|
ANÂHATA
Press (English)
________________
GERMANY
A MIRROR FOR NEW MUSIC
:
DONAUESCHINGEN
Josef Häusler
News, Trends, Reviews
Bärenreiter - Metzler
Asiatica
Jean-Claude
Eloy : "Anâhata"
*
SWITZERLAND
TRIBUNE DE GENEVE
Wednesday November 26, 1986
MUSIC
In the "salle Patino"
Cosmogony according to Jean-Claude Eloy
Peter Schöpf
*
24HEURES (Lausanne)
Wednesday, November 26, 1986
Jean-Claude Eloy and Japanese Music in Geneva
L'homme par qui le Japon arrive
(The Man Through Whom Japan arrives)
Myriam Tetraz
*
FRANCE
Festival d’Automne
in Paris:
LIBÉRATION
Wednesday, Novembre 19, 1986, n° 1711
MUSIC
"ANHATA"
Eloy’s Flying
Tone-Colors
Christian Leblé
*
Festival Sigma in Bordeaux:
Sud Ouest
(Bordeaux)
November 5, 1986
S.A.C.E.M. / SIGMA
100 000 francs pour Jean-Claude Eloy
(100,000 Francs for
Jean-Claude Eloy)
Florence Mothe
*
SIGMA 22 - BORDEAUX 1986
QUAIS
IMMEDIATE MAGAZINE
Novembre 15, 1986 Issue
"L'AUTRE ALLIANCE"
"THE OTHER ALLIANCE"
LE SON PRIMORDIAL
(THE PRIMORDIAL SOUND)
Katia Feijòo
*
Sud Ouest
(Bordeaux)
Saturday, November 15, 1986
SIGMA / "ANHATA"'s WORLD PREMIERE
Le Japon
à portée de l'oreille
(Japan Within Ear's Reach)
Florence Mothe
*
DIAPASON
January 1987
ORIENT-OCCIDENT
À BORDEAUX
(EAST-WEST IN BORDEAUX)
Martine Cadieu
|
|
ANÂHATA
Press (English)
________________________________________________
GERMANY
A MIRROR FOR NEW MUSIC
:
DONAUESCHINGEN
Josef Häusler
News, Trends, Reviews
Bärenreiter - Metzler
Asiatica
Jean-Claude Eloy
: "Anâhata"
Ever since Heinrich Strobel commissioned
his Tanzsuite from the Japanese composer Yoritsuné Matsudaira
in 1959, musical encounters between the Orient and the Occident have not
been lacking at Donaueschingen. The most memorable moments have been events
as varied as Réak by Isang Yun (1966), Dharana by
Peter Michael Hamel (1973), Muji No Kyo inspired from Japan by
Hans Zender, the less shaped orchestra piece for Ngu-Hanh II by
the Vietnamese Tiêt Ton-That (both from 1975) and two works by the
Korean Younghi Pagh-Paan (Sori in 1980 and Nim in 1987).
Jean-Claude Eloy : "Anâhata"
Anâhata for singers, instrumentalists
and magnetic tapes (1984-86, world premiering in Germany in 1990) by Jean-Claude
Eloy occupies its own rightful place within this landscape. With more
than three and a half hours of pure performance, it is Donaueschingen’s
“grand project” as well as its most substantial to date. The
uniqueness of this performance stems from the association of a European
composer with a majority of Japanese performers, from the chants of monks
from two different sects to the use of instruments from the Far East:
the Ryûteki flute, the Hichiriki oboe, the Shô and Sheng mouth
organs, as well as a vast number of percussive instruments, most of which
are metallic, such as the Bonshô temple bell, whose rich color and
resonance distinguish it most particularly. The Occident brings its electro-acoustic
contribution with its transmutation on magnetic tape of electronic and
concrete materials (sounds of bells and diverse instruments, noises from
nature).
