Spectral music

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Spectral music (or spectralism) is a compositional technique developed in the 1970s,

using computer analysis of the quality of timbre in acoustic music or artificial timbres
derived from synthesis.
Defined in technical language, spectral music is an acoustic musical practice where
compositional decisions are often informed by sonographic representations and
mathematical analysis of sound spectra, or by mathematically generated spectra. The
spectral approach focuses on manipulating the spectral features, interconnecting them,
and transforming them. In this formulation, computer-based sound analysis and
representations of audio signals are treated as being analogous to a timbral representation
of sound.
The (acoustic-composition) spectral approach originated in France in the early 1970s, and
techniques were developed, and later refined, primarily at IRCAM, Paris, with the
Ensemble l'Itinraire, by composers such as Grard Grisey and Tristan Murail. Murail has
described spectral music as an aesthetic rather than a style, not so much a set of
techniques as an attitude; as Joshua Fineberg puts it, a recognition that "music is
ultimately sound evolving in time".[1] Julian Anderson indicates that a number of major
composers associated with spectralism consider the term inappropriate, misleading, and
reductive.[2] The Istanbul Spectral Music Conference of 2003 suggested a redefinition of
the term "spectral music" to encompass any music that foregrounds timbre as an important
element of structure or language.[3]

Contents
1 Composers
2 Origins
3 Compositional technique
4 Notable works
5 See also
6 References
7 Bibliography
8 External links
Composers
The term "spectral music" was coined by Hugues Dufourt in an article written in 1979 and
first published two years later.[4] Dufourt, a trained philosopher and composer, was the
author of several important articles on spectral music.
The term was initially associated with composers of the French Ensemble l'Itinraire,
including Dufourt, Grard Grisey, Tristan Murail, and Michael Levinas, and the German
Feedback group, principally Johannes Fritsch, Mesias Maiguashca, Peter Etvs, Claude
Vivier, and Clarence Barlow. Features of spectralism are also seen independently in the
contemporary work of Romanian composers tefan Niculescu, Horaiu Rdulescu, and
Iancu Dumitrescu.[5]
More recent composers who have built on the spectral idea include Julian Anderson, Ana-
Maria Avram, Joshua Fineberg, Georg Friedrich Haas, Jonathan Harvey, Fabien Lvy,
Magnus Lindberg, and Kaija Saariaho. Jazz saxophonist and composer Steve Lehman
has introduced spectral techniques into the domain of jazz.[6]

Origins
Proto-spectral composers include Claude Debussy, Edgard Varse, Giacinto Scelsi,
Olivier Messiaen, Gyrgy Ligeti, Iannis Xenakis, and Karlheinz Stockhausen.[7]
Theoretical predecessors include some of the composers mentioned and Harry Partch,
Henry Cowell, and Paul Hindemith.[8]
Romanian folk music, as collected by Bla Bartk (19041918), with its acoustic scales
derived directly from resonance and natural wind instruments like "buciume", "tulnice", and
"cimpoi" inspired several spectral composers: Vieru, Stroe, Niculescu, Dumitrescu and
Nemescu.[9]
Spectral music represented an alternative to the prestige of the serialists and post-
serialists as the vanguard of serious musical composition and compositional technique.[10]
Julian Anderson considers Danish composer Per Nrgrd's Voyage into the Golden
Screen for chamber orchestra (1968) to be the first "properly instrumental piece of spectral
composition".[11]
A further development is the emergence of hyper-spectralism[clarification needed] in the
works of Iancu Dumitrescu and Ana-Maria Avram.[12][13]

Compositional technique
The "panoply of methods and techniques" used are secondary, being only "the means of
achieving a sonic end".[1]
Formal concepts important in spectral music include process, though "significantly different
from those of minimalist music" in that all musical parameters may be affected. These
processes most often achieve a smooth transition through interpolation.[14]
The Romanian spectral tradition focuses more on the study of how sound itself behaves in
a "live" environment. Sound work is not restricted to harmonic spectra but includes
transitory aspects of timbre and non-harmonic musical components (e.g., rhythm, tempo,
dynamics). Furthermore, sound is treated phenomenologically as a dynamic presence to
be encountered in listening (rather than as an object of scientific study). This approach
results in a transformational musical language in which continuous change of the material
displaces the central role accorded to structure in spectralism of the "French school".[15]

Notable works
Characteristic spectral pieces include Grard Grisey's Partiels, Tristan Murail's Gondwana
and Georg Friedrich Haas's In Vain.[16] John Chowning's Stria (1977)[17] and Jonathan
Harvey's Mortuos Plango Vivos Voco (1980) are examples of electronic music that
embraces spectral techniques.[18]

See also
Computer music
Computer-assisted composition
Electronic music
IRCAM
Spectrum analyzer

References
1.

