Press Gaku-no-Michi (English)

GAKU-NO-MICHI Press (English) ________________ L'HUMANITE Tuesday, July 11, 1978 The City against Meditation Jean-Claude Eloy proposes a musical world far beyond mere sounds Jean-Louis Martinoty * TÉLÉRAMA LE MONDE DE LA MUSIQUE January 1979 n° 7 Eloy, salle Wagram, bring along your pillow Anne Rey * LE MATIN DE PARIS January 13, 1979 SALLE WAGRAM Gaku-No-Michi By Jean-Claude Eloy Brigitte Massin * LE MONDE Tuesday, January 8, 1980 " GAKU - NO - MICHI ", by Jean - Claude EIoy Paths of music Jacques Lonchampt * NRC HANDELSBLAD (The Netherlands) Tuesday, October 21, 1980 Eloy risks it all with Gaku-No-Michi Ernst Vermeulen * UNO MÁS UNO (Mexico-city) August 21, 1981 Eloy: "Music: An East-West Conflict". The composer will give a conference tonight at the UNAM Patricia Cardona * 1982 10th anniversary AUTUM FESTIVAL IN PARIS, 1972-1982 JEAN-CLAUDE ELOY A Path of Knowledge Jean-Pierre Léonardini * Neue Zeitschrift für Musik January 23, 1992 Solo Voices of Buddhist Monks Berlin's "Inventionen" feature Eloy's electronics and Cage's art of the violin Werner Schönsee * LE MONDE DE LA MUSIQUE Issue # 18 - December 1979 Meeting with Le Monde de la Musique JEAN-CLAUDE ELOY TOKYO VILLE ORCHESTRE (TOKYO ORCHESTRA CITY) Jean-Claude Eloy, Composer Chris Marker, Filmmaker	GAKU-NO-MICHI Press (English) ________________________________________________ L'HUMANITE Tuesday, July 11, 1978 The City against Meditation Jean-Claude Eloy proposes a musical world far beyond mere sounds It was the main event of the Rencontres festival: two days devoted to Jean-Claude Eloy (born in 1938) and a broad panorama of the works of this maverick of contemporary French music who took refuge in the studios of Cologne and Tokyo and doesn’t mind airing his grievances against French institutions. Let us state very simply that J.-C. Eloy is perhaps (as far as can be said) the only French musician of his generation to propose a musical world that goes farther than a mere exploration of sound. It is distinctive, an "elsewhere" that might be viewed as the essential music of the seventies... "Equivalences" (1963) marks his departure from the post-serial positions of the Boulez school. Eloy was already feeling that music was none other than the organization of time, the composition of durations: horizontal values taking precedence over harmonics and counterpoint, that is, the vertical values that have always ruled Occidental music. He started to become aware, particularly from his work in Berkeley, California between 1966 and 1970, of the vast possiblities offered by the exploration of so-called "Oriental" music, particularly in its complete immersion in the perception of time, wherein Eloy found affinities with his own compositional demands, his taste for large sound waves gliding over each other, diffracting, then developing into infinite streams. Devoid of rests or silences. Sound texture With the discovery of the infinite possibilities offered by electro-acoustic techniques and the analogies of basic structure between electronic materials and the acoustic notation of his orchestral scores, Eloy achieves two masterpieces of the genre: "Shânti" (1974 in Royan), obviously inspired by Indian modes, and "Gaku-No-Michi", which had its world premiere in La Rochelle on Sunday evening. The latter work, masterfully achieved in the unfolding of immense musical rings, beautifully shaped, and revealing an imagination heretofore unheard of in electro-acoustics, came, in the presence of a handful of followers, as conclusion to two very full days which demonstrated Eloy’s affinities with musicians from India (wonderful concert of the Dagar brothers) as well as repetitive Occidental music like the ensemble of 30 saxophonists "Urban-Sax", a sound continuum surging forth from everywhere and whose amazing sounds will be featured at the "fête de l'Humanité". "GAKU-NO-MICHI" ("Paths of Music") is divided into two parts: "TOKYO" (49 minutes) is undoubtedly the most tortured and fragmented music that we know of Eloy : all the sounds of the city of Tokyo, subway, factories, the street, etc. mixed with the sounds of traditional Japanese ceremonial chants, combine into an extremely original sound material in which one notes the violence of the city and its effect on the spirit of meditation. At the end, the work glides towards a synthesis of the two sound sources, towards an abstract sublimation of the city in music. "FUSHIKI" (76 minutes) ("towards the unknowable") presents, on the other hand, the immobility of interior contemplation with sounds stemming from Gagaku, shouts from Nô theater and the flapping sounds of the priests’ sandals, all of which is elaborated in such a way as to be unrecognizable, but possessing a very original sound "texture", such as the electronically fabricated Tibetan bells, which are more bewitching than real ones. They accompany and sustain the immense dimension at the work’s conclusion through a turning, hypnotic motion until their echos reverberate long after the work is finished. Nightfall descended after two hours through the glass ceiling of the sports stadium, giving the metronomic