From INA/GRM 9115/9116: la regle du jeu, par Antoine CULTUR (the rules of game) When one listens to a violin and piano sonata in the classical repertory, the tradition it belongs to and the musical system used by the composer make this combination of instruments (although their timbre and texture and the way they are played places them at opposite poles to each other) seem self-evident, almost natural. reve lisse, Denis Dujour (smooth dream) However a composition for violin and two synthesizers - like Denis DUFOUR's REVE LISSE (Smooth Dream)- may at times baffle the listener. There seems to be something incongruous about associating a "noble" instrument gradually perfected over the centuries, like the violin, with an iconoclastic object like a synthesizer, which few musicians even dare to call an instrument, let alone play. And so one looks for a logical explanation. The one that comes to mind - surely the only one - is that the evolution of musical idioms creates a need for new instruments (and these in turn inspire new musical experiments, in what is by now a classic cycle). The composer is a writer rather than a painter. Before even considering the color of his sounds (though they are a vital element of instrumentation), he concerns himself with his musical "language" - a language that renders even the most unusual instrumental combinations self-evident and natural. REVE LISSE is based on morphologies (sound forms) which are almost all derived from slides, from sounds evolving continuously as they rise in pitch. There are few notes (tempered high-pitch sounds), except where easily memorizable reference points are called for. The main emphasis is on rhythmic fluidity, on the way high-pitched sounds evolve and change. The construction is obvious and based on simple, easily recognizable figures and on repetitions, distortions, and developments closely related to certain classical forms. As for the emotional, poetic dimension of the composition, that is for the listener to experience... volumétriques, Yann Geslin (volumetrics) To the instrumental range of two synthesizers, Yann GESLIN brings the particular qualities of sound in motion in space. Using an output console, a third instrumentalist breaks up a tape recording of a continuous material and distributes the resulting "sound figures" over different speakers. The number of speakers and their location in the concert hall define the general space in which the figures evolve. The console's normal function is thus somewhat modified in order to spatialize sounds. The performer creates a sound (by suddenly pushing the volume control) and gives it a precise location in space, as indicated on the score. This is echoed in the parts for synthesizers where the sound shifts from one speaker to another with a slight rise in pitch (imitating the Doppler effect), an important element in the overall conception of the composition. Different modifications in speed -acceleration, contraction, dilation, arrested movement...- are the leading elements (on the level of intensities, as well as on that of pitch) of the vocabulary of VOLUMETRIQUES. The form is continuous. It is not based on specific thematic elements, but develops in a linear fashion. The different parts generate each other until a culminating standstill point is reached, when the initial idea re-appears and is amplified, stamping the particular character of the composition on the listener's mind, and bringing the work to a close. quatuor, Laurent Cuniot (quartet) A number of factors explain the synthesizer's originality. Most obvious is the fact that it allows the musician to experiment with timbres. A broad range of rich specific timbres can be conceived and produced on it. Another aspect may be less obvious to the listener. By its nature, the experimental synthesizer (as distinguished from the synthesizer used in pop music) produces sound forms unrelated to any pitch scale or any measured rational rhythmical values (even complex ones). Thus the musician working with the experimental synthesizer is led to cast pitch and rhythm in new terms. Hence a shift away from systems of hierarchical values (arithmetical relationships) and toward the irrational -away from movement and toward pure states. The instrument forces the musician to experiment with notation and determine what is relevant in the sound figures and how traditional notation can account for it: in other words, what has to be given up, used differently, or confirmed... What the synthesizer involves, then, is nothing less than a new reflection on musical language -and this is precisely the approach taken by the TRIO. Scoring is an important factor in the works produced by the TRIO. Hence their chamber music character and the fact that they privilege the phrase and musical discourse rather than timbre effects (although the latter are present, but mainly in a spirit of instrumentation : they do not replace the musical language elements). One often encounters a misunderstanding concerning the synthesizer. The listener tends to expect the music to be primarily a music abounding in extremely diversified materials within a single (orchestral) work. On the in fact, the (chamber music) approach just mentioned leads the musician to create a non-changing instrumental entity -at least from one movement to another- but one having rich possibilities. The programs determining the sound creation and sound manipulation of the synthesizer in Laurent CUNIOT's QUARTET were conceived in this spirit. The flexibility of this approach enabled the composer to stress scoring and to consider the two synthesizers in an instrumental perspective equivalent to that of the violin and the cello. It allowed him to take advantage of the quartet form's potential for balance: autonomy of the different parts, junctions, isorhythmics, imitation, polyphony... the movement of the different voices in their diversity. The QUARTET consists of two movements of a sharply contrasted