L’opera più rappresentativa di François Bayle (di cui abbiamo già parlato qui) messa in linea da Avant Garde Project. Ve la presentiamo qui in un’unica playlist della durata di circa 36′ (putroppo ci può essere un piccolo intervallo fra un brano e l’altro).

L’intera composizione può essere scaricata in formato flac da AGP sia in 16 che in 24 bit.

Lo schema del brano, tratto dalle note di programma, è il seguente:

1. Appel…
2. …aux lignes actives
   The simplest concrete element, the line, thin and melodic arrives fastest at an abstraction of qualities. Active, passive, or intermediate, the true line is, according to Klee, the line subjected to a strong tension.
3. …aux notes repetées
   Brief, equal, clear values scrabled by the patter of bells emitting call signals. Rigid, transposed, very tense repetition. Followed by a third, deep, abbreviated repetition. Transition, interrupted rubato.
4. …au jardin
   A polyphony of space and colors. Contrast between very brief, delicate fragments–dry versus fluid – and ample quivering sheets having harmonic colors – static versus moving.
5. …figures doubles
   Combination of symmetries. Two contrasting parts – like male and female – organized in series of paired cells. These are varied up to the eighth repetition, where the first element is then brought to a completion. The mirror-repeats are enriched with successive transformations through added harmonics.
   Then a new, very dynamic element appears – a man’s mask bringing tidings…
6. …grande polyphonie
   A brief moment in the guise of a preface prepares the final “rappell”. Seven interconnected sections [a me sembrano 5, nota mia; le sezioni sono 7 in tutto] – though it is not immediately clear how they are related. Various sound signals are heard at frequent intervals, making it manifest that the role of the previous polyphonies was to lead up to the final combination. This makes it possible to listen in a musical way with a great deal of freedom, independence, superposing different voices. All the sound spaces used here resemble each other, from the more artificial and abstract ones to the totally concrete ones, which range from bird calls and songs to human calls and songs.
   And finally, the initial call signal dissolves in a long breath,
7. Rappell…

François Bayle, french, born in Madagascar, student then assistant of Pierre Schaeffer (1958 to 62), director of INA/GRM musical research center from 1975 to 1997, can be seen as the founder of acousmatic music.
Acousmatic music is a specialised sub-set of electroacoustic music. It is created using non-acoustic technology, exists only in recorded form in a fixed medium, and is composed specifically to be heard over loudspeakers.
The term comes from the akusmatikoi, the outer circle of Pythagoras’ disciples who only heard their teacher speaking from behind a veil. In a similar way, one hears acousmatic music from behind the ‘veil’ of loudspeakers, without seeing the source of the sound.
Acousmatic composers use this invisibility of sound sources as a positive aspect of the creative process, in one of two ways. The first is to separate the listener from the visual and physical context of the sounds being used, in order to permit a more concentrated and abstract form of listening unencumbered by the real-world associations or ‘meaning’ of the sounds. This form of listening is known as reduced listening (a term coined by the acousmatic music pioneer Pierre Schaeffer), and it allows both acoustic and synthetic sounds to be used to create an abstract musical discourse the focus of which is the detail of individual sounds, and the evolution and interaction of these sounds. The second approach is to deliberately evoke real-world associations by using identifiable sounds (real world objects, voices, environments) to create mental images in sound.

Here you can listen to the Espaces inhabitables, d’après Bataille et Jules Vernes (1967)

• jardins-de-rien
• geophonie
• hommage-a-robur
• le-bleu-du-ciel
• amertumes