scale of this work of another dimension, like an orchestra conductor marking eternal time. JEAN-LOUIS MARTINOTY ________________________________________________ TÉLÉRAMA LE MONDE DE LA MUSIQUE January 1979 n° 7 Eloy, salle Wagram, bring along your pillow ELOY, the stateless one. Eloy, forty years old, confirmed talent (and beyond !). Eloy, always between two triumphs, two countries, two airplanes. Eloy, demanding, protesting, liable to leave in a huff, but not resigned, in spite of appearances, to play the part of the perpetual exile. After the Conservatory, after Darmstadt, after classes with Boulez in Basel, he launches his memorable "J’accuse" , a denunciation that national institutions are still shaking from : no, musical creation in France is neither supported nor viable. Ever since, he has traveled around. India, Japan, China, Indonesia, Brazil... a major journey into Oriental sound. He extolls - a grand idea - a "systematic internationalism" that could already be felt in works like Equivalences (1963) and Kâmakalâ (1971). In the inner sanctums and avant-garde festivals, some would like to hold onto him a little longer, as he often stays just long enough for a performance, a "special day" or a "carte blanche". He wouldn’t mind. But he doesn’t couch his terms either. Loud and clear he deplores the uncontrolled centralization of cultural powers : all equipment in the same basket, all researchers in the same ivory tower... sound familiar? No need to look too far. The sad fact is that he may be right, he knows what he is talking about. He himself has suffered from the ravages of French bureaucracy. In 1972, in the Cologne studios, he works on Shânti and achieves one hundred thirty-five minutes of "meditation music" for 4-track tapes, his first electro-acoustic work. Then, the Japanese take him in. In Tokyo, he composes Gaku-No-Michi, a colossal voyage – more than three and a half hours – of concrete sounds going into abstract modulation and back again. He resigns himself to a westernized sense of duration to honor a commissioned work from the Orchestre de Paristhey massacre the creation of Fluc-tuante-Immuable. Once again, he is angered. Recorded work decidedly has its advantages. Taped recordings are unchangeable, they’re lightweight, and can be carried in a suitcase : his music in his backpack, Eloy is the Woody Guthrie of electro-acoustics. He proposes his services of broad-minded, articulate composer to Goethe Institutes and universities. These international institutions jump at the opportunity, sending him from Sao Paulo to Djakarta and from Bandung to Rio de Janeiro. Everywhere, he observes the same thirst to listen and learn. Everywhere, discussions go on and on. Four hundred and fifty Hong Kong Chinese discover a completely foreign musical language when they hear his work, Shânti. In two days in Bandung, two thousand students hear his music. Admittedly, it is easier than in Ivry or Saint-Etienne. Eloy came back from his travels, his head full of memories and rather optimistic. And he proves it. Collaborating with the Autumn Festival (which, for his sake, is adding an extension onto its program), he rents the salle Wagram for an evening and onto the ears of a totally hypothetical audience, he launches the great mass of sounds and Japanese impressions that make up the two linked parts of Gaku-No-Michi (1). An opportunity to follow the "paths of music" (the meaning of the title) which are "the paths of consciousness through sounds". "I hope in this way to meet a new audience, says Eloy. We need nine thousand francs to cover basic expenses. That represents quite a few tickets ! But people should know : although the acoustics in the salle Wagram are excellent, we don’t have the means to make the place more comfortable. Everyone should bring a pillow !" He also says : "I can no longer make music without integrating into it what I do, what I see, what I am experiencing, objects, colors, shapes." Is it so surprising that a musician of this kind surpasses the set limits of Occidental works and mobilizes entire evenings just for himself ? For his style is "opera: sound material organized around a dramatic and visual scenario". Soon, he will perfect his lyrical art: he’ll be adding sets, lighting, actor-instrumentalists. Soon, he’ll be inventing images as well. But where ? ANNE REY (1) January 11, salle Wagram, 8 P.M. A recording of "Shânti" is now available on Erato STU 71 205/6 ________________________________________________ LE MATIN DE PARIS January 13, 1979 SALLE WAGRAM Gaku-No-Michi By Jean-Claude Eloy On the floor, people are ensconced in sleeping bags or blankets; others are politely sitting on chairs. Where are we ? In a waiting room at night during a train strike, or in a way station for refugees ? No, very simply, we are in Paris, a Thursday night, in the "salle Wagram" concert hall, for an exceptional concert proposed by Jean-Claude Eloy. There is only one electro-acoustic work on the program, but it lasts for four hours ! It took the involvement of a number of friends for the composer to take the risk of this gathering. And yet the recent Autumn Festival would have been