An in-depth study of the creative driving force would be necessary to
properly understand the work. As opposed to Matsudaira, Yun and Pagh-Paan,
the road towards this encounter did not lead from East to West, but rather
it took the opposite direction. No comparison may be made, however, to
Peter Michael Hamel’s position nor to other musicians of his generation
who aspired to an Orient - Occident synthesis consisting only of a borrowing
of Far Eastern sounds, models and attitudes without penetrating further,
beyond appearances, into deeper areas of exploration and intellectual
conversion. Such an exploration, whose goal is a truly fruitful encounter,
is a founding principle for Yun, Pagh-Paan and Zender. For Jean-Claude
Eloy as well. However, Jean-Claude Eloy inhabits a world of different
dimensions, building bridges in a manner all his own. Support 1: Eloy
comes from the school of Darius Milhaud, Olivier Messiaen, Karlheinz Stockhausen
and Pierre Boulez; he is, thus, naturally familiar with the modes of thought
and musical language of the Occidental Avant-garde. Support 2: given his
passion for expressions of non-European musical cultures, Eloy is intimately
convinced of the fundamental equivalence of all "classical"
musical manifestations, and not only out of a feeling of general respect,
but with regard to the creative impulse. The bridge of his new creativity
is stretched between these two supports; it is a bridge which attempts
to enrich the Occidental soil of his origins through the interlacing of
non-European roots whereupon he creates his own symbiosis in which the
"Occident" is no more than one component among other more powerful
ones. The notion of " timelessness " borrowed from Oriental
Asian thought, the a-rhetorical attitude in Anâhata, the interplay
between static and flux, the long osmoses of colors present on magnetic
tapes, the sound layers and woven surfaces as well as the "spectral"
quality in the acoustics might elicit a comparison with György Ligeti
and other younger Frenchmen, even if these concepts are elevated, to a
far greater degree, into an absolute principle in Anâhata, truly
amplified into the realm of cosmic dimensions. Herein lies an area of
contact, of crossover, between an advanced musical culture from the Occident
and a secular musical culture from the Orient.
At first sight, it would seem that Jean-Claude Eloy is striving towards
a developed form of exoticism. His attitude, however, goes beyond an approach
that is merely respectful or fascinated. He has perfectly assimilated
a language and reinvents it anew, while respecting the original spirit.
It would be tempting to imagine that such a repertoire is comprised of
original, ingeniously adapted "long lost pieces", however, these
pieces are the exclusive compositional property of Eloy, confirming the
intensity of his identification. Nowhere is this more clearly manifested
than in the unfolding of vocal and instrumental melodies, with their own
progressions in sound, their micro-intervallic variations, their downturns
and breaks, their sound colorations. It should be acknowledged that these
aspects of the work, as well as many others, were far from understood
at Donaueschingen. Such qualifications as "ethnocolonialism",
"Nippon exotico-exhibitionism" and "transcultural salad"
were used, as well as "experimental meditation park" and "spectacle
of contemplation", referring to the physical appearance of the performance
(ceremonial dress, mandala discs, lighting). It is impossible to approach
Anâhata through the use of hastily drawn journalistic concepts.
The work rejects the pre-conceived expectations of Occidental listeners
with their conception of measured time, psychic emotion and dramatic action.
Anâhata – the word comes from Sanskrit and can be translated
as "primeval vibration" - demands that our inner breathing be
deep and free, that we be receptive to silent contemplation, open to vibrations
and tremors from here and elsewhere. The lengthening of time, almost to
the extent of its interruption, unfolds into strongly vibrational arcs
of time which detach themselves one by one over the course of an imperceptible
transition, concealing within them the "event", which one could
even characterize as a profusion of events if it weren’t for the
fact that this event takes place on a microcosmic level: in the modification
and modulation of the sounds themselves, in the changing colors of tones.
In spite of the general meditative and contemplative atmosphere, the first
part includes short emotional bursts, which must not be interpreted as
psychological gestures, but rather as the organic fulfillment of the ritual
ancestral character, which in turn irrefutably triggers the chanting by
two monks, a chant punctuated sporadically by the solitary sounds of a
gong and bells.
The second part, a piece for oboe (Hichiriki) and flute (Ryûteki)
with a background on tape of an entirely different morphological configuration,
uses ornamental quarter tones, exploiting the potential of Japanese instruments
to refine melodic tone-colors, in a ritualized and often quasi-improvised
spirit; and it culminates in a duet of ascending glissando figures.
It is mostly in the third part, which, like the first, lasts for an hour
and a half, that the listener is led into a living, breathing cosmos.
On the magnetic tape, a resounding, murmuring, resonant "galaxy",
criss-crossed by bells, propels itself forward, coming in sustained waves
that, at times, flood the ear and at others, recede into the distance.
