Translation and Perception of Extra-Musical Models in the Works of Tristan Murail

The Problem of Translation

Translation theory

How dare one speak of translation before you who, in your vigilant awareness of the immense stakes – and not only of the fate of literature – make this sublime and impossible task your desire, your anxiety, your travail, your knowledge, and your knowing skill?¹

Thinking about music, or any art form, requires thinking about the body-soul (signifier-signified) duality of the human being and the multitude of processes that happen in the transfer from one end of the spectrum to the “other.” Similarly, religion, psychoanalysis, language, and translation, all have an inherent nostalgia for the origin.² The distortions that take place during the shift from signifier to signified represent, in a way, the secularization, or humanization of the idealized original.

Translation is central to Sigmund Freud in his interpretation of dreams, neurotic symptoms, or the unconscious. For Freud, every symptom is a bilingual system.³ Often the origin of the problem is no longer the preoccupation, however the struggling process of rediscovering, articulating, and uttering the “original” through translation creates a sense of healing, resolution, and bliss. Translation then becomes the overcoming of oppositions.⁴

Derrida’s paradox of translation

Translation plays a special role in the work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida, father of deconstruction. According to Professor Paul Fry of Yale University, deconstruction is a direct critique to the structuralist model of Levi-Strauss and Saussure, an elusive thought process or “dance,” whereby one doesn’t settle for discrete positions, but for a multitude of ideas that can be understood by a blanket term (what Derrida often calls a “transcendental signified”).⁵ Fry describes Derrida’s style as “a sideways movement” around an argument that is intended as carefully as it can to avoid seeming derivation from any definite concept.⁶ Derrida’s process deconstructs the foundations whereby thinking can be derived from one isolated concept.

Derrida’s approach attempts to simultaneously expose and weaken oppositions, hierarchies, genre, and paradoxes, on which specific text are founded.⁷ In the playful What Is a “Relevant” Translation?, Derrida writes, “As a matter of fact, I don’t believe that anything can ever be untranslatable – or, moreover, translatable.”⁸ Derrida resolves this paradox by proposing a spectrum or field, translatable-untranslatable, which relates the two. He denominates this condition as an “economy of in-betweenness”.⁹ This economy, for Derrida, implies both “property” and “quantity.” He writes, “A relevant translation is a translation whose economy, in these two senses, is the best possible, the most appropriating and the most appropriate possible.” He concludes that “any given translation, whether the best or the worst, actually stands between the two, between absolute relevance, the most appropriate, adequate, univocal transparency, and the most aberrant and opaque irrelevance.”¹⁰ Any structure can be transferred and “deferred,” therefore changes the original and leaves a trace.

Derrida’s translatable-untranslatable paradox is contingent on language. One of Derrida’s most well known claims that “there is nothing outside of text” (il n’y a pas de hors-texte)¹¹, which translates to “there is no such thing as out-of-text,” thus “there is nothing outside context.”¹² For Derrida, “context” is the entire “real-history-of-the-world,” whereby objectivity, subjectivity, ethics, and truth have taken on special meaning and imposed themselves.¹³ Derrida discloses that one of the designations of deconstruction is the aim to take this complex “context” into account, in an “incessant movement of recontextualization.”¹⁴

About his wide definition of the word “text” Derrida writes, “I take great interest in questions of language and rhetoric, and I think they deserve enormous consideration, but there is a point where the authority of final jurisdiction is neither rhetorical nor linguistic, nor even discursive. The notion of trace or of text is introduced to mark the limits of the linguistic turn. This is one more reason why I prefer to speak of ‘mark’ rather than of language. In the first place the mark is not anthropological; it is prelinguistic; it is the possibility of language, and it is everywhere there is a relation to another thing or relation to an “other.” For such relations, the mark has no need of language.”¹⁵

The unity and independence of the word, for Derrida, is mysterious and precarious. He utters, “there is no such thing as a word in nature.”¹⁶ That is to say that the word is historical, institutional, and conventional. Consequently, language is by nature arbitrary and meaning intrinsically contingent to it. The very materials (melodies, harmonies, tone rows, orchestral clusters, effects resulting from extended playing techniques) of all tonal, serial, and most contemporary music are indeed historical, institutional, and certainly codified over time. This is not always the case in Murail’s music. If the word is a highly specific, yet arbitrary, building block and signifying vessel on which the conditions for knowledge depend, then are Murail’s natural models, such as the wave breaking on the shore of Le Partage des eaux, a unique instance of where knowledge can happen outside of language? There is no such thing as a “note” in nature, but there is most certainly sound. As previously discussed, spectral composers’ central claim is that the atom of music is sound, not the notated representation on the score. Murail’s models, even those that exist outside of language, are both translatable and untranslatable. His models exist on the threshold of knowledge. The transfer from model to musical language is, however, a quintessentially human phenomenon, and does not exist in nature, thus making Murail’s, or any music, historical, institutional, and ultimately eventually conventional, after the premiere. Translation is, for Derrida, the threshold of reading and writing. Translation is for him both impossible and necessary.¹⁷ According to Arka Chattopadhyay, “it is impossible because of the inevitable failure of semantic transference, marked by the irreducibile differential schema of language while it is necessary because it is a practice in difference – the most potent site to discern the post-structuralist implication of language.”¹⁸ Murail’s translation processes distort meaning, negating the very possibility of a complete translation, but leaving a trace, a mark, that becomes in turn difference, as well as Murail’s subjective, original, and powerful music.

Translation as reading

Gayatri Spivak concurs with Derrida’s outlook that translation is the threshold of reading-writing. Spivak, a Derrida translator, describes translation as the most intimate act of reading. She surrenders while reading.¹⁹ Spivak writes, “The translator earns permission to transgress from the trace of the other – before memory – in the closest places of the self.”²⁰

For Spivak, language isn’t everything, but only an indispensable clue to where the self loses it boundaries. The author states that rhetorical figuration and logic disrupt each other, suggesting the possibility of a random contingency beside language, but around language.²¹ Furthermore, she asserts that, in the other language, rhetoric disrupts logic, and thus produces an agent, and indicates the aggression of the silence at work within rhetoric.²² Spivak declares that the non-linear relationship between rhetoric and logic (which is the condition and effect of knowing) is an affiliation established for the agent, so it can act in a human way in the world.²³ Spivak proposes that post-structuralism illustrates a staging of the agent within a three level notion of language: rhetoric, logic, and silence. For Spivak, logic is qualitative; it allows us to skip from word to word by means of clear connections, whereas rhetoric is quantitative; it takes place in the silence between and around the word based on intensity and appropriateness. The essential emptiness between two languages, which is created by the perforation of logic by rhetoric in the other language, invokes alterity or otherness. Spivak urges the “translator” to penetrate and infer the “original” as a director enters a play or as an actor interprets a script. For her there is no true translation without such conditions. She favors this intimate and performative approach to translation to one that simply accesses it as synonym, syntax, and local color.²⁴ This act of surrender is for Spivak more erotic than ethical. For her, unless the translator commits and earns the right to become the intimate reader, the translator cannot surrender and consequently respond to the “special call” of the text.²⁵ Derrida also shares this intimate and erotic aspect of interpreting. He writes, “As for the word (for the word will be my theme) – neither grammar nor lexicon hold an interest for me – I believe I can say that if I love the word, it is only in the body of its idiomatic singularity, that is, where a passion for translation comes to lick it as a flame or an amorous tongue might: approaching as closely as possible while refusing at the last moment to threaten or to refuse, to reduce or to consummate, leaving the other body intact but not without causing the other to appear – on the very brink of this refusal or withdrawal – and after having aroused or excited a desire for the idiom, for the unique body of the other, in the flame’s flicker or through a tongue’s caress.”²⁶

Hypertranslation

All translators exist in a space where they must seamlessly glide in a gamut, from ultimate disappearing to utmost presence. Different translation styles, situations, or agendas can also force the movement to one or the other side of the scale. An unconventional translation of Plato became critical to the philosophy of Alan Badiou since his early book, The Concept of Model, a work which emerged as a lecture in Louis Althusser’s seminar, shortly before the great events in Paris of May 1968,²⁷ an occurrence that would influence Murail’s music and reassert his resistance to the musical statuos quo in France at the time.

