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

By

Felipe De Souza Lara

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

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Doctor of Philosophy
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Department of Music

New York University

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September, 2013
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Professor Louis Karchin

 UMI Number: 3602679

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 Felipe De Souza Lara

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 DEDICATION

To my fianc, my adviser, and my family.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENS

The person of most critical consequence to this dissertation has been

my advisor, Professor Louis Karchin, without whom the successful completion

of this document would have not been possible. Professor Karchin was not

only instrumental in helping me discover local and global reference points and

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inconsistencies, but showed unmatched support, enthusiasm, and availability

from the get go. His insights and additions have always been fascinating,
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knowledgeable, and fruitful. I will always regard Professor Karchin as an ideal

example of an adviser, teacher, and mentor, and will try to match his all
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encompassing support when the time comes for me to advise my own students.

Professor Karchin has deeply influenced both my work as a composer and as

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an academic.

I am also fortunate to have Professors Elizabeth Hoffman and Martin

Daughtry on my dissertation committee. Professor Hoffmans speculative

questions allowed me to explore and rediscover topics from a wide set of

perspectives. Professor Daughtrys suggestions of key translation theory texts

and discussion of their ideas have helped to broaden my horizons within the

field, as well as to better position my interdisciplinary inquiry. My thanks

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extend to my esteemed dissertation readers, Professors Michael Beckerman

and Brigid Cohen, for the time, continual support, and enthusiasm.

I extend my thanks to all professors and colleagues at the NYU Music

Department (GSAS), as well as the wonderful department administrators

Lawren Young and Pauline Lum, whose help has been unlimited since day

one.

Thanks to Professor Tristan Murail for sharing sketches, scores,

recordings, OpenMusic patches, ideas, email messages, as well as for the

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numerous teachings and insights over the years.

Thanks to Professor Mario Davidovsky for recommending the doctoral

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program at NYU and for an unforgettable semester of composition lessons at

NYU as a Visiting Professor.

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Many thanks to my close friends Ricardo Vogt, Leala Cyr, and Robert

Thomas for their friendship and support.

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I owe much to my future wife, Nikola Mary Turkington, who is an

unconditional source of inspiration, support, understanding, encouragement,

and friendship.

Finally, I thank the absolute support of my family, who helped me in

every way, and for whom I would like to express my deep love and

appreciation.

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 PREFACE

I first discovered Tristan Murails work through the music of his

teacher, Olivier Messiaen. The Boston Symphony Orchestras rendering of

Messiaens Turangalla Symphony, under Seiji Ozawa was, in fact, the first

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live performance of 20th century concert music that I heard. What initially

attracted me to the piece and later to Messiaens work generally, was the
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composers unusual orchestration technique, which achieved an extremely

bright and vibrant sound even in the most dense of harmonies.

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My first encounter with the music of Tristan Murail was in 2003,

through a recording of his monumental orchestral work Gondwana. I found in

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the work unprecedented orchestral refinement, harmonic richness, and formal

clarity. I immediately started studying Murails music and discovered both

coherence and a clear evolution in his exploration and interpretation of

physical sound and its perceptual potentialities.

I first met Murail upon moving to New York, in 2005. From 2006 to

2008, I enrolled from time to time in Murails seminars at Columbia

University through the Inter-University Doctoral Consortium (IUDC). Also, he

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was available during this period for private lessons, and I attended rehearsals

and concerts of his works. It was during this time that I decided to pursue

further research into the composers unique style and technique, as well as the

important extra-musical issues surrounding his work, such as the role of

timbre, technology, interpretation, and translation.

It is well known that Murails music uses natural sounds, acoustical

concepts, and electroacoustic paradigms as generative models for his purely

instrumental compositions. While a number of published articles, books, and

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dissertations discuss the timbral and technological characteristics of Murails

music, few access it from the point of view of interpretation and translation of
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models.

I am grateful for an Andrew W. Mellon summer grant allowing me to

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attend The Problem of Translation seminars in the Department of

Comparative Literature at New York University. While the seminars did not
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address music per se, they explored seminal texts on translation studies,

philosophy, and comparative literature, enabling me to bring a broader

perspective to my study of Murails works.

During the course of my research I have attempted to translate

Murails techniques to my own musical language. The aim was never to

(re)produce a copy, but rather to appropriate the wide array of useful concepts

in order to ultimately enhance, transform, and enrich the music.

