The Composition of Complex Sounds and Their Instrumental Realisation in Grisey's Les Espaces Acoustiques

Camille Lienhard
Interdisciplinary Thematic Institute’s Centre for Research and Experimentation on the Artistic Act – University of Strasbourg

Introduction: The Composition of Complex Sounds and the Extension of Sound Paradigms

Music articulates various types of sound paradigms. We use the term “sound paradigms” here to refer to intelligible structures of acoustic phenomena brought into play by musical composition, that is, to the fundamental ordering of perceptual relationships that link the basic constituents of these phenomena to their overall form, such as a sequential order linking the pitches of a melody or a fusional ordering that links the components of a synthesized sound.

In contemporary music, and especially in spectral music, there has been a shift away from purely pitch-based structures to ones that focus more on timbre and the morphological shaping of the sound, reflecting the historical trend of the “liberation of sound” [1]. In the field of instrumental music, the primary functional element is still the note; this historical parameter has undergone a functional shift: while the traditional organisational processes (melody, polyphony, harmony, etc.) assigned it a combinational structuring function of the sound phenomenon based on its perceptual conformity with a simple sound, the new processes overturn this relationship and assign it a mediating function with sound phenomena that cannot be perceived in terms of their combinational structuring (such as music that makes use of inharmonic or noise-based timbre effects, spectra, textures, clusters or densities, etc.) [2].

This crucial expansion thus constitutes musical composition via two types of sound paradigms, which we can describe as “simple” and “complex”. The former refers to systems characterised by a relationship of perceptual identity between the elementary constituents and the overall form of the sound phenomenon; the latter refers to systems in which this relationship does not exist, either because the elementary constituents are indistinguishable in the overall form, or because the form cannot be broken down into them.

If the assimilation of this second type of sound paradigm now defines a large part of the thinking behind so-called art music, the historical origin of this radical change can be traced back to the emergence of the spectral movement, which, in the 1970s, established a compositional paradigm incorporating complex sounds into instrumental compositions using the theoretical and practical insights gained in acoustics, psychoacoustics and electronic synthesis. As Hugues Dufourt writes, “the common feature of spectral music and computer music is the change of scale at which the specific features of the musical material have been identified. We have been able to create models and establish categories” [3].

The cycle Les Espaces Acoustiques, composed by Gérard Grisey between 1974 and 1981 and consisting of six movements for different instrumental groupings ranging from solo viola to large orchestra, has given posterity an iconic and founding model of spectral aesthetics and, consequently, of the instrumental composition of complex sound. In the words of the composer, the work “seems to me like a great laboratory in which the spectral techniques are applied to various situations (from solo to full orchestra)” [4]. Some of the stated intentions relate more specifically to the idea of “no longer composing with notes, but with sounds”, of “applying phenomena that have long been experienced in electroacoustic music studios to the instrumental domain” and of “seeking a synthetic style within which the various parameters contribute to shaping a unique sound” [5]. However, this poietic intention cannot be implemented unambiguously. The complex sound paradigms involved here are mediated by the instrumental writing, that is, the writing of notes conditioned by traditional instrument making, and through the interaction with simple sound paradigms.

For the performer, the understanding of these new relationships between the content of the score and the intended perceptual phenomena appears, in some respects, even less expendable than tonal paradigms in the classical repertoire: the very principle of mediation, the particular difficulties involved in the playing techniques and the degrees of precision of the notation (sometimes underdetermined, sometimes overdetermined, and in the latter case, sometimes implying that approximations and adjustments will need to be made), impose precise knowledge of the effect to be produced. Grisey's spectralism, like Helmut Lachenmann's musique concrète instrumentale and Brian Ferneyhough's New Complexity – two major developments of his time – underpins a re-engagement of the performer through the act of playing that pushes the limits of notation and the instruments that realise it.

The aim of this article is to suggest a route through Les Espaces Acoustiques by showing how simple and complex paradigms are defined, realised and articulated in Grisey's instrumental writing. In addition to the other studies and documentary material that make up this issue [6], it aims to shed light on the issues at stake in the performance of the cycle, as presented in the LabEx GREAM research project [7] by outlining the theoretical relationship between the score and the sound result. This article will not be an in-depth analysis of the six movements, but, as per the categorisation proposed here, a complete overview of the different types of paradigms based on an examination of the score using psychoacoustic data, that is, the perceptual thresholds and the conditions in which complex sound phenomena are produced by the instruments. We will first look at simple sound paradigms, then at complex sound paradigms, and consider how they interact with each other.