On our blog, our contemporary composers present their favorite work from our catalogs. This time Reinhard Febel introduces Gérard Grisey’s Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil.

"I knew Gérard Grisey well. A long, long time ago, when I still believed in the beneficial effects of electronics and attended a class at the IRCAM, I shared a flat near the Bastille together with Gérard Grisey and another friend, the outstanding Swiss composer Gérard Zinsstag. We came together in the same constellation years later, when I often spent time at Zinsstag’s house in Graubünden. Gérard Grisey went there more often and on a more regular basis than I did. This place was perfect for working. There were enough rooms for everyone. It was also where I saw Gérard for the last time. I still see him coming down the stairs for breakfast and dinner.

My admiration for him can be summarized like this: he knew what he did. While I used to be unsettled and full of doubts after a day of composing, he never had any difficulties putting his work aside. Until returning to his desk, he was able to enjoy himself, to just be himself. I believe that he had revealed a great mystery (or was it a gift?): the mystery of the right tempo. And this also means: patience and trust.

I remember that he worked slowly. By doing so, he always had enough time to choose the right option among infinite possibilities. This is something that I particularly admire in his works: he made the right decisions.

At an early stage he realized that a common overtone composition had already reached its pinnacle at the start so a more complex procedure was necessary – even obvious. The most fascinating example of this approach is his wonderful cycle Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil, a work of incomparable beauty and not only in terms of its euphony (which is an integral part of all spectral music anyhow).

The Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil go deeper and deeper into the catacombs of sound. For instance, when the soprano tries to decipher the inscriptions on old sarcophaguses, which vocal technique can reflect this? And which one can reflect the approach of the tsunami in Gilgamesh’s epic? And what about the non-chronological lullaby, this fourth and last threshold?

All of this is coherent and unbelievably simple in Grisey’s work. However, the analysis of this piece is not easy at all (again and again I try with my students), mainly because there always is this unpredictable combination of constructed and empirically founded spectra. Also, fortunately, the deeper spectral area (based on major harmonies) is hardly present. I do not even want to talk about the mysterious relationship between this work and its creator. Gérard himself crossed the last threshold early and unexpectedly.

So about the future: even in New Music there are, from time to time, compositions and composers that will endure after music history has done its work."

Reinhard Febel, 11.12.14