Fineberg 2000a, 2.
Anderson 2000, 7.
Reigle 2008
Dufourt 1981; Dufourt 1991, 28993.
Anderson 2001.
Anon. 2009.
Rose 1996, 6; Moscovich 1997, 2122
Anderson 2000, 813.
Halbreich 1992, 1314
"... the question of timbre, though it is rigorously tackled by Schnberg (in his theory
of the "melody of timbres") and above all by Webern, nevertheless has pre-serial
origins, especially in Debussyin this regard a "founding father" of the same rank
as Schnberg. [...] Later, it also provided the grounds for the break with Boulez's
"structural" orientations and the contestation of the legacy of serialism which was
carried out by the French group L'Itinraire (Grard Grisey, Michal Levinas, Tristan
Murail ...)" (Badiou 2009, 82).
Anderson 2000, 14.
Halbreich 1992, 50
Teodorescu-Ciocanea 2004, 144
 Fineberg 2000a, 107.
Reigle 2008, 16.
Fineberg 2000a, 128.
Chowning, John. "The Synthesis of Complex Audio Spectra by Means of Frequency
Modulation" (PDF).
18. Joos 2002; Sykes 2003.

Bibliography
Anderson, Julian. 2000. "A Provisional History of Spectral Music". Contemporary
Music Review 19, no. 2 ("Spectral Music: History and Techniques"): 722.
Anderson, Julian. 2001. "Spectral Music". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London:
Macmillan Publishers.
Anon. 2009. "Doctoral Student Continues Legacy of Professor's Spectral Music".
Research: Breakthroughs in Knowledge and Ideas at Columbia website (Accessed
7 May 2012).
Badiou, Alain. 2009. Logics of Worlds: The Sequel to Being and Event, translated
by Alberto Toscano. London, New York: Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-9470-2
Arrell, Chris. 2002. "Pushing the Envelope: Art and Science in the Music of Grard
Grisey". Doctoral Dissertation, Cornell University.
Arrell, Chris. 2008. "The Music of Sound: An Analysis of Grard Grisey's Partiels".
In Spectral World Musics: Proceedings of the Istanbul Spectral Music Conference,
edited by Robert Reigle and Paul Whitehead. Istanbul: Pan Yayincilik. ISBN 9944-
396-27-3.
Busoni, Ferruccio. 1907. "Entwurf einer neuen sthetik der Tonkunst". In Der
mchtige Zauberer & Die Brautwahl: zwei Theaterdichtungen fur Musik; Entwurf
einer neuen Aesthetik der Tonkunst, by Ferruccio Busoni, Arthur, comte de
Gobineau, and E. T. A. Hoffmann. Triest: C. Schmidt. English edition as Sketch of a
New Esthetic of Music, translated from the German by Th. Baker. New York: G.
Schirmer, 1911.
Cohen-Lvinas, Danielle. 1996. Cration musicale et analyse aujourd'hui. Paris:
Eska, 1996. ISBN 2-86911-510-5
Cornicello, Anthony. 2000. "Timbral Organization in Tristan Murail's
Dsintgrations". Ph.D. Dissertation, Brandeis University.
Cowell, Henry. 1930. New Musical Resources. New York & London: A. A. Knopf.
Reprinted, with notes and an accompanying essay by David Nicholls. Cambridge
[England] & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-521-49651-9
(cloth) ISBN 0-521-49974-7 (pbk.)
Dufourt, Hugues. 1981. "Musique spectrale: pour une pratique des formes de
l'nergie". Bicphale, no.3:8589.
Dufourt, Hugues. 1991. Musique, pouvoir, criture. Collection
Musique/Pass/Prsent. Paris: Christian Bourgois. ISBN 2-267-01023-2
 Fineberg, Joshua (ed.). 2000a. Spectral Music: History and Techniques.
Amsterdam: Overseas Publishers Association, published by license under the
Harwood Academic Publishers imprint, 2000. ISBN 90-5755-131-4. Constituting
Contemporary Music Review 19, no. 2.
Fineberg, Joshua (ed.). 2000b. Spectral Music: Aesthetics and Music. Amsterdam,
Netherlands: Overseas Publishers Association. ISBN 90-5755-132-2. Constituting
Contemporary Music Review 19, no. 3.