The appearance of the Shô, this instrument with a smooth, humming
sound that introduces an individualized, virtuoso passage, goes practically
unnoticed. A bipolar tension emerges at this point between two different
worlds as the tape continues its objective and unchanged exposition and
this makes for some of the most captivating moments of the entire work.
The movement concludes in a long Shô cantilena and a feeling of
calm and ever greater purity.
There are, however, a few hazardous passages. Especially in the first
part - certain crescendos approaching the pathetic, some overly harmonious
melodious sounds and the cling clang atmosphere - all of this, though,
is quickly neutralized by the micro-ornamental sounds of voices and wind
instruments, animated by a vibrato and roughened through micro-intervals.
On the journey towards an encounter between the Orient and the Occident,
Anâhata is a step which is bound to remain.
Sources of Contemplation : Toshio
Hosokawa
In 1955, we were able to hear the Shômyô
Buddhist chant, the Ryuteki flute, the Hichiriki oboe and Shô mouth
organ for the second time, to which were added the angular Kugo harp,
the Sô-no-Koto rounded harmony table zither and wind instruments
with sounds similar to the horn, on the occasion of the (new) meeting:
the composition New Seeds of Contemplation– Mandala –
for four monastic singers and five Gagaku players by Toshio Hosokawa (*1995),
who studied under Isang Yun and Klaus Huber. Hosokawa had already published
a first and frequently performed version of "Sources of Contemplation"
in 1986; for the premiere in Donaueschingen, he reworked four parts from
top to bottom and re-adapted three other parts. If we were to clearly
summarize an overall impression, we might evoke the image of a pontifical
council of the catholic church, oriented towards questions pertaining
to the Far East, or perhaps the image of a musical icon for the predominant
sound quality and the yellow-green-red-purple-brown colors of wall hangings.
New Seeds of Contemplation is a true work of intellectual Japanese
music and although it contains some liturgical elements, it is conceived
to be performed in concert. Comparisons with Anâhata by Eloy
are natural and reveal a number of differences and similarities. Anâhata
is first and foremost a temporal work which, in spite of this, relies
heavily for its spiritual foundation on religious and mythological traditions
from the Far East, particularly in the first part which is centered around
the religious Shômyô chant. Here as well, there are clear
parallels with Hosokawa, particularly in the attitude of ritual as well
as musical expression. Two aspects underline their differences: on the
one hand, the appearance of "modern-Occidental" electro-acoustics
in Eloy’s case, whereas Hosokawa focuses exclusively on the world
of Japanese Gagaku and on the other hand, with regard to the antagonistic
role played by the Shô mouth organ in both works: as a brightly-colored
"concert instrument" in Anâhata, and as a delicately-stilled
layer, comparable to the golden glow in paintings of the early Middle
Ages, in Hosokawa’s case.
Has Hosokawa integrated Occidental elements into his work? Certainly not
contemporary elements, and others are not readily discernible, unless
we count the canons which often feature voices as well as instruments;
these polyphonic developments, for that matter, already lie often enough
somewhere between heterophony and imitation. When Hosokawa oriented his
work towards Occidental polyphonic visions, he integrated them in the
classical tradition of his country without the slightest strain; in a
sense, he has "gagaku-ized" them. […]
If Anâhata provoked protest from the audience in the past
("They should go sing that in Japan"), a response of vain fascination
would predominate in 1995. New music? In modern, Occidental terms, certainly
not. In the case of Hosokawa, we are confronted by a concept of traditionality
oriented towards an inalterable transmission, in complete opposition to
our efforts of transmutation and diversity of viewpoints. Or so we might
imagine a European composer, smoothly and seamlessly transmitting the
gregorian tradition. The incomprehensible quality is due to the unusual
Occidental-Oriental character of the performance and to the antagonisms
of thinking that are within. New music in spite of everything, however,
as it has not yet been truly heard, thus new, a discreet, purifying flame,
not so very distant from the likes of Webern and Nono. Hence, its rightful
place at Donaueshingen.