Badiou uses the term “hypertranslation” in various texts to describe his (in)famous translation of Plato’s Republic. Kenneth Reinhard reminds us “etymologically, a translation is something that is carried or transposed from one language or locus to another.”²⁸ A hypertranslation for Badiou, suggests an approach that goes above and beyond the usual supposition about translation, taking the text to a plane Reinhardt calls the sublime. Both Badiou’s translation of Plato and Murail’s translation of natural and physical models sublimate the original. For Lacan, sublimation is the “elevation of an object to the status of a Thing,” which is also to de-familiarize in order to bring out its strangeness and otherness.²⁹ According to Reinhard, this plane allows “new topological proximities, unmappable according to the conventional metrics of history and geography.”³⁰ The hyper-space shared by Badiou and Murail exist in the realm of human ideas, but neither is to be interpreted as a sacred empyrean.³¹

Badiou’s translation is not an ordinary transfer from Greek into French or a scholarly assessment of Plato’s dialogue. It is rather a sublimation and radical transformation of the original into something astonishingly new, revitalized, and current. Badiou explodes, expands, normalizes, and dramatizes the original whilst appropriating the source, which is left with a degree of humor, but also a rich and rigorous adaptation.³²

Badiou’s style and tone, like Murail’s adaptation of non-Western models (Tibetan horn and Mongolian biphonic chanting in L’Espirit des dunes), is often colorful and gritty, as he normalizes the quality of ancient models into contemporary renderings. As Reinhard describes, in Badiou’s Republic “Socrates and his interlocutors often speak like modern day Europeans or Americans, and their references are both classical and contemporary; they move easily between Homer and Pessoa, Heraclitus and Deleuze, Aeschylus and Pirandelo.”³³

Furthermore, similarly to Murail, translation is often also at the core of Badiou’s creative work; his plays replicate dramas by Aristophanes, Molière, and Claudel, transposing aspects of character and plot into new situations, freely altering and sampling sections or sometimes entire segments of text.³⁴ As Reinhard points out, for Badiou, fidelity is the “subjective disposition that results from the decision in the wake of an event to participate in the construction of truth.” For Badiou fidelity is contingent to agency.

Badiou describes³⁵ four critical procedures, or conversions, that take place in his translation of Plato: formal restructuration, universalization, conceptual displacement, and contemporaneity.³⁶ There are many parallels between the use of such interpretative operations in both Badiou’s and Murail’s work.

Badiou’s formal restructuration acts as a form of repunctuation of the discourse. Reinhard compares this repunctuation to the way in which a Lacanian psychologist might intervene in a patient’s discourse by adding or removing a comma, period or punctuation, or even cutting the session short, in order to draw attention to the sudden materialization of new possibility for finding significance while interpreting the problem.³⁷ This process can be seen in Murail’s seminal orchestral work Gondwana, where the composer employs models from the attack transient profile of a bell, gradually repunctuating it towards a orchestral meta-timbre that is modeled after a brass attack, in order to articulate the rich and novel orchestral sonorities, which themselves are modeled after Chowning’s frequency modulation formula. Murail’s approach allows for a repunctuation in motion.

Badiou cites French director Antoine Vitez’s statement “theater must be elitist for everyone.”³⁸ This utopian citation of a citation is representative of a universalization process. Badiou considers philosophy as elitist and aristocratic, but for him, this is not true for Plato’s thinking, but merely a consequence of his historical situation and conventions. He insists that there is nothing to prevent it from being universal, open to all. In his translation of the Republic, he tries to extend Socrates, “to all people without exception.”³⁹

Murail shares this desire for universalizing music by minimizing the arbitrary formalist residues accumulated over the course of music history. His music is an effort to liberate music from its contamination by musical writing, notation, and all of the formalisms that were built up in the trace of classical as well as serial and contemporary music. Following the leads of his masters, Murail’s career is an intrinsically insatiable quest for liberating sound from the formal constrains of structuralism and tradition. The composer ironically writes, “Well, let’s write a lot [of “notes”], as many as we can, indecipherable masses for [the] eye and ear.” By bringing the focus of the materials of music back to sound itself, from the contagion of the “note,” self-involved notation, and formalist schemes, that have little to do with sound and have over the centuries led concert music, particularly in the 20^th century, to become largely reserved for a select group of guardians and connoisseurs, Murail asks, “But why do we always have to speak of music in terms of notes?”⁴⁰

For Badiou, conceptual displacement is an effort to liberate Plato from the Aristotelian account of his “dualisms.”⁴¹ He disputes the common notion that Plato draws a clear line between the ambit of the “sensible” and “intelligible.” Badiou proposes instead, in The Concept of Model, that Plato’s account of “participation” suggests that intelligible ideas are located in sensible things.⁴² Badiou’s translates Plato’s ousia as “that which, of being, is exposed to thought.”⁴³ He argues that ousia represents the aspect of being which is identical to thinking, showing a “point of indiscernability between the particularity of the object and the universality of the thought of the object is exactly what Plato names the Idea.”⁴⁴ As Murail’s models often exist outside of language, in nature, it could be argued that they fit Badiou’s translation of ousia and Plato’s denomination of the Idea, where the being and thinking, sensible and intelligible converge.

Contemporaneity refers to an attempt by Badiou to retemporalize the original, “to restore its true identity, which is to be available for the present.” Badiou reveals that his intention, whilst translating Plato, was to remove it from the “discourse of the university,” which has established the original text in its philological-historical context, but at the cost of “embalming it as a relic of the past,” to be studied and enjoyed without true living value.⁴⁵ Murail and the spectral composers repeatedly stated their intention to restore sound as the true focus of music, liberating it from the excesses of notation and the disproportionate relationship between sound and representation, accumulated throughout the 20^th century (particularly since 1945), in order to reach not only a larger audience, but also an entirely new enhanced cognitive panorama.

Reinhard compares the use of imaginary representation to trigger the relationship between the presently fragmentary real of a truth and its future complete symbolization. This paradigm evokes a mathematical procedure, developed by Paul Cohen, referred to as “forcing,” a concept central to Badiou’s work.⁴⁶ In set theory, forcing is a process for generating new knowledge from within a current situation by betting of the future potential for wholesale completion of a currently fragmented truth. This knowledge, for Reinhard, depends on what mathematician Thomas Jech denominates “a sort of imaginary set” to a set-theoretical model, a generic set that we know only in part as of yet, but while exploring its implications and adding to the original, which expands in unpredictable ways, and depends on the “promise of partial knowledge,” or “forcing conditions”, that someday will have been completed.⁴⁷

Badiou remarks about the further translation of his hypertranslation of Plato, “Imagine what a strange thing it must be to translate into English this sort of translation into French of a Greek text!” For Badiou’s translator Susan Spitzer, “such a hypertranslation problematizes the task of the translator, who must not lose sight of Plato’s Republic even as it undergoes myriad transformations in its new French incarnation.”⁴⁸ She compares the process of translating Badiou to a palimpsest, where one underlying ancient text governs the other. However, in the case of her project, she writes, “the scriptio inferior — the inner text — far from being an entirely different text, was the very original, the source text of my source text, and perhaps the greatest work of philosophy ever written, at that.”⁴⁹

Hermeneutic movements

George Steiner’s “The Hermeneutic Motion” offers a pertinent hypothesis of processes of translation that are in many ways analogous to Murail’s. Steiner proposes that the act of appropriative transfer of meaning is fourfold.⁵⁰ The author views translation as a hermeneutic of trust, penetration, embodiment, and restitution. The first motion starts with an act of trust, an “investment of belief” in the presence of coherence and meaning in the original to be translated and its potential for analogy and parallel. The translator may find that “almost anything can mean everything” and must gamble on the coherence, translatability, and the symbolic plenitude of the world. Murail does not think of his models in terms of “beautiful,” “happy,” “ugly,” or “sad”. He replaces such adjectives with “interesting” or “promising,” rather focusing on their structural, sonic, and cognitive potential for creative exploration.⁵¹ The fate of the work depends on the composer’s trust in content as well as its transformational promise.

After trust comes violence. The second act is of the translator is invasive, aggressive, extractive, and ultimately exhaustive. This involves the Heideggarian notion that understanding, as an act, is intrinsically appropriative and consequently violent. The claim that all cognition is violent and that every proposition is an incursive penetration to the world is Hegelian. But it was Heidegger who added that understanding, recognition, and interpretation are an unavoidable mode of attack.⁵² Steiner interprets Heidegger’s proposition, that understanding is not a matter of method but of primary being (that being consists of the understanding of other beings), summing up that each act of comprehension must aggressively appropriate another entity. The translator translates into, invades, extracts, and brings home. While there are borderline cases, this violence of the translator, for Steiner, is not always negative, or an “empty scar left in the landscape” after mining. The plunder of this process can definitely lead to a false translation, however certain originals have been negated by transfer, thus generating a more structurally ordered, as well as more aesthetically pleasing translation. Steiner points out that there are originals, such as the sonnets of Louise Labé after Rilke’s Umdichtung, that are no longer utilized because of the higher magnitude of the translation.⁵³ In Murail’s case, the original model is always transfigured to a higher level of significance, since his models are mostly slices of acoustical events (or illusions) that project new aesthetic situations. While the composer never fully abandons the perceptive properties of the original model, he is far more concerned with finding new musical forms and structures inside of physical sound that can realize the trust invested in the original model and the desired poetics of the composition.