Fineberg, Joshua. 2006. Classical Music, Why Bother?: Hearing the World of
Contemporary Culture Through a Composer's Ears. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-97174-
8, ISBN 978-0-415-97174-4. [Contains much of the same text as Fineberg 2000a
and 2000b.
Grisey, Grard. 1987. "Tempus ex machina: A Composer's Reflections on Musical
Time." Contemporary Music Review 2, no. 1:23875.
Halbreich, Harry. 1992. Roumanie, terre du neuvime ciel. Bucharest: Axis Mundi.
Harvey, Jonathan. 2001. "Spectralism". Contemporary Music Review 19, no. 3:11
14.
Helmholtz, Hermann von. 1863. Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als
physiologische Grundlage fr die Theorie der Musik. Braunschweig: Friedrich
Vieweg und Sohn. Second edition 1865; third edition 1870; fourth revised edition
1877; fifth edition 1896; sixth edition, edited by Richard Wachsmuth, Braunschweig:
A. Vieweg & Sohn, 1913 (Facsimile reprints, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1968; Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1981; Hildesheim & New
York: G. Olms, 1983, 2000 ISBN 3-487-01974-4; Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann,
2003 ISBN 3-487-11751-7; Saarbrcken: Mller, 2007 ISBN 3-8364-0606-3).
Translated from the third edition by Alexander John Ellis, as On the
Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music.
London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1875; second English edition, revised
and corrected, conformable to the 4th German edition of 1877 (London and
New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1885); third English edition 1895;
fourth English edition 1912; reprint of the 1912 edition, with a new
introduction by Henry Margenau, New York: Dover Books, 1954 ISBN 0-486-
60753-4; reprint of the 1912 edition, Whitefish, Montana: Kellinger
Publishing, 2005, ISBN 1-4191-7893-8
Humbertclaude ric 1999. La Transcription dans Boulez et Murail: de loreille
lveil'. Paris: Harmattan. ISBN 2-7384-8042-X.
Joos, Maxime. 2002. "'La cloche et la vague': Introduction la musique spectrale
Tristan Murail et Jonathan Harvey". Musica falsa: Musique, art, philosophie, no. 16
(Fall): 3031.
Lvy, Fabien. 2004. "Le tournant des annes 70: de la perception induite par la
structure aux processus dduits de la perception". In Le temps de l'coute: Grard
Grisey ou la beaut des ombres sonores, edited by Danile Cohen-Levinas, 103
33. Paris: L'Harmattan/L'itinraire. [Contains many typographical errors; corrected
version online at: http://www.fabienlevy.net/Documents/pdf/tournant70.pdf.]
 Moscovich, Viviana. 1997. "French Spectral Music: An Introduction". Tempo new
series, no. 200 (April): 2127.
Reigle, Robert. 2008. "Spectral Musics Old and New". In Spectral World Musics:
Proceedings of the Istanbul Spectral Music Conference, edited by Robert Reigle
and Paul Whitehead. Istanbul: Pan Yayincilik. ISBN 9944-396-27-3.
Rose, Franois. 1996. "Introduction to the Pitch Organization of French Spectral
Music." Perspectives of New Music 34, no. 2 (Summer): 639.
Surianu, Horia. 2001. "Romanian Spectral Music or Another Expression Freed",
translated by Joshua Fineberg. Contemporary Music Review 19, no. 3:2332.
Sykes, Claire. 2003. "Spiritual Spectralism: The Music of Jonathan Harvey".
Musicworks: Explorations in Sound, no. 87 (Fall): 3037.
Teodorescu-Ciocanea, Livia. 2004. Timbrul Muzical, Strategii de compoziie.
Bucharest: Editura Muzical. ISBN 973-42-0344-4.
Wilson, Andy [Editor]. 2013. "Cosmic Orgasm: The Music of Iancu Dumitrescu".
Unkant Publishing. ISBN 095-68-1765-3.