| Tristan
Murail - The Complete Piano Music
Marilyn Nonken,
piano
Metier
MSV CD9209
An important CD for all lovers of the piano; it gave me a thrill comparable to first hearing, decades ago, the Kontarsky LPs of all Stockhausen's piano pieces. [ complete review ] - Peter Grahame Woolf, Musical Pointers While listening I am constantly possessed by an impression of something beyond the world, not conventionally religious, but spiritual. [ complete review ] - Gary Higginson, Musicweb If you think of Murail primarily in terms of such spectral blockbusters as the orchestra Gondwana (1980) and Time and Again (1986), you might therefore hesitate before investing in his complete piano music. But sampling this recording from Metier by Marilyn Nonken should soon make you change your mind.... Marilyn Nonken plays throughout with peerless authority and resplendent technique, her exceptional range of touch and dynamics marvelously caught in this fine recording. Even though we might regret that there is not another half hour or so of piano music by Murail to fill out the second disc, the outstanding quality of what there is offers first-rate value for the money. - Arnold Whitall, Tempo In an environment that has nurtured many fine pianists who are sympathetic to new music (Oppens, Kalish, Hamelin, etc.), Marilyn Nonken stands out among American pianists for her intense devotion (she plays new music exclusively) and the enormous scope of her technique. More so than is the case with standard repertoire, and even with some new music, the success of this release stands on her ability to synthesize Murail's vision and present it to listeners in a completely transparent way. [ complete review ] - Peter Burwasser, Fanfare "Can one still write for the piano today?" muses Murail. The answer is a resounding yes, and anyone who doubts it is invited to check this recording out at the earliest opportunity. [ complete review ] - Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic The playing of 34 year-old pianist Marilyn Nonken is luminous, showing delicacy, drama and passion and seeming to capture every nuance of this beautiful music.... This release, which offers two CDs for the price of one, is an ideal introduction to the work of one of the finest contemporary composers. [ complete review ] - Andy Hamilton, The Wire (Best of
2005)
The
Wire, September 2005
"Your harmonic writing is microtonal,
so how do you write for the piano, the perfect tempered instrument?" people
often ask spectralist composer Tristan Murail, who, with Gerard Grisey,
founded the Itineraire group, pioneers of spectral composition, in 1973.
The piano is not quite the perfect tempered instrument, he replies. "Its
sonorities, above all in the lowest register, are rich and complex, bursting
with harmonics, and naturally untempered." However, only one exceptional
piece on this superb double album of Tristan Murail's complete piano music
really exploits those untempered sonorities. The 28 minute Territoires
De L'Oubli (Lands of Oblivion) from 1978, inspired by Murails' work in
electronic music, considers the piano as "a group of strings whose vibration
is caused by sympathetic resonance or by direct action of the hammers".
In its "fantasia of resonances", the sustain pedal is depressed throughout,
allowing the bass harmonics to clash microtonally with tempered notes higher
on the keyboard.
Territiores is a compendium of avant
garde and chance procedures, but even here Murail's inheritance of French
pianism from Ravel to his teacher Messiaen isn't completely left behind
-- Grisey was a more consistently radical force. The playing of 34 year
old pianist Marilyn Nonken is luminous, showing delicacy, drama and passion
and seeming to capture every nuance of this beautiful music. The other
extended composition, the reflective Les Travaux Et Les Jours (Works And
Days) from 2003, comprises a series of interconnected miniatures, and requires
a more traditional pianistic virtuosity. Cloches D'Adieu, Et Un Sourire
(Bells Of Farewell And A Smile) is a tribute to Messiaen shortly after
his death in 1992, while La Mandragore (1993) refers to the Mediterranian
plant used in witchcraft. This release, which offers two CDs for the price
of one, is an ideal introduction to the work of one of the finest contemporary
composers.