character, conceived to complement each other in their development. Laurent CUNIOT : '' The beginning of Grave (low-pitched and solemn, middle of the second movement) is based on a relationship between fairly scarce linear phrases and motionless chords recalling the first movement's opening phrase. I expanded this idea, suggested by the development of the second movement, but also derived from the first movement's point of departure." The composer's goal was to provide a rational and coherent framework for a two-part form based, not on a lively, slow/gay, solemn contrast, but on the rich potential of a central idea which is at once an incitement to unity and a source of diversity. situations de jeux (playing situations) Nowadays the generally accepted notion is that learning an instrument involves first a series of exercises designed to resolve technical problems of increasing difficulty, then studies of a somewhat less arid nature, and finally the promised land of the small -not to say, major- composition in which the student can at last consider that he is "playing music". This of course produces magnificent instrumentalists, accomplished musicians -or almost ... for this type of training has one major weakness: it does not allow the student to view the instrument as a means of musical invention. This may seem rather shocking. Nevertheless it touches on a number of problems, and in particular the fact that most instrumentalists are totally unprepared to play contemporary music. And when they do "take it up" (though only after having completed their musical training), they are handicapped by their inability to master the language elements contained in the score through improvisation. (This of course does not apply to the few exceptional musicians whose names we are all familiar with). Now, from the sixteenth century lutists to the violinist Kreutzer (nineteenth century), a brilliant improviser of fugues, invention was considered a natural activity for instrumentalists (and probably even a major one for the Renaissance lutists.) Because it is not yet a true instrument (there is as yet no general agreement about how it is to be played, or about its repertory and methods; and it has not yet produced any recognized virtuoso performers), and because, as yet, only future composers are learning how to master it, the synthesizer automatically involves a type of instrumental training that cannot be disassociated from musical invention. Each technical problem is surmounted by an inner act -one produced by the thought of the "invented figure" -and not by an acquired reflex reproducing a notation in the score. That is why the TRIO musicians attach a great deal of importance to what they call SITUATIONS DE JEU (Playing situations). This is not a matter of composition (in the sense of a structure worked out on paper, of motifs developed to a conclusion and of their interaction with memory), but of a simple and necessarily banal framework in which the form and the different moments of the performance are established. One in which the elements of the discourse are not the result of an interpretation, but of extemporaneous invention determined exclusively by the performer's imagination and virtuosity. And of course this is also the definition of the highest level of improvisation practiced by jazz musicians. This produces a surging music, one that is at once refined and crude -not yet subjected to the distancing effect of "delayed time" -suggesting what the musical phrase can be in its initial state, before it is shaped by the composer. trois esquisses ouvertes, Philippe Mion (three open sketches) Though it requires a thorough knowledge of synthesizers (many different models are to be found on the market), composing a work for the TRIO involves an experimental phase in which the composer writes and rewrites, makes discoveries, tries out different possibilities, suggests them to the instrumentalists, and draws inspiration from their reactions -essentially a process of reflection and analysis... Philippe MION :" I dreamt of a savage, convulsive music... the reality of composing for string instruments has no doubt tamed my dreams, and that's perhaps just as well..." Like the instrumentalists, the composer has adopted an approach reminding us of the studio approach (research, definition of sound material, emergence of an idea from the composer's experiments...) " This composition has no pre-established theoretical orientation. The music was worked out in response to what emerged during numerous work sessions with the TRIO." The concrete characteristics of each of the three synthesizers used in this composition give it an almost character thanks to its colors and mode of playing... This composition -TROIS ESQUISSES OUVERTES / Three Open Sketches - is situated at the intersection between the requirements of notation and the aspirations of a studio musician open to the concrete aspects of sound material, to its inner life, its intrinsic qualities ( "as for the physical aspect of the sounds produced on a synthesizer, I am particularly drawn toward all organic-type phenomena -even those verging on animality- all colored, naive, and, why not, "roguish" qualities) : "the idea that emerged during the work sessions was to develop a capricious and versatile polyphony (relationships characterized by conflict, imitation, submission, orchestration), in which the autonomy of each part could be smoothly integrated with the vertical principles governing the composition as a whole". stries, Bernard Parmegiani (striations) STRIES / Striations is derived from an earlier composition, VIOLOSTRIES (1963) for violin and tape. Bernard PARMEGIANI has re-worked the tape and has based the parts for synthesizers on this new version. The formal and musical logic of STRIES is therefore determined by the initial tape. It is very dense and orchestral (in the electroacoustic sense, as a definition of various planes of presence in the mixing of voices, of staggering in the sound spectrum, of coloring, and of the development of new sound elements of varying complexity). The synthesizers do not have a true solo role (in the classical sense of being contrasted to the tutti), but are superposed over the tape, mostly to accentuate it or to develop an aspect, without ever diverging from it or opposing its development. In the first movement the synthesizer parts are not scored, but are freely improvised by the performers. Bernard PARMEGIANI .