JOSEF HÄUSLER
Copyrights ” Bärenreiter-Verlag
1996
A MIRROR FOR NEW MUSIC : DONAUESCHINGEN
Josef Häusler
News, Trends, Reviews
Bärenreiter - Metzler
"Donaueschingen – the heart of the history of 20th century
music, a national and cultural monument, irreplaceable on the international
scene and astonishingly vibrant." (DIE ZEIT)
________________________________________________
SWITZERLAND
TRIBUNE DE GENEVE
Wednesday November 26, 1986
MUSIC
In the "salle Patino"
Cosmogony according to Jean-Claude Eloy
A far-reaching project.
Its calling ? Establish a cosmogony. With what references ? They burst
forth. From all sides.
"Anâhata" by Jean-Claude Eloy is an encounter between
writtten music (intended for soloists, be they vocal or instrumental)
and an electro-acoustic creation.
On the one hand are the musical possibilities from the Far East –
Buddhist chants, percussive practices, use of mouth organs, oboes and
bamboo flutes – on the other hand, finely tuned synthesized sounds
resulting from the most advanced of technologies. Ritual, restraint and
dignity
So...does this make for transcendence or syncretism?
From the first moment, all is a source of fascination. The vision itself,
the placement of different sound equipment. The choice of dress and the
poses of the musicians (five Japanese and one American).
The broad spaces, the new acoustic impressions made from striking metal
sheets and clanging overturned bells that strike each other freely.
The timelessness of chants that confirm the human voice as the most moving
and the most perfect of instruments. The deliberate interferences of pulsating
beats, themselves dependent on solar time...
Everywhere, a dimension of ritual, at once spare, restrained and dignified.
A glimpse of aesthetic emotion.
Escapade into the universe
One will note that the
work is absent of spiritual ecstasy. The approach is instead implied,
understood: integrate, forget, surpass. Integrating is indeed perhaps
the point of departure for an escapade into the fullness of the universe.
Forgetting – but how is it possible to forget when one witnesses
the act of playing far-eastern music - the signifier – while the
memory-tape seems to promote an eternal return to what is signified ?
The experience is to be lived, unique as it is, and long, it is true (some
four hours), but it is equally true that images can be heard and music
seen.
PETER SCHÖPF
________________________________________________
24HEURES
(Lausanne)
Wednesday, November 26, 1986
Jean-Claude Eloy and Japanese Music in Geneva
L'homme par qui le Japon arrive
(The Man Through Whom Japan arrives)
Geneva housed a week of Japanese music,
in the Salle Patino, under the leadership of Contrechamps and the Ateliers
d'ethno-musicologie. Traditions, mutations, intertwining meetings between
Asia and the West make up four nights: Sunday was devoted to Japanese
composer Takemitsu's work performed by the Geneva Contrechamps ensemble;
on Tuesday, J-Cl. Eloy presented "Anâhata", interpreted
with Japanese musicians; on Thursday and Friday, the Tokyo Nisui Kai ensemble
will perform old traditional music (with dancing) and contemporary music.
Japanese music was developed away from
any European influence for centuries; it evolved while keeping its specific
characteristics, its chords, its scales, its melodic types. The Meiji
Restoration in the 19th century marked the beginning of modern times:
the West then became a model to be imitated and was fervently assimilated;
traditional music was relegated to the past. Moreover, certain types of
music remained unknown from the public. Until 1925, the use of the "gagaku"
was prohibited outside the Court, and to this day, many Japanese have
never heard it played whereas they know French singer Yves Montand and
Beethoven's "9th".
"Anâhata", a junction point
French composer Jean-Claude Eloy, of Norman
origin, was fascinated by non-European music, especially that from Asia;
he certainly is the most captivating connoisseur of this art because he
captures it from the inside, not from an academic approach but by collaborating
with Japanese musicians. Among the people present were two Buddhist monks
playing and singing "Anâhata" (a Sanskrit term meaning
"essential vibration"), a composition for gagaku instruments
(i.e. mouth organ, flute, oboe) for voices, percussions and electro-acoustic
tape: "I have invented an unequalled sound situation", explains
Eloy.
Paradoxically, Takemitsu's early work performed on Sunday bear obvious
Western connotations, while that of Eloy leans on a Japanese stylistic
and aesthetic substratum however reworked and recreated by a Westerner
who does not forsake his cultural past and character: "Anâhata",
for instance, moves from spiral to spiral towards something, even though
it is never attained; it is a directional type of music, which Asian music
is not. To Eloy, these gripping exchanges between cultures are the future
of music, the only way towards the year 2000. "Without any ideological
background: to me, the musical interest is of prime importance. There
may also be the unconscious desire to gather. But I compose for myself,
to satisfy myself, selfishly... however with the hope to get others interested",
he admitted with a laugh.The mirror of the West
What is, to Eloy, listening to another world is, to Takemitsu, a return
to one's origins. The approach of the Japanese composer evolves from a
type of music strongly influenced by Debussy, Schönberg and Messiaen
– who was his teacher – towards an appropriation of his identity.