The third act is embodiment, an incorporative movement involving the transfer of meaning and of form.⁵⁴ This import does not happen in the void. According to Steiner, there are countless marks of assimilation and placement of the newly obtained, ranging from a “complete domestication,” as for example in Luther’s Bible or North’s Plutarch, “all the way to the permanent strangest and marginality of an artifact,” such as Nabokov’s “English-language” Onegin.⁵⁵ The Heideggerian concept that “we are what we understand to be” suggests that we are modified by each instance of comprehensive appropriation. Regardless of the naturalization, normalization, or compensation degree, this import of meaning can possibly dislocate or relocate the whole of the original structure. A Diaspora metaphor comes to mind here. Every language, symbolic set, or cultural assemblage is transformed while being imported. There is a network of nuances of appropriation and the use of the newly acquired. Steiner describes the dialectic of embodiment as two families of metaphor: incarnation and inflection. The translator incarnates foreign energies as well as sources of content and meaning, thus changing and adding to the “original.” According to Steiner, there are levels of distortion to the native matrix based on the motive for appropriation, and the ultimate reasons for the translation. If the appropriation is immature and confused, the transfer will not enrich the original but produce a series of mimicries.⁵⁶ Eventually, the original will react and expel the foreign body. As we “invade” and “encircle” cognitively we return home burdened. By taking away the “other” and adding to it our own we are consequently putting it off-balance. The interpretative act must then compensate. Steiner writes, “If it is to be authentic, it may mediate into exchange and restored parity⁵⁷.”⁵⁸ In Murail’s case, there is little doubt that the frozen slice or abstraction of the original is chosen and invaded, but eventually it is brought back to balance and normalizes its trace into the new musical environment or discourse.

The last act is that of restitution. According to the author there is finally a balancing restoration. Steiner argues that beyond a negative sense of loss or damage, this act is ultimately positive; the translated original is enhanced.⁵⁹ He explains that this enrichment happens on many levels, “being methodical, penetrative, analytic, enumerative,” and that the translation process, as well as any interpretative mode, will often “detail, illumine,” and “body forth its object.”⁶⁰ The human volition of the interpretative act, for Steiner, is “inherently inflatory,” it assumes that “there is more there than it meets the eye, ” and that “the accord between content and executive form is closer, more delicate than observed hitherto.”⁶¹ Murail’s restitution motion magnifies his carefully chosen musical objects, and their transformations, as he incorporates them through the lenses of technology, to his simultaneously unique and largely universal musical language. The unbalance caused by this reciprocity is dialectic. According to Steiner, there are translations that bring us closer to the original and others that “edge us away from the canvas.”⁶² Murail’s music fluidly zooms in and out, while translating his models, though various degrees of magnitude, creating dynamic shifts in depth, perspective, and viewpoint. Steiner adds that both proximity and distance create new configurations of significance. However, there is still an unbalance. In the flow of energy between source and receptor both are transformed, consequently altering the “harmonics” of the whole semantic system.⁶³ Steiner’s use of the term “harmonics” is here more than pertinent. A legitimate translation will always seek to equalize and restore the balance of forces disrupted during the appropriation process. Where it falls short of the original, an authentic translation sheds more light on the independent qualities of the original. When the real translation outdoes the original, it (re)asserts that there is a vast panorama of “potentialities, and elemental reserves as yet unrealized by itself.” Steiner concludes that the ideal perfect “double” doesn’t exist, but it makes “explicit demands for equity in the hermeneutic process.”⁶⁴

Steiner hopes that his fourfold model will help overcome, and ultimately incorporate, the persistent and “sterile” triadic model that has dominated the history and theory of the subject: the distinction between literalism, paraphrase, and free imitation. Steiner concludes that this simpler paradigm not only ignores that the three are contingent, but it overlooks that a fourfold hermeneia (Aristotelian term for discourse that signifies because it interprets) is conceptually and practically intrinsic to the very kernel of translation.⁶⁵

Steiner’s fourfold paradigm of trust, penetration, embodiment, and restitution offers an in insightful model for the analysis of Murail’s local implementation of his models in individual compositional projects. However, it also draws parallels to the composer’s very global project, career trajectory, and oeuvre.

Early in his career, Murail deposited an initial trust and investment in the meaningfulness of shifting the focus of composition to translating sound, based on a critical understanding of his socio-political zeitgeist, a critique of the musical establishment, hints from his masters, as well as research in acoustics and music technology. As Murail set out, he gambled and left himself vulnerable to the coherence of the “symbolic plenitude” of the new musical language, as well as the skepticism and criticism of musical institutions and leading figures.

After the initial faith came the violence of the appropriation process. Murail encircled his models as well as the status quo; he invaded and extracted. This offensive initially took place empirically, in the 1970’s, using analogies from simple abstractions or procedures, such as the overtone series or relatively simple generative methods from the electronic music studio. However, later, in the 1980’s, the appropriative act and the tone of his manifesto-like critiques became more forceful, as the composer arrived at IRCAM to assert his beliefs and help develop tools that allowed much greater precision and insight for analysis, notation, transformation, and reproduction of models. There is also an increase in the amount of detail, accuracy, and degree of access to data generated through analysis.

As the “pixilation” palette for musical representation increased, so did the potential for the residues created by interpretation processes to obtain agency, ultimately conquering the “body” of the model in the form of a cognitive process of incarnation. By the 1990’s, Murail’s musical language was once again transformed, assuming the space of the more radical and linear early style, as legitimate representations of sounds accumulated new subjective, but also coherent and corresponding, modes of significance. Murail’s style, by the 1990’s, became established, studied, documented, widely performed, as well as incorporated as one of the most relevant, effective, founded, perception-minded, and coherent approaches of the musical avant-garde. Murail embodied the figure of a recognized musical master.

In his recent style, Murail restores balance with the symphonic and chamber repertoire, by arriving back, full circle, at the often fragmented, discursive, motivic, formalist style that has parallels with the very statuos quo that he rebelled against. However, Murail’s current symphonic equivalent takes the genre to new technical, spatial, cognitive, and expressive heights. He reevaluates traditional musical elements such as melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, and form, fusing them under the contingency of physical sound and the perception thereof. Murail also amends, in his recent style, the often-contradictory and conficting relationship of acoustic (symphonic, chamber, vocal) and electronic (electroacoustic, synthesis, acousmatic, live-electronics) music. He fuses the two media compensating both electronic music’s “lack of ecriture” and acoustic concert music’s confused relationship to sound and its representations. This blend is beneficial to music as a whole, as it augments the sonic palette as well as expressive potentialities, and has become a common interest of many contemporary composers. Murail’s compensation cancels out the major limitation of both styles, allowing for new levels of detail, control, communication, and significance.

The composer’s multifaceted interpretative processes represent, perhaps, a constant process of intra-lingual translation, where the composer translates himself, repeatedly, throughout the course of his career. Murail’s case is also an exaggeration of this constant process of self-discovery, not uncommon in the lifespan of many music masters, for example Beethoven, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Ligeti, or even Boulez. Murail, however, unlike the aforementioned composers, never completely shifted course; never took any sharp turns. Apart from the multiple stylistic and technical advances to his style, he always kept his “original” impulse in sight – the becoming of sound. Murail’s own style has largely been responsible for encouraging other contemporary composers, often coming from contradicting idioms, to reinterpret their own styles. Some managed to reinvent themselves organically, reaching new heights and enhancing their already impressive musical vocabularies (Jonathan Harvey comes to mind), others get lost in translation, in the form of more conformist replicas.