- Andy Hamilton
Paris Transatlantic,
September 2005
Tristan Murail, now 58 and still
Professor of Composition at New York's Columbia University, is best known
as one of the principal exponents of so-called musique spectrale, a reaction
of sorts against the dogma of total serialism (though by the time spectralists
such as Murail, Gérard Grisey and Horatiu Radulescu arrived on the
scene nobody was really writing hardcore Darmstadt-style all parameter
serial music any more) in the form of a return to music based on its acoustic
"roots" in the harmonic series. Murail has always been the most traditional
of the spectralists -- neither as uncompromisingly hardcore as Grisey nor
as wacky and cosmic as Radulescu -- and this fine double CD collection
of his complete piano music, expertly performed by Marilyn Nonken (who
also commissioned the single work that occupies the second disc, Les Travaux
et les Jours) reveals ample traces of a typically French conservatoire
background, steeped in Debussy, Ravel and, inevitably, Messiaen, with whom
he studied before the obligatory Prix de Rome in 1971. Curiously, there's
just as much Messiaen to be found in Les Travaux et les Jours, harmonically
speaking, as there is in the two works that open disc one, 1967's Comme
un oeil suspendu et poli par le songe... (title culled from a poem written
by the composer's father) and the two-movement Estuaire, dating from five
years later. Messiaen's celebrated "modes of limited transposition" (aka
the octatonic scale, dividing the octave into alternating tones and semitones)
are never far away, and the music retains -- or regains -- an almost Romantic
harmonic sense of gravity. Murail is a fine pianist himself, and his writing
taps into the tradition of virtuoso pianism stretching back from Catalogue
des Oiseaux via Gaspard de la Nuit (referenced obliquely in Murail's 1993
tribute to Ravel, La Mandragore) to Liszt, a figure of considerable importance
in Murail's music.
The central pillar of the first disc
is the monumental 28-minute Territoires de l'Oubli, written in 1977 and
strongly influenced by the composer's investigations into electronic timbral
synthesis. It's a bugger to perform, since, as Marilyn Nonken notes in
her liners, it explores "landscapes of pianistic impossibility and auditory
illusion: notes heard but never played (sympathetic vibrations), microtones
(resulting from the interaction of the harmonics) and sonorities that emerge
seemingly without attack or decay." Nonken notes elsewhere that "it is
not unusual for strings to break during performance", but her reading of
the work, though forceful, is never brutal, and makes for an interesting
comparison with the other available version of the piece, Dominique My's
1990 reading on Accord (200842).
In comparison, the rather prosaically
titled (even if it is a quotation, from Hesiod this time) Les Travaux et
les Jours sounds much less iconoclastic, but it's abundantly clear that
the same magnificent pair of ears is at work throughout. The juxtaposition
of upper register pyrotechnics and crashing block chords once more recalls
Messiaen, but the central sonority of the opening movement is also close
to the harmony of late Skryabin. The composer makes it clear that there
are numerous points in common with Territoires, but the later work's division
into nine separate movements refers us back to the grand unifying principles
of the Romantic sonata. It's a monumental, superbly proportioned and moving
work, and one that deserves to get as much exposure in years to come as
the Ligeti Etudes have in recent times. "Can one still write for the piano
today?" muses Murail. The answer is a resounding yes, and anyone who doubts
it is invited to check this recording out at the earliest opportunity.
- Dan Warburton
Fanfare,
January/February 2006
Despite all of the talk about world
music influences, intermingling of pop and classical and other manners
of stylistic crossovers, there still exist distinctive nationalistic cultures
of music-making. In most cases, those national schools will have absorbed
many external influences, but powerful traditions remain at the heart of
the matter. In French music, the most significant movement in the last
century was Impressionism, as formulated by Debussy and Ravel. The enormous
influence of this music even extends into the work of modernists such as
Messiaen and Boulez, and well into our time. The latest incarnation of
this linear heritage is known as spectral music, which, familiarly, emphasizes
color, lyricism, and sensuality.
There is something of all the aforementioned
composers in the music of Tristan Murail. He was a student of Messiaen,
and so this influence is paramount, but it is easy to find an arch that
vaults backwards to Debussy, Ravel, and beyond. Murail's harmonic language
is polytonal, but fluid, set into logical constructions. This is easier
to grasp in Murail's early music, including Comme un oeil suspendu et poli
par le songe… and Estuaire, which are, at about five minutes each section,
relatively concise works. The relative brevity of Cloches d'adieu, et une
sourire… and La Mandragore, from the early 1990s, also imparts this trait.