His recent work reveals a found again authenticity growing much more expressive
and moving as his music goes back to his roots. It reflects that multiplicity
and that finesse of timbres (especially as regards percussions), its richness
of detail, that particular relation to time and silence that have fascinated
Eloy. "The West has long been a mirror whose reflection kept me from
perceiving the light of other cultures. Today, we need to create new forms
combining the reflections of the big broken mirror of the modern West
with those of other mirrors", says Takemitsu.
It is that same synthesis, expressed a different way, that Eloy is looking
for in order to enrich our music; a sort of implant providing new branches.
"Western music, which is based on notes and the interval relation,
has leaned towards a bare aesthetic homogeneity. The sound is a sign written
on the page that one wants to hear as pure as possible. In Asia and in
the Middle-East, the activity of the sound itself and of all its internal
and related acoustic details is as important as the note. Concrete and
electro-acoustic music have led us to discover that richness and those
infinite variations."
MYRIAM TETRAZ
________________________________________________
FRANCE
Autumn Festival in Paris :
LIBÉRATION
Wednesday, Novembre 19, 1986, n° 1711
MUSIC
"ANÂHATA"
Eloy’s Flying Tone-Colors
Between the composer’s
taste for electronics and music from the Far East, a common point can
be found : a passion for tone-colors, which he plainly satisfies once
again during the 3 hours and 40 minutes of his new work.
Solitary, beyond redemption,
incorruptible, Jean-Claude Eloy counts all of the characteristic traits
of a legendary composer. In Bordeaux, where Sigma was presenting the world
premiere of Anâhata, he fired the lighting engineer, whose work
was unacceptable. That’s just for starters. The commissions that
he receives are never orders. He accepts financing only for the projects
that he has personally chosen to pursue. And, in these times of the clip,
of " elliptical " style and restless contemporary concision,
he can’t be bothered. As evidence, Gaku-No-Michi (1977) lasts for
four hours, Approaching a Meditating Fire (1983) a whole evening, and
Anâhata three hours and forty minutes.
This being said, he is the epitome of charm, laughing at the adventures
where his passion for contemporary music has nearly led him. He recounts
his first electro-acoustic concerts in Hong Kong, Bandung or Djakarta.
In Bandung, 1000 people rushed into the university gymnasium, following
the banners announcing " Electronic music ". All of those who
expected rock music were astonished to discover this anti-pop star, with
no guitar, supplied with nothing more than a small hi-fi set, the extent
of the equipment the organizers had managed to unearth for the occasion.
After what could only be a slim demonstration, a discussion lasted up
until three o’clock in the morning... ...In Madras, after a lecture,
the Indian audience found it hard to believe that Eloy couldn’t sing
his own music, for the sake of illustration. The memory of the 1977 concert
with the Orchestre de Paris is not as pleasant when the musicians, in
the middle of the work, turned their music over on their music stands
as a sign of condemnation of the composer.
Eloy defines himself as an "a-typical fruit from the sixties".
A student of Boulez in Bâle between 61 and 63, he feels trapped
by this exclusive movement. He goes to Berkeley. Another trap. American
avant-garde music exists within the university walls. There is no link
with the uninitiated public. Academicism haunts professors (students of
Schoenberg who emigrated during the war) and their followers. Nevertheless,
Eloy cuts himself off from his European roots. A typical development for
him ; sound is independent from any school, from any culture. It is the
fruit of its own individual experience. He travels frequently to Japan,
starting in 76, borrowing a collection of new tone-colors, but he maintains
a bridge with Wagner. This inspiration in no way implies a conversion
to the Orient, the same passion for tone had already led him towards electro-acoustics.
First, against Boulez who, at the time, categorically condemned this genre
after his unsuccessful experiments in Baden. Then with Stockhausen, when
he defines a synthesis between concrete music (natural sources that are
re-worked) from the school of Pierre Schaeffer and abstract music (amplified
vibrations from artificial sources, such as oscillators), that Stockhausen
developed in Cologne.