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 ABSTRACT

The dissertation presents a study of seminal techniques of French

composer Tristan Murail, one of the founders of the spectral movement, and in

particular, Murails incorporation of extra-musical models into his

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compositions. Composers have employed such models through the ages as

catalysts for the realization of their creative potential, but Murails treatment of
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these models differs substantially from the pictorial musical representation of

his predecessors as well as those of most of his contemporaries. While he does

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make use of more general imagery, he also utilizes actual data from his models

to create harmonies, melodic contours and rhythms, as well as local and global
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forms. I present a study that analyzes the application of these models to three

different stages of Murails career, discussing their conceptualization, the

complex issues involving the translation from model to notated musical idea,

and the issues involving their interpretation and perception.

I also study the interdependence of the composers work and technology,

and the state of technological advancement during the time of an individual

works composition. The thesis thus traces the evolution of Murails music

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against the backdrop of technological change. Relevant concepts from

acoustics, psychoacoustics, and music technology, as well as translation theory

and philosophy are incorporated to better illuminate issues crucial for a

thorough analysis of Murails work.

Chapter 1 introduces Murails career, his ideas, and early influences,

shedding some light on the composers place in music history. Chapter 2 is an

introduction to the history, concepts, and techniques of spectral music. Chapter

3 discusses the influence of electronic music, technology, and the composers

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relationship with IRCAM. Chapter 4 discusses relevant topics and texts from

translation theory. In Chapter 5, I present several musical examples of Murails

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translation processes, in three different periods of the composers career.

Finally, in Chapter 6, I present an in-depth musical analysis of Murails

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representative early work, Ethers.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv

PREFACE vi

ABSTRACT viii

LIST OF FIGURES xiv

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LIST OF APPENDICES xvii
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CHAPTER 1: Introduction to the Music of Tristan Murail 1
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1.1 Early influences 3

1.2 Messiaen 4

1.3 Ligeti 6
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1.4 Xenakis 7

1.5 Scelsi 8

1.6 Varse 13

1.7 Conclusion 15

CHAPTER 2: Brief History and Basic Concepts of Spectral Music 16

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2.1 LItineraire and the French Spectral School 16

2.2 Spectralism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism 19

2.3 Spectral musics influence outside of France 30

2.4 Basic concepts, terms, and techniques 32

2.5 Terms and techniques 35

2.6 Frequency versus notes 36

2.7 Microtones 37

2.8 Harmonic spectra 38

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2.9 Electronic spectra 41

2.10 Instrumental spectra IE 41

2.11 Formants 43

2.12 Inharmonic or complex spectra 45

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2.13 Harmony/timbre and spectral fusion 47

2.14 Virtual fundamental 48

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2.15 Process 48

2.16 Distortion 49

CHAPTER 3: Influence of Electronic Music, Technology, and IRCAM 55

3.1 Instrumental synthesis 58

3.2 Obtaining harmonies from timbres spectral analysis, Fourier transform 70

3.3 Sonogram, IRCAM, AudioSculpt 74

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3.4 Partial tracking, SPEAR 75

3.5 Data reduction 76

3.6 Sonic object and musical object 78

3.7 The composer and the computer 81

3.8 Computer-Aided Composition 83

3.9 Conclusion 85

CHAPTER 4: The Problem of Translation 87

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4.1 Translation theory 87

4.2 Derridas paradox of translation IE 88

4.3 Translation as reading 92

4.4 Hypertranslation 94
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4.5 Hermeneutic movements 102

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CHAPTER 5: Murail the Translator: Translation of Models in Three Different

Stages of Murails Career 111

5.1 Application of models in early works (1973-1980) 114

5.2 Mmoire/Erosion 115

5.3 Gondwana 119

5.4 Application of models in works of Murails middle period (1981-1997) 125

5.5 Dsintgrations 125

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5.6 Serendib 133

5.7 Attracteurs tranges 137

5.8 Application of models in recent works (1998 onwards) 143

5.9 Le Lac 144

CHAPTER 6: Ethers: a Musical Analysis 152

6.1 Conclusion 171

APPENDICES 172

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 01 Harmonic series. 40

Figure 02 Oboe spectra. 42

Figure 03 Low register Bb on a piano. 44

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Figure 04 Compressed and stretched spectra. 51
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Figure 05 Distortion proportional to highest and lowest frequencies. 51

Figure 06 Frequency shifted spectrum. 52

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Figure 07 Inharmonic RM spectrum. 66

Figure 08 FM spectrum. 68

Figure 09 Sonogram. 75
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Figure 10 Data reduction. 78