Murail the Translator: Translation of Models in Three Different Stages of Murail’s Career

Murail’s musical materials are modeled after the intrinsic properties of sounding bodies, natural or artificial. The constraints of Murail’s models predate the musical work; his task becomes to free himself from these restraints, so as to boost his imaginative potential.⁶⁶ Murail has, from early in his career, embarked on an intimate, but also somewhat perverse, journey to rediscover the “pre-existing thing,” in order to construct new possibilities.⁶⁷

There are numerous interpretative intricacies that take place in the long journey from Murail’s instinctual selection of the initial model to the final compositional result. These include sonogram analysis, data sifting, translation to musical object, notation, orchestration, musical performance, hall acoustics, listening, and finally perception/reception of the musical work. Simultaneously, each of these interpretative stages dialectically moves away from the “original” model while glorifying and boosting that “original” through a network of intuitive, critical, subjective, and technically refined distillation processes. In this chapter, I will continue to use the thread of “translation” as a metaphor for Murail’s compositional practices.

How dare I use the word “translation” here?! The very term is, at the least, polemic. Translation typically involves the transfer of meaning between languages. How dare I say music is a language?! Language, like music, has a system of symbols by way of which human beings can communicate. Both language and music can be encoded into, thus transferred and displaced to, another medium. Furthermore, both depend on semiosis, the act of transmitting meaning by determining relationships between signs, which are then interpreted by a reader or audience. Finally, both include a complex phonological system and syntax that determines how sounds are combined in succession to form larger utterances or sentences.

The concept of translation can imply a multitude of meanings. Translation is a transfer (to bear, transmit, [a] change of place, space, state, or form to another)⁶⁸, rendering⁶⁹ (act of restoring, surrendering, or yielding, [a] reproduction, representation)⁷⁰, transformation (the alteration of coordinates in which the new axes are parallel to the old ones)⁷¹, depiction (reproduction or representation by artistic or verbal means, metaphor)⁷², transcription⁷³ (copy or product of this procedure)⁷⁴, paraphrase (express in other words, sometimes more complete and clearer than the original, the meaning of a passage or text)⁷⁵, and ultimately interpretation (elucidation of significance, explanation to oneself)⁷⁶.

Murail’s interest in interpretation can be traced back to his early years; he received degrees in classical Arabic and Maghrib Arabic from the National School of Living Oriental Languages. The composer’s music is contingent on his selection, adaptation, and distinctive appropriative processes. His distinct musical language crystallizes itself through transfer (imaginary application of tape delay in Mémoire/Erosion), rendering (implementation of chaotic systems in Attracteurs estranges, as well as fractal geometry in Serendib), transformation (spectral distortion processes in Désintégrations), depiction (imaginary representations of sound sources such as the thunder, rain, and frog musical objects in Le lac) transcription (orchestration of resultant tones in Ethers), paraphrase (inscription of Scriabin’s Prometheus in Terre d’ombre), and ultimately interpretation of pre-existing models. These models shape themselves dynamically into musical objects or structures the very moment they set motion across different media, from the initial creative impulse, through sonic analysis, musical notation, performance, and audience reception, accumulating on the way a multitude of interpretative layers. With each step, Murail simultaneously distances himself from the “original” model, but gradually approaches the composer’s subjectivity from multiple angles and reiterations, through the accumulated and composite shadow, profile, or archaeology of the “original.” As he deconstructs the original, Murail’s very dwelling on interpreting and translating familiar models amplifies and imprints the creator’s idiosyncrasies, technical abilities, and view of the world in various levels, across all stages of the composition process.

Application of models in early works (1973-1980)

I divided Murail’s output into three periods: early, middle, and recent works. The works I denoted as early are those produced after the composer returned to Paris, in 1973, from his residency at Villa Médicis. The works from this period concerned the gradual movement of sonic masses, electronic music processes, and acoustical paradigms. Another common thread in this phase is Murail’s interest in works for solo instrument and chamber ensemble such as Mémoires/Erosion (1976) featuring the French horn, Ethers (1978) featuring the flute, and Les Courants de l’espace (1979) featuring the ondes Martenot. In these works, Murail radically appropriates and transforms the concerto form.⁷⁷ The soloist no longer functions as the virtuosic force in the forefront accompanied by the ensemble. Instead it proposes acoustical and textural models for the work’s primary musical ideas. The ensemble constantly tries to translate the soloist’s material ultimately failing to reproduce it perfectly, thus creating an organic and ongoing conflict.⁷⁸ These works also have in common the influence of electroacoustic techniques, which help to emphasize their hybrid qualities.⁷⁹

Mémoire/Erosion

Mémoire/Erosion (1976), for French horn and nine instruments (four winds and five strings), illustrates Murail’s translation processes in multiple ways. The work is sonically and structurally modeled after the classic electroacoustic technique known as the “re-injection loop.” The set-up for this process involves two tape recorders that are separated by a calibrated distance; the magnetic tape runs from one to the other. The first device records the signal through a microphone, and the second reads the tape after an interval determined by the distance between the two devices. The reiterations accumulate as each new signal joins in the process. After many reiterations one can observe a gradual erosion of sound. Murail writes, “the interest [in] this process is that the sound, recopied and, above all, continually remixed with the new signals, is progressively worn down, degraded, transformed, destroyed.”⁸⁰

The procedure also brings to mind entropy, a concept that has remained central to Murail’s technique throughout his career. Murail finds the analogy of entropy particularly useful when composing with processes.⁸¹ He writes, “Positive entropy is defined as the progressive passage from order to disorder. The entire universe is subject to its law: natural erosion, one of its manifestations, destroys geological structures to create disorder, the final stage of which is indifferentiation. Life, considered as negative entropy, constructs an ephemeral order.”⁸² For Murail, this concept allows him to integrate noise naturally, through a seamless passing from harmonic to noisy, “via manifold forms of complex sonorities.”⁸³

Murail explains that the structure of the piece is derived from the gradual entropy of the horn’s middle C.⁸⁴ Figure 1 describes the harmonic implications of entropy throughout the work.

In the beginning of the process (a) the horn introduces the C. Gradually the strings take over and add upper partials by moving progressively towards the bridge. The C is slightly flattened representing a slight slowing down in the turntable (b, c). The drifted sounds intensify producing their own harmonics and further distortions to the original tone (d, e, f). The C finally disappears after multiple distortions produced by the residues of the imaginary “tape.” The global timbre is distorted to a saturation point (g, h, i) with sustained string rubbing and overpressure. Bb emerges as the new pitch center; it is later reinforced with its own harmonic partials (j).⁸⁵

Murail’s tape delay setup, however, is entirely imaginary and not constrained by the physical limitations of the electronic device. Murail elastically varies the imaginary “length of the tape” between one and three seconds, through inventive instrumental writing. Murail also creatively appropriates the “defects” of the device (indefinite re-recording of a sound eventually causes total distortion) and turns them into novel expressive, formal, textural, and cognitive potentialities. The use of microtones here is timid and inflectional, not unlike Scelsi’s approach, since at the time of composition, sound analysis tools and computers were largely inaccessible.

The soloist begins with the most stable material, a single note. Initially the reiterations presented by the ensemble are somewhat stable and harmonic, and occur with almost mechanic regularity. Gradually intonation, timbres, and rhythmic contours drift into chaotic and dense textures and, as Julian Anderson describes, “the music circles around in ever-closer concentric canons.”⁸⁶ The soloist tries to battle such processes throughout the work; this culminates in an explosive cadenza with “whoops and glissandi” that in turn make the texture even more unstable. At last the soloist gives in, and the piece ends with Murail himself switching off his imaginary tape machine.⁸⁷ This final gesture, a pronounced click, is accomplished with Bartok pizzicati for the strings and damped secco for the winds.

Mémoire/Erosion, is not only a metaphor for erosion, entropy, or classic “re-injection loop” technology, but also a metaphor for translation — each reiteration is increasingly enriched, but simultaneously distanced from the initial source.

Gondwana

The opening of Gondwana (1980), for orchestra, is one of the most recognizable and influential passages of spectral music. The title implies two meanings: it refers to an ancient Indian legend about an immense sunken continent, as well as in geology, it is the name given to one of the two vast landmasses that once comprised the entire surface of the earth.⁸⁸ The piece is a study of bell sounds; it was completed the same year Jonathan Harvey finished his seminal eight-track tape piece Mortuos plango, vivos voco, which also employs a bell as its primary model. Harvey’s work uses the physical properties of the bell at Winchester Cathedral, England, as a generative source for frequencies, rhythms, and structure. Murail’s “bell” however, much like his “tape-recorder,” is imaginary. Murail’s initial impulse was translating the sonority of a bell to the instrumental forces of the symphony orchestra.⁸⁹ Not having a bell or the technological tools for analysis at his disposal, Murail utilized relatively simple frequency modulation (FM) calculations to generate complex bell-like harmonies/timbres.⁹⁰ Chowning’s mathematical model can be a synthetic rendering of a bell; Chowning’s FM becomes Murail’s model. This creates a situation where Murail’s bell is a second degree translation: the translation of a translation of a bell.