His own work is a mix of social considerations and sound issues. "You
don’t compose to get applause from an audience", noted a Shômyô
Japanese monk who participates in Anâhata. It’s the least one
could say. Eloy considers the traditional concert a social gathering :
"Music should, first and foremost, take one a certain distance from
a spiritual point of view, he says, allowing one to surpass the stage
of everyday spirituality through deep and concentrated listening. The
brio of the virtuoso imposes certain traits that I find objectionable.
I believe that all Occidental music is based on the existence of the interval.
A frequency, a note on its own, appears poor, as if lacking in itself.
So, off one goes to another note. The note itself carries no importance.
Everything resides in the succession of notes. Serialism pushes this theory
to the extreme, in spite of its revolutionary stance: the series reduces
all concerns to intervals alone . And yet a point of sound can be rich.
In the Koran, acoustical vibrations have the upper hand over the interval.
Singing might be monodic and static, its ornamentation is what creates
the richness. The same remark goes for the Shômyô monks. They’re
constantly off. They don’t sing in tune. But being in tune is a concept
that alludes to the interval, it is the exact distance between two notes.
Their concept calls for an acoustical object that uses notes as pillars
: pillars to be played around".
His detachment for conventional instrumentation – as well as his
attachment to electronics – come certainly from the fact that he
is attached to the music of intervals. The best way to grant oneself some
elbow room and avoid rejection (see Paris, 1977) is to adopt a new instrument
and offer oneself a clean slate, free from any received ideas.
Jean-Claude Eloy reigns over a mighty array of tones. His problem lies
in working on them. His unconventionality (independence is a meaningless
word) is a hindrance. He doesn’t belong to institutions. As for the
studios, universities, research centers ? Their schedules are full (hence
their mediocre results, Eloy concludes), their access difficult. Anâhata
has been pending for a year due to this situation: "I was forced
to grab the studios at nighttime in Berlin, at the INA, in Amsterdam –
each studio has its specificities – in order to finish it."
Obstinacy pays off. Anâhata’s tone-colors are exceptional.
With Eloy, the promises of electronics are achieved. We are light years
away from the harping tones repeated over and over again found in pop
music ! Each musician (percussionist, monk vocalist, flutist and player
of Shô – mouth organ) presents a sound, then electronics intervene
to modulate what was played and re-project it. Metallic bells emit a vibration
that is low-pitched, muted, with a very shrill harmonic, little bells
are openly sensual, overlapping cymbals vibrate in a sound of white metal.
With all of this, Eloy creates a powerful sound environment, proposing
a rich and dense musical world.
But Anâhata lasts for three hours and forty minutes. The Autumn
Festival had ordered a work lasting between an hour and a half and two
hours. Eloy brought them more than four hours worth of music. He accepted
a few cuts. No more. He quotes as his motto an anecdote in the studio
in Cologne where he meant to record only a two-minute sample, but became
absorbed by a sound for fifteen minutes : the complexity of sound eliminates
all sense of time...
CHRISTIAN LEBLÉ
Anâhata, November 19, 20 and 21 at
8 P.M., Centre Pompidou, grande salle. Autumn Festival.
________________________________________________
Sigma Festival in Bordeaux :
SUD OUEST
(Bordeaux)
November 5, 1986
S.A.C.E.M. / SIGMA
100 000 francs pour Jean-Claude Eloy
(100,000 Francs for Jean-Claude Eloy)
The venerable Société
des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique (SACEM; music
author, composer and publisher organization) does not only collects copyright
fees. It can now and then help the creation process. That is how it has
taken part in the financial arrangement for "Anâhata",
a work by musician Jean-Claude Eloy, which will world premiere at the
next Sigma Festival. […]
FUNDS FOR "ANÂHATA"
It is a matter of putting music in relation
with other types of art and organizing various regional events with artists
who have been awarded the grand prize from the S.A.C.E.M. That is why
the organization has contributed 100,000 Francs to the creation of "Anâhata",
the work by Jean-Claude Eloy that was commissioned by the State and will
world premiere at the National Conservatory of the Bordeaux region on
Friday November 14 and Saturday November 15 as part of the Sigma Festival.