Figure 11 Global harmonic trajectory for Memoire/Erosion. 117

Figure 12 Carriers and modulator for the first section of Gondwana. 121

Figure 13 FM aggregate progression for the first section of Gondwana. 121

Figure 14 Double harmonic spectrum from the end of the first section of

Gondwana. 122

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Figure 15 Orchestration of first aggregate of Gondwana. 124

Figure 16 Evolution of dynamic envelopes from bell-like to brass-like. 125

Figure 17 A#0 transposed spectrum and relative dynamics. 127

Figure 18 First aggregate of section 1 of Dsintgrations. 127

Figure 19 Succession of aggregates in section 1 of Dsintgrations. 128

Figure 20 Aggregate modeled after resonance. 131

Figure 21 Selection of 11 results from a frequency shift in 25 steps from

section 3 of Dsintgrations. 132

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Figure 22 Fractal subdivision of section 1 of Serendib. 134

Figure 23 Murails pre-compositional sketch of section J3.

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Figure 24 Two states of the Lorenz attractor: simple and strange. 138

Figure 25 Attracteurs estranges opening. 140

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Figure 26 Registral unfolding. 142

Figure 27 Four interpretations of the eight-note pitch set. 143

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Figure 28 Interaction of different objects in pages five and six of Le Lac. 147

Figure 29 Differential tone motion from harmonics to fundamental. 154

Figure 30 Resultant pitch aggregates for section A. 156

Figure 31 Harmonic integration of crushed string sounds. 159

Figure 32 Echo ricochet. 160

Figure 33 Echo variation. 161

Figure 34 Instrumental reverberation rendering. 162

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Figure 35 Sweeping filtering analogy. 163

Figure 36 Overblowing to upper partials. 164

Figure 37 Wah-wah rendering. 165

Figure 38 Perceptual accelerando. 166

Figure 39 Ritardandi. 167

Figure 40 Accelerating function representing the flute/voice entrances. 168

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 LIST OF APPENDICES

APPENDIX A: Introduction to Compositions 172

APPENDIX B: Onda 176

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APPENDIX C: Tran(slate) 211

APPENDIX D: Memoria(i)mobile IE 220

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 CHAPTER 1

Introduction to the Music of Tristan Murail

Composers have often used extra-musical models as springboards for

realizing their creative ideas. The celebrated French composer Tristan Murail

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has consistently employed such models throughout his career and has made

them a central part of his musical thinking. Murails music has incorporated
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models derived from a variety of sources including acoustic phenomena

(resonance, resultant tones), electronic music treatments (tape-loops, FM

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synthesis, instrumental spectra), natural sounds (ocean, thunder, and rain

sounds), non-Western music (Tibetan horns, Mongolian throat singing), fractal

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geometry (self-similar proportions), and even works from the classical music

repertoire (Scriabins Prometheus, for example) as generating sources for his

highly original idiom.

Murails treatment of these models, however, differs substantially from

the pictorial musical elaborations of his predecessors as well as most of his

contemporaries. Although he does make use of pictorial imagery in the more

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traditional sense, the composer also uses specific data gleaned from his models

to create harmonies, melodic contours and rhythms, as well as structure local

and global forms. In his orchestral work Le Partage des eaux, for example,

Murail utilizes the sounds of a wave breaking on the beach. The natural

phenomenon inspires the works profile, not unlike the approach favored by

Romantic or Impressionist composers. But unique to Murails approach, data

analysis of the breaking wave also generates melodic contours, attack

transients, and harmonic timbres. The model is also compressed, expanded,

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manipulated, and transformed as the composer appropriates this natural gesture

to his musical language. IE

It could be argued that Murails compositional method is a constant

process of distillation, where the initial model is subjectively interpreted

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through a variety of methods and then translated by the composer to

instrumental forces such as a symphony orchestra or chamber group. In that

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sense, Murails approach to composition could be compared to

Michelangelos: the artist unveils the work of art already hidden inside the

block of stone. The composer writes, I imagine myself as a sculptor in front

of a stone block which conceals a hidden form; a spectrum will thus be able to

conceal forms of different dimensions which can reveal according to certain

criteria and with the help of certain instruments: active filtering, selection of

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tempered pitches, spectral exploration this composition technique, from the

whole to the unit, is opposed to the classical cellular construction technique.1

Murail was born in the city of Le Havre, France, on March 11, 1947.