But by the time of the massive Territoires
de l'Oubli, completed in 1977, Murail's vision becomes vastly wider. Painterly
splashes of notes (Jackson Pollack comes to mind) are separated by sections
of elongated strings of repetitive motifs, which seem like spindly bridges
between musical moods. For me, this kind of writing evokes a sort of timelessness,
in which the expression of art is the most important thing in the world.
Murail is all over the keyboard, but not at once. In one mood, he is exploring
the bottom; in another, there is no bottom, but only shimmering splatters
at the top of the instrument's range. I was able to get into the groove
of this music and go along for the ride, but I can easily imagine listeners
becoming impatient with the sheer scope of this music. This is a 30-minute
meditation, not for the impatient.
The last work on the program, and
the most recently completed (2003), gets a CD of its own. Les Travaux et
les Jours, commissioned by Marilyn Nonken, runs over 10 minutes more than
Territoires de l'Oubli, but it feels more intimate. The vigor and physicality
is replaced by a deceptive mystery, like a seascape at dusk, calm on the
surface but for the occasional menacing surge, yet hiding dangerous whirlpools
and perhaps even monsters. Murail's music, you can see, has a way of evoking
mixed metaphors.
In his own brief notes, the composer
asks, "Can one still write for the piano? Has it survived the array of
tortures inflicted upon it by the end of the 20th century? What is left
to the imagination?" His answer, of course, is here, in his own music.
His way to continue the tradition is inimitably French; "the piano (is)
undoubtedly a percussion instrument, but above all a collection of vibrating
strings, a vast reverberant chamber."
In an environment that has nurtured
many fine pianists who are sympathetic to new music (Oppens, Kalish, Hamelin,
etc.), Marilyn Nonken stands out among American pianists for her intense
devotion (she plays new music exclusively) and the enormous scope of her
technique. More so than is the case with standard repertoire, and even
with some new music, the success of this release stands on her ability
to synthesize Murail's vision and present it to listeners in a completely
transparent way.
- Peter Burwasser
Many years ago a friend of mine working
as a copyist for Universal Edition was involved in the publication of some
of Murail's chamber music. She said that in her estimation Murail was a
composer of real significance. However it has proved quite difficult to
hear much of his music either on the BBC or on CD. To make some amends
we now have the complete piano music dating from between 1967 when the
composer was still a student through to 2003. This covers a period of thirty-six
very significant years. Across that period we see charted the composer's
progress and development in one very telling and disciplined medium: the
piano. So what can you expect to hear?
Murail was a pupil of Messiaen and
won the Prix de Rome in 1971. The early Comme un oeil suspendu et poli
par le songe ("Like an eye hung and polished by the dream" - my translation)
is described in the press notices as 'newly discovered'. It is not much
more than a clone of his teacher in its harmonic progressions and rhythms.
However there is also a feeling of something beyond Messiaen which climaxes
twenty-five years later in the beautiful brief Cloches d'adieu, et un sourire
("Farewell bells and a smile"). This is a wistful and thankful farewell
to his teacher which, although showing his influence, has most certainly
moved on significantly and become a more personal statement. What had happened
in between?
One important development was Murail's
work in the electronic music field. In the eighties he started using computer
technology to further his research into acoustic phenomena. From 1991 to
1997 he worked at IRCAM and helped to develop the 'patchwork' composition
programme. This influence has fed into creating a style now known as 'spectral
music'. The meaning is difficult to pin down but the best description I
can give is: a recorded pure sound is transformed in a way which makes
it entirely different from its starting point. The full range of acoustic
sounds is used from the highest to the lowest. The way this can be transposed
to the piano can be heard in the textures of the forty minute span of Les
Travaux et les Jours (Works and Days). This divides into nine manageable
sections which are inter-related but which each display a different sound-world.
Number six reminded me of Ligeti with its falling cascades of scales tumbling
at slightly different speeds - all quite beautiful. The third movement
also intrigued me, consisting at first, of a repetition of long-held Messiaen-like
chords (quite a finger-print this throughout the disc) with gentle splinters
above. This then evolves into a shower of notes which, bird-like, flutter
overhead and then combine with the original chords. The composer's own
programme notes which accompany this double CD comment that there are "nine
independent pieces, but minutely intertwined. The music revolves around
a B-C tremolando and is supported by a low F which is only fully unveiled
at the end of the cycle". One is, as it were, left in suspended animation.
