, Hugues Debussy revolutionized the musical world by
Dufourt, Horatiu Radulescu from France.
introducing two major changes in the linear
After the events of 1968, recoiling from what organization of melody:
seemed a dead-end in the evolution of contemp- 1. By thinking of sound as a perceived object,
orary music, these young composers gathered and using it to evoke an image, a colour or a
together to open a new way in musical comp- feeling by choosing to mix the sounds into
osition. They began to create in a period of great sound-fields of different lengths.
instrumental development, or, as Dufourt put it:
1 H. Dufourt, Auto Portrait, extract from the file on spectral
the prominent pheonomena of this decade [the decade music (Centre de Documentation de la Musique Contemp-
of 1967-1977] [are]: the development of instrumental oraine), (Paris, La Villette: 1977), p.3: Orientations.

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