While microtones were ornamental and incidental in the earlier Mémoire/Erosion, they are indispensable in Gondwana, to create the fusion of he FM components. Gondwana starts with a progression of timbres in order of increasing harmonicity, governed by five successive carriers and one modulator. The modulation index is 8. Murail did not attempt to calculate relative amplitudes with utmost precision. He instead simply gave softer dynamics to pitches generated from higher modulation indices.⁹¹

The FM progression is oriented towards a last aggregate that ends the process. However, the target aggregate does not correspond to a FM spectrum, but a double harmonic spectrum. The compound sonority comprises selected partials of G#2 and F#3. This is yet another empirical interpretation, of a bell-like spectrum.

Murail uses the term “aggregates,” rather than “chords,” to describe the intermediary nature of his harmonies/timbres. While the choice of frequencies is an important factor for achieving fusion, orchestration plays a crucial role. While timbres may be constructed by the addition of simple sinusoidal components, instrumental sounds add each of their own spectral profiles to the final aggregate. The orchestrated version adds but also differentiates itself from the original by a sort of spectral multiplication. The opening of Gondwana displays great mastery of orchestration as well as an unprecedented level of orchestral depth, synthesis, and brilliance. In order to avoid saturation and “grayness,” Murail favors simpler timbres, avoiding rich instruments like bassoons, oboes, brass instruments with straight mutes, as well as strings.⁹² Moreover, Murail assigns the core of the aggregates, the sounds with the lower indices of modulation, to (unmuted) brass instruments. Contrary to common assumption, brass mutes enrich the timbre, instead of simplify it, they disperse the energy across the spectrum. Brass instruments unmuted, however, tend to concentrate their energy on the first harmonic, thus promoting greater clarity.⁹³ The sounds representing higher modulation index values are played by the woodwinds. The oboe is utilized but in the higher register, where its spectrum is thinner. Murail does not employ string instruments at all in the opening of the piece, since their spectra is too rich and would blur the instrumental (re)synthesis.⁹⁴ The modulator assumes the role of a drone and it is assigned to the tuba, since it conveniently occupies the part of the register where spectral energy is most concentrated. This gives the tuba its characteristic voluminous and full timbre. Additionally, Murail employs metallic percussion instruments, such as tubular bells and vibraphone, to give a real “bell-like” sharpness to his orchestral attacks.

Another unique translation process takes place in the opening of Gondwana. While the point of departure is the meta-bell, an inharmonic spectrum, the target aggregate employs the characteristics of a “brassy” attack, and resembles a quasi-harmonic (double harmonic) spectrum.⁹⁵ The envelope of a bell has a “brutal” attack followed by a rapid exponential decay. However, a brass envelope has a characteristic attack transient that is less abrupt, as the harmonics enter from lowest to highest, forming a somewhat delayed peak, followed by a period of sustain. Figure 16 illustrates the gradual transformation from one envelope type to another that takes place in the first section of the piece.⁹⁶

Application of models in works of Murail’s middle period (1981-1997)

The middle period (1981-1997) is marked by the composer’s close collaboration with IRCAM, in Paris. There he began using computers to increase his understanding of acoustic phenomena.⁹⁷ Also during this period (1991-1997) he taught composition at the institute’s renowned Cursus for young composers, as well as contributed to the development of Patchworks, a Computer-Aided Composition program that allowed the composer’s technique to reach a new level of precision and sophistication. A conscious preoccupation in this period includes the implementation of electronics, as well as the favoring of more articulated, unforeseeable, and highly subdivided structures over more predictable linear forms.

Désintégrations

In Désintégrations (1982), for seventeen musicians and tape, the composer works with instrumental models from low piano notes, brass, and the cello, in order to blur further the boundaries between timbre and harmony. The piece initiates a long lasting collaboration with IRCAM. One of the central aspects of Désintégrations is the desire to achieve an unprecedented fusion between electronic and instrumental composition. Murail resolves the contradictions between the contrasting sound worlds by employing the same fundamental procedures to both media.

In the first section of the piece, Murail employs a low piano sound (C1) as a generating source for harmony/timbre. He extracts pitch aggregates based on the partial areas that represent the peaks of intensity (Figure 7) relative to neighboring partials. Murail transposes the intensity outline of the C1 piano sound to A#0. This simple transposition of the spectrum is in itself a translation; spectra, in theory, are specific to each governing fundamental, they cannot be transposed. Murail assigns dynamics to each of the characteristic partial areas of the meta-piano spectrum according to their relative intensities. He then intuitively and empirically selects smaller collections (Figure 6) as his musical objects. These objects do not sound like a chord, but a timbre, since their construction is modeled after a real piano timbre. Section 1 of Désintégrations presents a progression of aggregates that are developed from this model.

In Section 1 of Désintégrations, two series of aggregates alternate: one based on the piano’s A#0 and one on C#2. This spectral juxtaposition has a double function; it simultaneously creates variety, but also anticipates, projects, and clarifies the fusion of both aggregates into a double harmonic spectrum, which appears at end of the section in the form of a dramatic explosion.⁹⁸ The harmony/timbre of the passage again shows Murail’s fascination with sonorous bell-like structures; the spectra are a minor 10^th apart.

Furthermore, the two aggregate families are presented respectively with two superimposed, carefully calculated, and “written-out” rallentandi, which combined, produce an irregular, but controlled, global slowing down.⁹⁹ Murail places the climactic explosion at the end of the section at the point where both temporal curves meet. For Murail, the application of such superimposed temporal schemes allows a fruitful interplay between predictability and unpredictability. The composer writes, “my feeling is that this interplay is one of the central issues in musical composition. On the one hand, a work needs to be part of a sufficiently predictable universe [so] that the listener can perceive continuity and coherence in the musical discourse; however, at the same time, if the discourse is too predictable the work rapidly becomes uninteresting.”¹⁰⁰ For Murail, an element of surprise is necessary, but even the unexpected has to be logically integrated into the work. Murail’s dialectic for finding variety in unity, and unity in variety, is not only a central motto in Désintégrations, but an attitude of the composer’s career as a whole.

The harmonic/timbral scheme for section A takes an opposite trajectory to the opening of Gondwana; it gradually evolves from harmonicity to inharmonicity. After the collision of both rallentandi (measure 30) both harmonic spectra (A#0 and C#2) continue in superposition. The composer, however, progressively transposes certain partials of the aggregates down by one octave. This simple operation reinforces the desired feeling of instability — inharmonicity.¹⁰¹ Grisey also employed this procedure in the first section of Partiels (1975).

Murail’s trademark orchestral sensibility also reinforces the “drift towards inharmonicity.”¹⁰² In the beginning of section 1, Murail favors simple timbres such as flutes and clarinets to reinforce the initial harmonicity of the progressions and present the aggregates with utmost transparency and fusion. Gradually, Murail introduces the instruments, increasingly saturating the aggregates by orchestrating them with richer timbres. First, he introduces the muted horn, a pure timbre – lacking in harmonics. The strings enter next, playing harmonics or sul tasto, simpler timbres than the ordinario playing that happens a few measures later. Soon after, the oboes are introduced, initially in the higher register, where the overtones are minimal. Murail saves the richer timbres, such as bassoon and brass, for forte dynamics in the explosion gesture that is underlined by the spectral melding in measure 30.

The electronic sounds and the instrumental ensemble interact in a multitude of ways, but always keep an intimate sense of complementarity, fusion, and ambiguity.¹⁰³ In section 1, measure 34 for example, the tape provides a synthesized conglomerate that corresponds to the higher partials of the oboe, bassoon, and brass.¹⁰⁴ In section 2, the tape elevates the volume (not to be confused by dynamics) and depth of the chamber ensemble to a quasi-orchestral sonority. In section 3, the English horn is accompanied by the electronic translation of its own spectrum, which is gradually transformed, creating a kind of “virtual filtering.”¹⁰⁵ Often the electronic sounds fill in the micro-intervallic gap that some instruments cannot reach. In section 3, for example, the piano and the percussion play “clouds” of high sonorities, while the electronic sounds provide the non-tempered pitches unreachable by these instruments.¹⁰⁶ In section 4, the tape clarifies the rhythmic structure and instrumental discourse. The electronics add stronger attack transients to their instrumental counterparts, where the register may be too thin to be heard with precision.