This extremely expensive work is one of the most beautiful pages of Jean-Claude
Eloy's, famous for his taste for profusion. There is no doubt that "Anâhata"
will be long, but it however sums up the thought of the composer who has
traveled the world over in order to create it. Jean-Claude Eloy has indeed
worked on the electro-acoustic tapes in Berlin and Amsterdam. Gagaku instrumentalists
will come from Japan for the occasion to perform "Anâhata"…
According to Jean-Claude Eloy, "Anâhata" is the fundamental
vibration, the original sound of all things. Hats off for this great French
composer better known outside than inside French borders.
Bordeaux mayor Jacques Chaban-Delmas, along with Gérard Calvi,
representing Jean-Loup Tournier, President of the S.A.C.E.M., will defer
the city of Bordeaux's medal to Jean-Claude Eloy at the Sigma Festival.
FLORENCE MOTHE
________________________________________________
QUAIS
IMMEDIATE MAGAZINE
Novembre 15, 1986 Issue
"L'AUTRE ALLIANCE"
("THE OTHER ALLIANCE")
SIGMA
22 - BORDEAUX 1986
LE SON PRIMORDIAL
(THE PRIMORDIAL SOUND)
LES
HOMMES
SONT
DES
VOCABLES
(MEN ARE VOCABLES)
"If the world has to separate
the world of birds and
that of the cage, I would side
with the birds."
John Cage
It is precisely because our era is complex
that the idea of an essential sound regains its fundamental value.
In today's music creations, one rarely confronts the perceptible range
of a unitarian vastness as was the meditation offered last night by Anâhata.
It worked its way up to the level of rite as the roles falling on the
body (position, gestures and voice), on the objects (music instruments),
and the thought came together with equal weight.
Thanks to the gradual mutation of rhythms avoiding any bump, we entered
into the formal liturgy of the triad.
In front of the absolute perfection of the ceremony, the artistic emotion
took on other roads. Shave-headed and dressed in long chasubles, the two
monks sitting on their heels were calling other images.
The hard-line cult of the sound undid the idea of the work of art as an
end in itself. If the sound relentlessly refused oppression, directivity,
and division, it was because it existed both in the movement and in the
environment. The multiplicity of sound centers, the visible vagueness
showed that the process prevailed over the object. We were far from the
practice, the Western dramatic art, the vocalises heavy with symbols chanting
the extensive spiral of vowels and consonants of the Japanese alphabet
brought back to us a phenomenal world.
When the officiants handled the instruments, we guessed that they were
performing those series of mudras, those hand and finger codified gestures
also observed on Japanese and Hindu deities.
One should note Jean-Claude Eloy's musical sovereignty. Through the reference
to Shômyô, the world surrounding us – technology, industrial
or natural sounds, captured wave sounds – however suddenly appeared.
The sound mixing journey/game showed the way to knowledge.
Space, time, autonomy: the everyday routine seized life, nature, and chance
during the prayer of the Shô. The course of the instrument leaving
the West for Japan abandoned music to tie us to silence.
Let us especially mention percussionist Michael Ranta whose work was a
metaphor of the act and feeling like in the Far-Eastern theaters, where
the instrument is both a symbol and a tool.
We highly regret that the Bordeaux audience attending last night's concert
was small. While true art is a means of extending life, Anâhata
had the particular quality of a fleeting introduction to the absolute.
KATIA FEIJÒO
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SUD OUEST
(Bordeaux)
Saturday, November 15, 1986
SIGMA / "ANÂHATA"'s WORLD PREMIERE
Le Japon à portée de l'oreille
(Japan Within Ear's Reach)
A few clusters of listeners for an essential
piece fortunately presented again tonight, we hope, in front of a bigger
audience
To Jean-Claude Eloy, every road leads to
the East, especially those he uses in his initiatory images. "Anâhata",
by its length alone, looks like a sweeping cavalcade. One crosses deserts
and darkness accompanied by the plaintive and linear chanting of a couple
Buddhist monks. Bells and gongs slowly punctuate the stations of this
journey aboard the Orient Omnibus. The landscape may be changing but the
shots are many. The ear perceives a steady sound as far as it can hear.
