2. From Performative Act to Discourse: The Playing of the Horn Using a Reed

The passage in Partiels where the horn is played using a reed, which had seemed problematic in rehearsal, was then discussed in interviews first with the horn player and then with the conductor. Both interviews followed the rehearsal session for the sequence discussed above.

In the part of this interview where he is asked about the passage and the corresponding moment of the rehearsal (Video 2), horn player Francesco Mattioli provides a few technical explanations about the production of reed sounds on the horn. The technique involves removing the mouthpiece from the instrument and placing the reed directly on the leadpipe whilst holding it. The size of the reed must be adapted to the instrument being played, which is the case with a bassoon or contrabassoon reed, as the horn player points out at the beginning of the video sequence. In the preface to the score of Partiels, in the section devoted to brass instruments, Grisey states: “Use a reed (for contrabassoon for example) that can be adapted to the instrument’s mouthpiece [1]”. He therefore does not give strict instructions and leaves a certain amount of freedom to the performers regarding the precise choice of material. On the other hand, Pierre-André Valade seems to be somewhat more specific: “After Fig. 12, sounds should be performed using a contra-fagott reed held in the mouthpiece [2].” The horn player also talks about the nature of this sound, which he considers to be an effect rather than a note: “He didn’t write a specific note, he wants something, like a noise, from dal niente, from nothing. Until fortissimo, it’s not a specific note, it’s only a noise, an effect, but it’s quite hard to make it without bring the other harmonics, it’s very interesting, I’ve never played something with half horn.” (0:30-0:59.) At this point the horn player echoes the idea of effect used by Pierre-André Valade in rehearsal, as well as the idea of correlation between making a dynamic crescendo and producing harmonics, which is difficult to control. He then goes on to giving his own personal ideas of noise – which certainly stems from the characteristic inharmonicity of this passage [3] – and of instrumental hybridisation – which shows that the horn played in this way is somewhat deprived of its own organological characteristics. The idea of hybridity comes up again at the end of the interview, where the horn player explains with some amusement: “it’s something like bassoon. It’s a thing belong to bassoon player, not to horn player.” (1:54-2:05.) Beyond its purely sonic aspect, this passage could also be seen as a comic touch by Grisey within the piece [4].

The interview with the horn player is further enlivened by his demonstration of the passage under discussion, thus allowing the sound effect to be heard in isolation from its musical context and the gestures of the instrumentalist to be seen in close-up (1:10-1:47). The three realisations given show that the reed is held on the leadpipe of the instrument, in place of its mouthpiece, with three fingers placed on both the reed and the instrument. The horn player’s right hand, generally placed at the level of the bell, results in an unusual posture. The left hand shows that the instrument is played without operating any of the valve levers, therefore in F. The perceived pitches are approximately between G₃ sharp and C₄, with a stabilisation on the third attempt on B₃ flat – which corresponds to the 11th harmonic relative to F₁. As can be seen from the sonogram and waveform of these three realisations (Figure 1), maintaining the pitch appears to be difficult to control, with abrupt changes in pitch of about a semitone to a tone upwards, accompanied by discontinuities in the dynamics. The last attempt is clearly the most controlled of the three, with a gradual increase in harmonic richness that is shown by a relatively linear increase in the spectral centroid compared to the much more erratic previous attempts (Figure 2) [5].

The conductor Pierre-André Valade also spoke in an interview about this passage [6] (Video 3), pointing out the variability and unpredictability of the resulting sound: “it sounds differently each time [7].” This passage would therefore seem to be relatively susceptible to the unpredictable conditions of performance. The conductor explains his thinking about the passage as follows: “You start with a sustained sound and this sound is amplified. The sound is thickened when the forte passage is played [8].” He introduces the idea of thickness, which here results from both an increase in sound amplitude and spectral richness – which is consistent with his explanations during the rehearsal and the horn player’s demonstration discussed above. In the rehearsal, this result was not quite achieved, with constant thickness and unstable pitch: “In that very passage this afternoon, we had the same thickness. And then it went up, and then it went back down [9].” Technical explanations confirm what was highlighted in the interview with the horn player, in a much more detailed way: “It’s a very tricky passage. That’s because the player has to blow using this reed which is a technique he never normally uses. I mean, it’s not a normal technique for this instrument. And then, on the other hand, the reed is held on the mouthpiece with the player’s hand. It depends how the reed is attached to the mouthpiece. It depends on a lot of factors. A lot of very subtle parameters. When the player blows, when the sound starts to change, the player can’t always control what happens [10].” This unpredictability of the result is perfectly acceptable in a concert setting but is generally the subject of more thorough rehearsal work – and therefore audio editing – in the case of a CD recording: “It’s quite a tricky thing. But for a recording, you have to do it again and again until it works. [...] For a concert, you take what’s happens live and make do with it [11].” Despite its compositional and notational precision, Partiels remains a living piece of music, and the horn playing with a reed is a good example of an instrumental technique that is sometimes difficult to control in real time