In section 3, Murail extracts five pitches (Figure 10) from the resonances lingering from the high percussive cloud in the opening of the section, and applies the aforementioned electronic technique of frequency shifting to them. This distortion procedure represents a kind of intra-lingual translation, where the interpreter continuously transforms his own language. Murail writes, “The five sounds are exchanged between the woodwinds and muted brass, like a distant carillon that has been slowed down.” Once again, Murail interprets the idea of “bells” here.

The progression moves down in eleven steps, from harmonicity towards inharmonicity. This instance shows how Murail always favors the sonic result over the formal algorithm. The difference between each frequency of the resonance aggregate and final aggregate is 61.5 Hz. Instead of implementing the downward curve of eleven equal steps (in this case 5.6 Hz) to produce the final musical result, he implements smaller gradations of twenty-five steps and empirically selects the eleven most compelling results.¹⁰⁷ This, again, injects unpredictability to an otherwise predictable formal method.

Section 10 of Désintégrations also utilizes distortion-based transformational techniques (a trombone spectrum is dilated and compressed) that portray intra-lingual translation, but in another work from the same period, Vue aériennes (1988) for French horn, violin, cello, and piano, Murail employs distortion by means of a novel and powerful cognitive strategy. In Vue aériennes, Murail does not initially reveal the “original.” He first presents deformed versions of the spectrum and gradually approaches the target, thus creating a sense of questioning and expectation for the listener. Murail uses the term “anamorphosis.”¹⁰⁸ It refers to a visual analogy where an object is distorted or presented at an unusual angle, requiring the viewer to find unusual vantage points to fully reconstitute the image.

Désintégrations comprises eleven distinct sections. It continues to move away from predictable linear processes promoted by Murail in earlier years. This move towards non-linearity becomes even more extreme in the works that follow.

Serendib

Serendib (1992), for twenty-two instruments, blends two key characteristics of Murail’s middle period: models from chaos theory and highly subdivided structures. Chaos theory became a popular area of interest with the publication of James Gleick’s bestseller Chaos: Making a New Science (1987). It provided Murail a compelling paradigm for mirroring the relationship between order and disorder in nature, showing that unpredictability can be generated from simple, coherent governing principles. Here, Murail applies Benoît Mandebrot’s revolutionary fractal geometry to the temporal structure of the piece. Fractals’ self-similarity represent nature’s translation of herself. They can be found in the outline of snowflakes, broccolis, trees, mountain ranges, and coastlines.

Murail starts his interpretation of fractals by defining five abstract values (8; 1.8; 9; 6; 11), which are then applied to various structural degrees of magnitude of the composition. The values themselves establish five temporal proportions that can be perceived as medium, very short, medium long, short, and long. Each of the values is then proportionally subdivided, under the principle of self-similarity. This method allows for a coherent, yet kaleidoscopic, musical form where both proportions and the appearance of musical objects follow a highly subdivided but consistent discourse, where foreground, middleground, and background follow the same rules.

The interest in this process lies beyond the mathematical formalization; it allows for new perceptual strategies and possibilities. First, notice (Figure 22) how Murail favors the perception of the subdivisions to their formal boundaries; he does not subdivide the shortest (B) section, but fractalizes the longest (E) section to the maximum. Second, each of the five proportions has its own morphology, reflected in macro, intermediate, and micro levels of the composition. Each is treated as a musical object, corresponding to a clear and easily recognizable musical behavior. The first element is characterized by an introductory quality agitating the texture; the second by a brief noise-like perturbation. The third appears as a physically powerful structural downbeat; the fourth emphasizes high frequencies as well as fast and chaotic harmonic changes. The last element brings a sense of closure, ceases the instrumental animation, and brings the music to silence.¹¹⁰

The fractal structure does not guarantee Murail a successful musical work, but it does highlight Murail’s most intimate specificities, giving the musical structure a poetic trace that resembles nature in its very core: a diversity of “coherent metamorphoses.”¹¹¹ Here, the nature-rendered and self-similar paradigm of fractals opens up a fresh landscape for the composer’s imagination.

Attracteurs Étranges

Murail’s solo cello piece Attracteurs étranges (1992) also draws its models from chaos theory. The title refers to the itinerary of seemingly predictable dynamic systems towards unpredictable oscillations called “strange attractors.” An attractor is the state in a dynamic system (a system that depends on its evolution in time and is determined by a fixed rule) towards which the system converges over time. The momentum of a swinging pendulum, for example, can be a two-dimensional representation of a simple attractor; when the pendulum comes to a halt, the momentum disappears, and the system converges to a resting point.¹¹²

Meteorologist Edward Lorenz used just three variables (viscosity, thermal conductivity, and buoyancy) to produce a model of fluid convection.¹¹³ Lorenz’s attractor describes the formation of convective turns: at low temperatures, the model settles into stability (Figure 14, left). As the energy in the system rises, the direction of the rotations changes in a series of chaotic, non-periodic, and seemingly random reversals; the simple attractor becomes a strange attractor (Figure 14, right).¹¹⁴ The system (as measured by points in phase space) orbits around two loops. The reversal in convective course is represented by a move from one loop to another. In theory, the trails never intersect, but they come extremely close. These moments of near impact create small variables that divert the orbit into radically different paths. This fragile dependence on initial conditions is the most characteristic feature of a chaotic system.¹¹⁵

In Attracteurs étranges, Murail never utilizes the actual mathematics from Lorenz’s model. Instead, he interprets strange attractors in the form of “poetic analogy” to the work’s formal unfolding.¹¹⁷ The melodic spirals of the cello always return to one or more identical points, but always pursue “differing, warped or diverted trajectories.”¹¹⁸. Here, Murail’s attractors hint at points of equilibrium and moments of stasis, but quickly, the music becomes unstable, putting forth new cycles of oscillation. The composer translates and seamlessly integrates, compositionally, “spirals,” “points of equilibrium,” and “warped trajectories.” Composer and music theorist Robert Hasegawa speculates that, if the cello melodies are “spirals,” they pass through similar (but never identical) paths, converging towards “points of equilibrium,” much like the simple attractor. However, chaos theory’s “sensitive dependence on initial conditions” suggests that these “points” may act as pivots, leading to “warped trajectories,” much like the strange attractor.¹¹⁹ The very concept of “warping”– “the transformation of material in a way that distorts its original form”–for Hasegawa, is in itself a central concept of the piece.

For Hasegawa, Attracteurs étranges is based on two contradicting ways of conceptualizing pitch: a spectral approach, as well as the more traditional paradigm of pitch as fixed points in equal-tempered pitch-space.¹²⁰ He suggests that a recurring symmetrical three-note microtonal pitch set represents the “point of equilibrium.”¹²¹ The symmetrical set (third system) is made up of two intervals of 6 ½ semitones: D – A ¼ flat– Eb.

Hasegawa continues that in addition to the 6½ stacked semitones, the interval’s complement 5½ semitones, also plays a significant role in this passage. The second grace-note group of the piece (alto sul ponticello) begins with a pair of 5½ semitones: F ¼ sharp – B – E ¼ sharp (Figure 15).

Furthermore, the top four notes of the first grace-note gesture, F# – G ¾ sharp – B – C#, are together transposed down by 5½ semitones to become the bottom four notes of the second group: C ¼ sharp – D# – F ¼ sharp – G ¼ sharp. Consequently, the 2½ semitone trill figures are also 5½ semitones apart.¹²² Moreover, Hasegawa proposes that if we are willing to accept seemingly stylistic contradictory operations, such as pitch-class and exact transposition, the final sonority of the fourth system A ¼ sharp – G, is related, again, by the interval of 5½ semitones to the second trill. As a consequence, from the beginning of the work, there is a cycle of downward transpositions by 5½ semitones, F# – G ¾ sharp to C ¼ sharp – D# to G – A ¼ sharp, however, here the last sonority is inverted and spelled as a seventh, rather than a second.¹²³

However unusual it is for Murail to employ equal-tempered intervals as transformational procedures, Hasegawa points that the intervallic complementarity of 5½ and 6½ semitones is persistent in this passage of the work. He adds that quartertone composers, such as Ivan Wyschnegradsky, have organized pitch space according to the equal-tempered division of the octave into twenty-four increments, and have been drawn to this 6½ semitone interval for its mathematical properties. Hasegawa writes, “Like the perfect fifth, which is slightly more than a half an octave and acts as a ‘generator’ in twelve-tone equal temperament, repeated iteration of the 6½ semitone interval eventually passes through all twenty-four quarter tone pitch classes.”¹²⁴

Hasegawa also points to the ambiguity of the material generated from spectral processes. In the last page of the piece, for example, there is a gradual three-octave unfolding from the low open C2 to C5. A glissando in the fourth system of Figure 16 intensifies the motion and covers the last stretch of the cello’s tessitura.