-"Sounds produced by a violin are fed into the synthesizers. The transformations they have undergone have not entirely erased their original character. Their interwoven horizontal form, their unchanging thickness, and their invariable color enable the TWO to sculpt them, to paint with them. The performers' chisels and brushes are the modulators and filters which give them relief, color them, break them up, interchange them, lighten or darken them. But in spite of all these manipulations, the original sound is preserved. It can still be divided: while one part of it is processed, the other remains intact. All this takes places within a framework which can be enriched on the spur of the moment with inspired finds." Combining instrumental parts with indications of a more precise nature, the second movement is swept by a powerful tidal wave. Bernard PARMEGIANI gives free rein to his interest in slowly moving, rich, dense sound materials. The act of listening becomes more relaxed and the listener lets himself be submerged by sound. Time slows down. The fusion of the tape and the synthesizers is total in a process that is more suggestive of a natural model (ebb and flow) than of a form set down on paper. The orchestra of loud-speakers, the chamber music - played on electronic instruments - expresses a desire to combine the attainments of instrumental music with those of electronic music in a single specific thought. A.C. TM+ trio instrumental electroacoustique CUNIOT DUFOUR GESLIN The T M + Electroacoustic Instrumental Trio (formerly the GRM Plus Trio) is a unique electroacoustic chamber music ensemble. The Trio performs works written for synthesizers, traditional instruments, or electronic sound-transformation equipment, as well as works composed and recorded on tape. It uses several synthesizers (sometimes associated with recorded sources) and their specialized input devices and an amplification output unit. These are sometimes combined with other instruments or experimental sound bodies. Founded in 1977 on a suggestion by the GRM's director Francois BAYLE, the Trio has built up a repertoire of original scores, either the work of its own members or that of guest composers like Bernard PARMEGIANI, Guy REIBEL, Ivo MALEC, Jacques LEJEUNE, Jean SCHWARZ, Philippe MION, etc... as well as compositions calling for instrumental interpolations (Karlheinz STOCKHAUSEN, BAYLE/PARMEGIANI, Guy REIBEL, etc...) which it has performed in concert. The Trio has participated in numerous contemporary music festivals and more than 80 musical events in France (including the GRM's " Cycle Acousmatique" concerts in Paris). Its activities include radio broadcasts, records, professional and public workshops, etc.. Since 1980 the Trio's concerts in France have been subsidized by the Ministry of Culture. Laurent CUNIOT . 1957 Studied music at Reims and later at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris (violin, chamber music, electroacoustic composition). Since 1978 have been teaching electroacoustic composition (with Guy Reibel) at the Paris Conservatory. His compositions include works for tape and synthesizers (Par Jeux) and synthesizers and voices (Rivages des voix, Météora), as well as works for strings (Quatuor), and an opera for children (Metamorphosalides). Denis DUFOUR . 1953 Studied at the Lyon Conservatory and later at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris (analysis, composition). Joined the GRM (Groups de Recherches Musicales) in 1976. Asked to put together the TM + Trio by Francois Bayle. Has been teaching electroacoustic composition at the regional conservatory of Lyon since 1980. A long list of compositions, including acousmatic and instrumental works (for orchestra, soloists, chamber music ensembles, vocal groups), as well as mixed works (tape and instruments) and works composed for the TM + trio of synthesizers (Pli de perversion, Reve lisse, Dix portraits, etc...). Yann GESLIN . 1953 Studied piano at Saint-Etienne, and scoring, analysis and electroacoustic composition at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris. Joined the GRM where, since 1980, he has been active in the "Studio Numérique Experimental" . His compositions include pedagogical works, works for solo tape, including two computer compositions (Petite musique de notes, Variations didactiques), and works for synthesizers (Volumetriques,etc...). Pierre CHAMPAGNE . 1956 Studied cello at the Boulogne sur Seine Conservatory (Jean Brizard's class). First cello prize and Chamber Music prize in 1978 at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique of Paris and worked at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. Philippe MION . 1956 Has been participating since 1977 in the INA.GRM's activities in various areas, especially training, organizing events, and concert performances of electroacoustic works. In charge (with J. Lejeune) of the Initiation to the Electroacoustic Music workshop of the GRM/ADAC, Paris. Main works for tape, ballet compositions and works for synthesizer trio. Bernard PARMEGIANI . 1927 From 1959, composer in the Musical Research Group (G R M), producer of audio-visual experiments, director of the Sound/Image workshop. Major works : Violostries - Pour en finir avec le pouvoir d'Orphee* - De Natura Sonorum* - l'Enfer (Divine Comédie) - Dedans Dehors* - Mess Media sons - La creation du Monde - etc./* . disques INA.GRM AM 714.0.1 - 9 102 pa - cassette 4 714.01, distribution HARMONIA MUNDI.