He entered Olivier Messiaens class at the Paris Conservatory in 1967, after

receiving degrees in classical Arabic and Maghrib Arabic from the National

School of Living Oriental Languages as well as a Bachelors degree in

Economics and a degree from the Paris Institute of Political Studies. In 1971

he received the Paris Conservatory (CNSM) First Prize in Composition and

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later that year the coveted Rome Prize, an award that allowed him to spend two

years at the Villa Mdicis.2 IE

Early influences
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Even as a student Murail was fascinated by music that created

comprehensive mass shifts in the texture.3 He tried to compose using serial

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techniques but soon decided that the style was not appropriate for him. Murail

thought serial composition often led to a sort of uniform grayness, particularly

1
Tristan Murail, Questions de cible [Questions of object], Entretemps 8 (September 1989),
154.
2
Pierre Michel, Introduction, trans. Joshua Fineberg. Contemporary Music Review 2,
(2005), 119.
3
Ircam-Centre Pompidou, http://brahms.ircam.fr/tristan-murail#bio, 2011.

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in its harmonic dimension. He disengaged himself from serial procedures in

order to search for more pure harmonic colors.4

Messiaen

Murail claims that Messiaen (his only teacher) insisted that his students

compose serially;5 nonetheless, Messiaens influence was undoubtedly

decisive during Murails formative years. Messiaen exposed Murail to his own

vast array of techniques, as well as to the novel sonorities of Iannis Xenakis

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and Gyrgy Ligeti. As a student, Murail had first-hand knowledge of and

access to Messiaens thinking, even though he will not confirm the French
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master as a direct influence on his music. Messiaens construction of the

resonance chord, a chord loosely based on the overtone series, his

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transcriptions and adaptation of birdsong, his quasi-orchestral treatment of the

piano and its resonance, his radically slow moving organ sonorities, as well as
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his ability to create large and dense chords without losing harmonic depth or

color, are certainly characteristics which pervade Murails own style. In

addition, master and student shared the admiration for the ondes Martenot, an

early electronic instrument made popular by Messiaens use in such works as

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Tristan Murail, Scelsi and LItineraire: The Exploration of Sound, trans. Robert Hosegawa.
Contemporary Music Review 2, (2005): 182.
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Ibid.

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the Turangalla-Symphonie, Trois petites liturgies de la presence divine, and in

his opera Saint-Franois dAssise (where the score calls for three of them). The

ondes Martenot was Murails principal instrument as a performer and he still

occasionally performs on it works by Messiaen with some of the worlds

leading orchestras. This unusual fascination perhaps led Murail to his first

experiences with electronic sound, as well as his incessant exploration of

continuous frequency space.6

In 1992, Murail composed a Cloches dadieu, et un sourire(Bells of

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Farewell, and a Smile), a short work for piano. The work was commissioned

by the German Radio, Deutschlandfunk, in memory of Olivier Messiaen.

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Here, Murail interprets the overall character, as well as the three final notes

(the adieu) of one of Olivier Messiaen's earliest works, his piano prelude
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Cloches d'angoisse et larmes d'adieu (1929). Murail writes, I tried to mix in,

amongst other allusions, a few [examples of the] ethos of bells which are
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featured in many of my own works. These are answered by luminous echoes

and clusters of chords in cheerful keys, as the smile of Messiaen's last works

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The ondes Martenot allows the exploration of non-tempered frequency spaces in the form of
glissandi by sliding the metal ring with the right hand.

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managed to triumph for good over the anguishes and tears of the past for

there is no final farewell.7

Ligeti

Early orchestral works of Gyrgy Ligetis such as Apparitions (1959),

Atmosphres (1961), and Lontano (1967), exerted a profound influence on

Murail, particularly in their treatment of the orchestra as a large imaginary

oscillator bank. The illusion of seemingly infinite sustaining power and the

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possibility of seamless transitions between stable but highly differentiated

masses provided strong new stimuli for purely instrumental writing.8

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Micropolyphony is one of the ways in which Ligeti achieved the gradual

movement of often cluster-like, pitch aggregates. The term refers to the global
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polyphonic texture attained through superimposed rhythmic cannons, tempi,

and timbres that are not always perceivable by themselves, but in combination,
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create densely woven and fluid polyphonic cobwebs. Ligeti writes, The

polyphonic structure does not come through, you cannot hear it; it remains

7
Tristan Murail, Cloches dadieu, et un sourirein memoriam Olivier Messiaen,
http://www.tristanmurail.com/en/oeuvre-fiche.php?cotage=27527
8
Tristan Murail, The Revolution of Complex Sounds, trans. Joshua Cody. Contemporary
Music Review 2, (2005), 123.