Hasegawa tries to “reverse-engineer” this passage and concludes that the eight-note figure (Figure 16, second system) can be interpreted in reference to four different spectra: a) F-2 harmonic spectrum, b) a F#0 compressed spectrum, c) A-1 compressed spectrum, d) C#-1 stretched spectrum (Figure 17).

Application of models in recent works (1998 onwards)

I designate as recent the works composed since Murail’s move to the United States, in 1997, to become Professor of Composition at Columbia University. Murail’s latest compositions seem to summarize, further distill and refine the techniques he developed in previous years. Here the composer reaches the peak of his harmonic language and orchestral technique. The models themselves became more complex, but their application simultaneously more nuanced and subjective. Murail’s music reaches a new level of transparency and depth. While reinventing more traditional elements such as melodies and leitmotifs, he still gives preference to timbre and tone color. Since leaving Paris, in 1997, the composer maintained his fruitful collaboration with IRCAM, working with the institute on many creative productions, as well as helping develop Computer-Aided Composition software. Advances such as portable recorders and laptops with increasingly greater processing power and speed allowed Murail to gradually work more independently. In 2012, Murail returned to Europe to become Professor of Composition at the Universität Mozarteum of Salzburg, Austria.

Le Lac

Le Lac (2001), for twenty instruments, represents a distilled showing of the composer’s mature compositional style and technique. The title of the composition (The Lake) refers to a lake situated near the composer’s former home, in upstate New York. Murail used the lake’s ever changing acoustic ambiance as a source of inspiration. He also made reference to Walden Pond in Massachusetts, where American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau spent two years in a cabin by the lake totally immersed in nature.¹²⁵

Le Lac reaffirms the composer’s fascination with nature displayed throughout his career; Sables (sandbanks) and L’esprit des dunes (the spirit of the dunes) invoke the composer’s visits to the desert.¹²⁶ The ocean, its waves, currents, and whirlpools, inspired Couleur de Mer, La Dynamique des fluides, and La partage des eaux. Slow movements of the earth across millenniums are expressed in Gondwana as well as La derive des continents. Murail’s titles often evoke the creative interplay between the composer and the world/universe that has surrounds him. Mostly without programmatic intent, the composer expresses his highly personal view of nature, which in return gives his music a unique sense of tri-dimensionality and depth, often reminiscent of wide-open spaces.¹²⁷

In Le Lac, Murail translates the sonic universe of the lake and interprets both physical and imaginary sources into specific musical objects. The musical objects of the piece are:

1. Rain falling into the lake
2. Rumble of thunder
3. The birdsong of a common loon
4. Sound of frogs in the spring
5. “Melody of chords”
6. Spectral harmony

Each of the sixteen sections of the piece highlights one of the musical objects, transforming, juxtaposing, and superposing it in the vast sonic environment that has both somewhat fixed musical elements and the ever-changing quality of nature. The sections themselves, in general, connect seamlessly and often overlap. The first, last, and ninth sections are intrinsically composite in nature. The first section functions as an introduction to the main musical objects, the ninth section a memory, and the last a conclusion. Composer and theorist Rozalie Hirs, a scholar of Murail’s music and former student of the composer, shows the interaction of the different musical objects in the first section of the piece (Figure 18).

The musical objects have such strong characteristics that they almost become characters, allowing the listener to recognize their idiosyncrasies even in the most saturated passages.

The Rain object is represented by short, percussive, and pitched attacks with short envelopes, such as the piano, harp, and pizzicato strings. Hirs states that the Rain object has a “statistical distribution of sounds events and the quasi-chaotic behavior that often characterizes these kinds of natural phenomena.” The pitch and the rhythmical material is derived from frequency analysis of rain falling on the lake.¹²⁸ After importing the file to OpenMusic, which translates it into musical notation, Murail intuitively selects the pitches that best represent his intended musical rendering of rain, always taking in consideration that human musicians have to (re)interpret its components. Hirs explains that while the Rain object material is dense, it still possesses great clarity, since it takes place in the high register and the attacks are short and harmonically unobtrusive.¹²⁹ Murail associates the Rain object with the feeling of expectation, as well as with stormy weather.¹³⁰

The Frog object is represented by sustained tones, and the bisbigliando (timbre-trill) effect, and it’s not based on the analysis of real sounds. It is often characterized by a string (non-vibrato, harmonics) preparation and a “frog song” presented by a bisbigliando in the flutes. The string preparation first brings Murail’s frogs from afar, but gradually fuses with the more present flute bisbigliando timbre.

The Thunder object is represented by low-pitched instruments and unpitched percussion rolls, particularly tam-tam, thunder sheet, and bass drum. After analyzing a thunder sample with AudioSculpt, Murail concluded that the result was too complex and inappropriate for instrumental (re)synthesis. He instead composed a stylized thunder rumble orchestrating different parts of the thunder envelope for different parts of the ensemble. For example, the attack is played by harp and piano, followed by a low piano trill, and a diminuendo that represents the decay. Percussion rolls and string overpressure add noisy elements to the composer’s highly individualized meta-thunder. The thunder, for Murail, represents a powerful threat in the distance as well as the feeling of suspense.¹³¹

The Loon object is characterized by monody and a high trumpet timbre, which is later imitated by the woodwinds and strings. Murail transcribed the song of the Loon with the help of AudioSculpt, but carved a melody inside of the spectrum of the bird-song empirically. The composer also took into consideration the ambience of the Loon, incorporating ambient characteristics of the sound analysis into the representation of the object and the poetics of the piece. The original sound sample of the Loon bird-call included a natural echo of the lake, as well as a thunder rumble.¹³² In his musical adaptation Murail reverses the order, introducing the thunder first; it functions as a preparation for the high trumpet bird-call and its echo to emerge from the resonance. The echo gives a feeling of open surroundings, depth, perspective, and dependence on the lake’s acoustical properties. For Murail, the call of the Loon is also associated with anguish and the supra-natural.¹³³

The “Melody of chords” object is a chord sequence derived from material previously used in Le partage des eaux.

The Spectral harmony object, unlike the other musical objects, does not refer to a sound model or image, it functions rather as an independent harmonic element, often used to seamlessly connect different objects or sections.

In addition to the main musical objects of Le Lac, there is a secondary wind effect, represented by non-pitched orchestral effects such as breath sounds in the brass instruments. Hirs writes that the wind effect is not considered a musical object, since it only appears occasionally and is never the main musical element of a formal section, like the other musical objects.¹³⁴ The effect is often used to prepare the Thunder object.

There are unquestionably programmatic aspects in Le Lac. Over the course of the composition, however, the imagery becomes more and more independent, producing sensations for the listener that are both a translation of the composer’s sonic impressions of a lake and transcend these very references, producing novel, coherent, highly original and brilliantly orchestrated musical discourse independent of the original lake model.¹³⁵

The personal computer and technologies such as OpenMusicplay a central role in Le Lac. The work marks the first time in Murail’s career that no paper or pen was needed throughout the entire compositional process.¹³⁶ The composer’s toolkit allowed him to analyze and decompose even the most complex models, such as rain sounds, into music notation with great precision and insight. The combination of precise and loose translation of models creates the possibility of a sound world deeply founded in the environment, yet highly characteristic of the composer’s musical voice.

Bibliography

Scores

Grisey, Gérard. Jour, Contre-Jour, München: Ricordi, 1978.
______. Les espaces acoustiques, München: Ricordi, 1985.

Ligeti, György. Apparitions. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1959.
______. Atmosphères. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1961.
______. Lontano for full orchestra. Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1969.

Murail, Tristan. Attracteurs étranges. Paris: Éditions Henry Lemoine, 1992.
______. Cloches d’adieu, et un sourire. Paris: Éditions Henry Lemoine, 1992.
______. Désintégrations. Paris: Éditions Henry Lemoine, 1982.
______. Ethers. Paris: Transatlatiques, 1978.
______. Gondwana. Paris: Transatlatiques, 1980.
______. Le lac. Paris: Éditions Henry Lemoine, 2001.
______. Mémoire/Erosion. Paris: Transatlatiques, 1976.
______. Sables. Paris: Éditions Henry Lemoine, 1975.
______. Serendib. Paris: Éditions Henry Lemoine, 1992.
______. Territoire de l’oubli. Paris: Transatlatiques, 1977.
______. Treize Couleurs du soleil couchant. Paris: Transatlatiques, 1978.