I found it quite gripping. More so in fact than the thirty minute Territoires
de l'Oubli (Lands of Oblivion). The younger composer here does not quite
bring off his scheme where he is trying out new 'acoustical phenomena’.
He uses gentle repetition of a low D sharp over a major 7th with harmonies
clarifying and then vanishing into the sustaining pedal. The composer talks
of acoustic interference which "modifies and enriches the colour". But
with its opening tremolando crescendo the piece demonstrates that peculiar
French sensibility to sound for the sake of sheer pleasure - total sensuousness.
The sounds create the form if there is one at all; a state which Debussy
(and for that matter Dutilleux) might have ideally wanted in his piano
music. I have to say that this piece takes too long in creating its final
culminatory experience.
Estuaire divides into two movements.
The first, Près des rives (By the riverside) is the shorter one
and demonstrates another aspect of Murail's colour scheme. This one is
darker, sterner and even, more violent. Its successor, Au mélange
des eaux (On the blending of the waters) is left to brood on its consequences.
Neither piece outstays its welcome and as a whole the work makes a strong
impression.
Finally La Mandragore ('The Mandrake'
- a magic, wild plant) inhabits a similar sinister sound-world to Près
des rives. It is remarkable in its use of bass sonorities and in the repetition
of one particular chord. At nine minutes or so it just reaches its right
length before vanishing.
I have lived with this music, all
new to me, for a month, and I am sure that my time has not been wasted.
While listening I am constantly possessed by an impression of something
beyond the world, not conventionally religious, but spiritual. This is
music to which I shall be happy to return.
I have reviewed several Métier
discs over the last few years and find that the recordings are often not
of the best quality. However on this occasion there is nothing between
the music and the listener; that can only be considered an accolade.
As for the performances you can rest
assured that in Marilyn Nonken we are hearing a musician of outstanding
qualities. It is evident that she knows, strongly characterises and loves
this music. She has performed it and many other 'difficult' contemporary
works all over the world and is a pianist in whom we can trust. Her mastery
of Murail's sonorities and her virtuosity are truly remarkable and demand
attention.
- Gary Higginson
An important CD for all lovers of
the piano; it gave me a thrill comparable to first hearing, decades ago,
the Kontarsky LPs of all Stockhausen's piano pieces.
Tristan Murail (b. 1947) explores
the piano itself, finding within its resonance, and bringing inescapably
to our ears, harmonics and microtones - notes to hear although they have
not been played - the supposed unavailability of which compounds the instrument's
reputation as an equal-tempered anachronism, little changed since its heyday
in the 19th Century.
Murail does not epouse the modern
fashionable 'tortures' of the precious instrument; clusters (Cowell) preparations
(Cage) using the piano's case and pianist's body for their percussive possibilities
(Rzewski) electrical distortion (Stockhausen), nor does Nonken have to
delve into its innards to 'scrape and pinch' the strings; how ungainly
pianists often look doing so!
Whilst I don't despise the results
of any of those innovations, Tristan Murail (aided essentially by a silent
environment and superb studio recording) shows us through the fingers and
pedalling of Marilyn Nonken that the equal-tempered instrument remains
'a vast reverberating chamber' with sonorities 'rich and complex, bursting
with harmonics, and naturally untempered'.
There are mostly short pieces, whose
sensual beauty and harmonic language does not disguise its origin in the
French tradition of Debussy, Ravel, and Messiaen, that making most of the
pieces comfortable and accessible to sceptical listeners. Cloches d'adieu,
et un sourire... (in memoriam Olivier Messiaen) and La Mandragore, Murail's
tribute to Ravel, are good starting points.
The largest work, nearly half an
hour long, is the Territoires de I'Oubli (1977) in which the pedal is held
down continually; creating 'waves of sound' which rise to overpowering
power - "Territoires de I'Oubli literally brutalizes the instrument (it
is not unusual for strings to break during performance)" writes Dr Nonken.
Her notes (she is a widely published
writer and edited Performers on Performance (Contemporary Music Review)
are lucid and interesting, as is Murail's own essay Can one still write
for the piano today? (translated by Sadie Harrison).
- Peter Grahame Woolf
|
Comme
un oeil suspendu et poli par le songe