The threnody of the monks modulates, meandering along a sound on tape
reminiscent of the resonance of a far-away belfry. Jean-Claude Eloy's
universe is certainly a universe of solitude. One senses that he is looking
for the vastness of infinite spaces. The Western ear is hardly disconcerted
by the incidentally refined, beautiful and rich sonorities. It discovers
the unknown percussions, the raucous sound of the flute and the indirect
voices of the Japanese monks with marvel.
With Jean-Claude Eloy, nothing is really very violent so much so that
"Anâhata" creates a sort of musical torpor irradiating
serenity. No sonority, no effect sounds neither garish nor bazaar-like.
The work is full of dignity and nobility. One imagines that that type
of music will be heard during the ultimate seconds preceding death.
The astonishment comes from the fact that Eastern music, what one hears
of it in Buddhist temples at any rate, is as removed from "Anâhata"
as from a symphony by Messiaen or a concerto by Mozart.
Jean Claude Eloy stands somewhere else, in another galaxy, with personal
references, with no relation to another previously codified language.
Moreover, "Anâhata" is vibrant with internal poetry. The
piece itself pushes its own developments whose emotional linearity is
in no way illogical. After a certain time, one loses the sense of that
duration, which becomes biological. Then, one distinguishes the minimalist
aspects of the score.
Jean-Claude Eloy has endeavored to refine tiny details. One understands
that he had to spend 550 hours in Amsterdam to process sounds, 450 hours
in Paris to get through the percussions, 250 hours of mixing in Geneva,
870 hours of manipulations in Berlin, and another 740 hours in front of
the potentiometers in Amsterdam. "Anâhata" owes its success
to meticulousness. If a piece is "closed", this one is, and
the entire responsibility falls on the composer's shoulders, who is in
a way the orchestra conductor of that long night.
One will naturally regret that the Bordeaux population was hardly curious.
Only a few people went to the Centre André-Malraux, a hall by the
way most inappropriate for such a premiere. Obviously, it was much of
a shame. I hope that they will come in greater number tonight to listen
to a creation whose beauty is far from being the only appeal, and to discover
or become more familiar with that sleeping volcano that Jean-Claude Eloy
is, always hesitating between the distant roar of the base in fusion and
the buzzing of a bee.
FLORENCE MOTHE
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DIAPASON
January 1987
ORIENT-OCCIDENT
À BORDEAUX
(EAST-WEST IN BORDEAUX)
Under the title "L'autre alliance"
(the other alliance), the Sigma Festival presented over 50 events, among
which ten world or French premieres. Anâhata, by Jean-Claude Eloy,
was one of the most awaited for.André Malraux Conservatory hall.
On the ground: a cross-shaped diagram, Buddha's five names in Sanskrit.
On the stage, in a pre-world darkness, a forest glinting with percussions
(Chinese, Thai). A hardly audible sound, beyond what is visible. "Anâhata",
a Hindu philosophical concept that refers to the "essential vibration",
to the "original sound of the universe", an "unstruck"
sound... In the darkness, a percussionist (Michael Ranta) awakens the
bells ("struck sounds"). A monk enters, sits down, punctuating
his inner chant that resembles the traditional rite but written note after
note by the composer. What he is reading on filigree, in the aura of an
electro-acoustic music surrounding him, carries him or answers him, is
another breath. We will discover it after making our way through 5 universes.
A long motionless travel (3 hours and 40 minutes) as "Gaku-No-Michi"
and "A I'approche du feu méditant" (Approaching a Meditating
Fire) (Tokyo 83) were. This other breath – Stockhausen's "Om"
in more spectacular but close pieces – is here revealed, in the mystic
sense, by the Shô, played by Ms. Miyata, kneeled down, the mouth
organ half hiding her enigmatic face.
Five Japanese Gagaku soloists, two monks, a percussionist, confront sound
landscapes and deep dreams. The electro-acoustic music around them dilates
and retracts like light or Hokusaï's "Great Wave", bringing
the far-away rumor of the concrete world or the lyric abstraction chant.
Long dialogs of Hichiriki (a type of oboe) or of the small flute pass
around Shô's piece (that would perhaps better be at the center of
the work rather than at the end, as everything slowly revolves around
it "like planets"). The monks' chants are metamorphoses of phonemes
based on Japanese alphabets. Arai Kojun and Ebihara Koshin lead us to
the Awakening. Jean-Claude Eloy has thrown a bridge between two cultures.
He is heading towards...
MARTINE CADIEU
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