Scelsi, Giacinto. Quatro Pezzi per Orchestra (su una nota sola), Paris: Editions Salabert, 1983.

Wagner, Richard. Das Rheingold. New York: Dover Publications, 1985.

Discography

Murail, Tristan. Tristan Murail. Sound Recording, CD, Accord, AC4653052, 1996.
_____. Gondwana – Désintégrations – Time and Again. Sound Recording, CD, Montagne/Naïve, MO072175, 2003.
_____. Winter Fragments. Sound Recording, CD, Aeon, AECD0746, 2007.
_____. Couleur de mer. Sound Recording, CD, Accord, AC4659012, 2001.
_____. Mémoire/Erosion. Sound Recording, CD, Accord, AC4659002, 1997.

Articles and Books

Anderson, Julian. “In Harmony – the music of Tristan Murail.” The Musical Times, Volume 134, Number 1804 (June 1993): 321-323.

_____. Program notes to “Ethers (1978)” In the CD liner notes for Una Corda 465 900-2.

Assayag, Gérard, Camilo Rueda, Laurson, Carlos Agon, and Olivier Delarue, “Computer Assisted Composition at IRCAM: From PatchWork to OpenMusic,” Computer Music Journal, Vol.23, No.3, “Recent Research at IRCAM,” Autumn, (The MIT Press, 1999).

Badiou, Alan. Plato’s Republic: A Dialogue in 16 Chapters, Introduction by Kenneth Reinhard, Columbia University Press, 2012.

Bernard, Jonathan W. “Voice Leading as a Spatial Function in the Music of Ligeti,” Music Analysis 13, nos. 2/3 (July–October 1994): 227-253.

Chakravorty, Spivak Gayatatry. “The Politics of Translation,” The Translation Studies Reader, Ed. Lawrence Venuti. London: Routledge, 2000.

Chattopadhyay, Arka. “Jacques Derrida and the Paradox of Translation,” Seminar on “Connecting Cultures: Translation and Texts, ” University of Calcutta, India, February 2010.

Chowning, John. “The Synthesis of Complex Audio Spectra by Means of Frequency Modulation.” Journal of the Audio Engineering Society 12(7), 1973. Reprinted in Foundations of Computer Music, ed. Curtis Roads and John Strawn (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The MIT Press, 1985).

______.Yamaha magazine advertisement, 1987. Quoted in Curtis Roads, John Strawn, Curtis Abbot, John Gordon, and Philip Greenspun. The Computer Music Tutorial. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The MIT Press, 1996.

Chakravorty, Spivak Gayatatry. “The Politics of Translation,” The Translation Studies Reader, Ed. Lawrence Venuti. London: Routledge, 2000.

Chowning, John. Yamaha magazine advertisement, 1987. Quoted in Curtis Roads, John Strawn, Curtis Abbot, John Gordon, and Philip Greenspun. The Computer Music Tutorial. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The MIT Press, 1996.

Cornicello, Anthony. Timbral Organization in Tristan Murail’s Désintégrations, Dissertation, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Brandeis University. Waltham, Massachusetts, (2000).

Dalbavie, Marc-André. “Pour sortir de l’avant-garde” [Leaving the avant-garde] in Le Timbre, Métaphore Pour La Composition [Timbre, a metaphor for composition], ed. Jean Baptiste Barrière, (Paris; IRCAM/Christian Bourgois Editeur, 1991), 306-307.

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976).

Derrida, Jacques. “What Is a “Relevant” Translation,” The Translation Studies Reader, Ed. Lawrence Venuti. London: Routledge, (2004): 423-446.

Derrida, Jacques. Afterword, in Limited Inc, trans. Samuel Weber and Jeffrey Mehlman. Evanston:, II: Northwestern University Press, 1998.

Derrida, Jacques and Maurizio Ferraris, A Taste for the Secret, trans. Giacomo Doris. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 2001.

Dufourt, Hughes. “Auto Portrait,” extract from the file on spectral music (CDMC), Orientations (Paris, La Villete: 1977).

Dufourt, Hughes. “Musique spectrale,” Conséquences No.7-8, 1986.

Fineberg, Joshua. “Guide to the Basic Concepts and Techniques of Spectral Music,” Contemporary Music Review, Vol. 19, Part 2, (2000): 81-113.

Fry, Paul. Introduction to Theory of Literature, Chapter 1, Online, Open Yale Courses. Retrieved from Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np72VPguqeI.

Griffiths, Paul. Modern Music and After. London: Oxford University Press: 1995.

Grisey, Gérard. “Did You Say Spectral?,” Trans. Joshua Fineberg, Contemporary Music Review, Vol. 19, Part 3, (2000): 1-3.

Grisey, Gérard. “Structuration des timbres dans la musique instrumentale,” in Le Timbre, Métaphore Pour La Composition [Timbre, a metaphor for composition], ed. Jean Baptiste Barrière, (Paris; IRCAM/Christian Bourgois Editeur, 1991).

Harvey, Johnathan . “Spectralism,” Contemporary Music Review, Vol. 19, Part 3, (2001):11-14.

Hasegawa, Robert. “Strange Attractors: Chaotic Form in Tristan Murail’s Attracteurs étranges, Music Theory Society of New York State Annual Meeting, Hunter College, New York, NY, March 31, 2012.

Hirs, Rosalie. On Tristan Murail’s Le lac. Contemporary compositional techniques and OpenMusic, Dissertation, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University. (New York: ProQuest/UMI, 2007).

Ledoux, Claude. “From the Philosophical to the Practical:An Imaginary Proposition Concerning the Music of Tristan Murail,” trans. Joshua Fineberg. Contemporary Music Review, Part 3, (2000): 41-65.

Lelong, Guy and Gérard Grisey. “Portrait de Gérard Grisey.” Revue du Festival Musical; Strasbourg, 1996.

Maconie, Robin. The works of Karlheinz Stockhausen, London, Boston: Marion Boyars Ltd, 1976.

Malherbe, Claudy. “Seeing Light as Color; Hearing Sound as Timbre,” trans. Joshua Fineberg and Berry Hayward, Contemporary Music Review, Vol. 19, Part 3, (2000):15-27.

Michel, Pierre. “Introduction,” trans. Joshua Fineberg. Contemporary Music Review 2, (2005): 119-120.

Moscovich, Viviana. “French Spectral Music: an Introduction,” Tempo 200 (April, 1997), 21-27.

Murail, Tristan. “Questions de cible” [Questions of object], Entretemps 8 (September 1989), 147-172.

_____. “Scelsi and L’Itineraire: The Exploration of Sound,” trans. Robert Hosegawa. Contemporary Music Review 2, (2005): 181-185.

_____. “Scelsi, De-composer,” trans. Robert Hasegawa, Contemporary Music Review 2, (2005): 173-180.

_____. “Villeneuve-lès-Avignon Conferences, Centre Acanthes, 9-11 and 13 July 1992” trans. Aaron Berkowitz and Joshua Fineberg. Contemporary Music Review, Vol. 24, No. 2/3, April/June (2005): 187-267.

_____. La révolution des sons complexes. Darmstadt: Schott. Trans [The Revolution of Complex Sounds]. Contemporary Music Review 1 (2005): 121-135.

_____. “Cloches d’adieu, et un sourire…in memoriam Olivier Messiaen.” Program notes, January, 2013. http://www.tristanmurail.com/en/oeuvre-fiche.php?cotage=27527

_____. “Spectra and Sprites,” Trans. Tod Machover, Contemporary Music Review, Vol. 24, No. 2/3, April/June (2005): 137-147.

Oxford English Dictionary. 14 March, 2013. OED Online. Oxford University Press. http://dictionary.oed.com/.

Ross, Benjamin. “Hostile Obituary for Derrida,” The Nation, November 24, 2004.

Roads, Curtis, John Strawn, Curtis Abbot, John Gordon, and Philip Greenspun. The Computer Music Tutorial. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The MIT Press, 1996.

Seidman, Naomi. Seminar on “The Problem of Translation: Philosophy, Theology, Aesthetics, Anthropology, Psychoanalysis,” session on the “Theologies of Translation,” New York University, New York, August, 2012.

Smith, Ronald Bruce. “An Interview with Tristan Murail,” Computer Music Journal, Vol.24, No.1, Spring, (2000): 11-19.

Steiner, George. “The Hermeneutic Motion,” The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti. London: Routledge, (2004): 193-198.

Varése, Edgard. “The Liberation of Sound.” Perspectives of New Music, ed. Chou Wen-Chung, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1966): 11-19.

Notes