greatly honored to officially incorporate such a concert into its program, all the more so because the work by Jean-Claude Eloy is, in its genesis, intimately related to Japan, one of the themes of the recent festival. I had already heard Gaku-No-Michi (Paths of music) in a first version at the last Rencontres of La Rochelle. And, strangely, the work with an extra hour and a half added on, seemed shorter to me. "Not surprising in itself, says Jean-Claude Eloy, it is meant to trigger another perception of duration." Jean-Claude Eloy doesn’t take the easy way out ; he doesn’t choose to accumulate material in a demonstrative or illustrative scheme. On the contrary, although the sounds that compose the thread of his work are very rich, they could be perceived as slack, as poor in means. His exploration lies essentially in the domain of tone-colors, always very beautiful, whether they are obtained and re-created from concrete sounds or electronic sounds, and of researching the relationship of shape with material. Hence the slow moving of sound events and open spaces where the proposed sound material is enriched and developed. Thus, the work triggers little by little, in its unfolding four episodes, this new approach to sound phenomena which, in its new perception of duration, aims more to help us reach a level of self-knowledge than the experience of a fabulous and fragmented world of sound. BRIGITTE MASSIN ________________________________________________ LE MONDE Tuesday, January 8, 1980 " GAKU - NO - MICHI ", by Jean - Claude EIoy Paths of music The most recent contemporary music can scarcely be heard outside short-lived auditions in specialized concert halls. The infatuation of record companies, some ten years ago, vanished rapidly when confronted by timid sales. So we are very pleased to note that Adès records, under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture and the SACEM foundation for musical communication, along with the collaboration of Radio-France, had the courage to publish one of the most important works of recent years, "Gaku-no-Michi", by Jean-Claude Eloy, which will now make it possible to carefully examine this most extraordinary musical world. For those connoisseurs of the electronic productions of Stockhausen, Pierre Henry, Berio or François Bayle, Eloy’s work lies within a framework that is already well-frequented. However, those who approach it without preparation will find themselves pondering a fundamental question : what is music ? This powerful attack, this faraway murmur of Tokyo city noises, this dense sound thread to which vestiges of inaudible speeches and long curves of hissing meteorites cling... does this deserve our undivided attention for two hours, immobilized in front of our speakers ? (For that matter, the recording had to abridge the work for economical reasons, the original score can last up to five hours, more than "Parsifal"). The listener of good faith should persevere and in so doing, will rapidly realize that this world of sound apparently made up of noises, is actually captivatingly rich, that time passes very quickly and that a musical awareness and intuitive logic are at work, from the beginning to the end. In pursuing our attentive listening, we discover that the echos of Tokyo become less and less recognizable, melting into an overall thread that progresses slowly. Abstract events come to punctuate the discourse, like echos of bass horns, crackling trails, squealing, harsh sounds, motors turning on. The music develops continuously, sometimes into a cloud of multiple sounds, sometimes into a mass of elements combining into an expressive density, at times faraway concerts of low-pitched bells, as if swept by violent or majestic winds. "Gaku-no-Michi" means "paths of music" and, for Eloy, this first part represents "everyday sounds, from the concrete to the abstract", a "transsubstantia-tion-oblivion" which, based on our surrounding sound environment, leads us to "essential knowledge" through meditation, immersion in the sounds. Thus bathed by the music, and led by Eloy in the same way as Dante by Virgil, we might succeed, through reading sounds, in discovering something about ourselves and the universe ; isn’t that what defines all music ? Let us quickly examine other parts of this music, literally indescribable: "the path of meditative sounds" is a journey through low-pitched octaves from where a long electronic iridescent spiral rises, which then diffracts into divergent lines eventually joining together into a grand chord, a fixed moment which, in turn, evolves and expands with new colorful events resulting in other masses or sound groupings, like the stages of contemplation that drift back and forth, immobilized for a moment in time, only to take other steps towards other paths. At turns calm, then eventful, unified or rich in independent sound particles of very different natures, passing from reverberating depths to unheard of twinkling sparkling sounds or violent percussion, such a musical respiration leads us towards a kind of timelessness akin to "ecstasy". The last part, "Réminiscence, the path of meaning, beyond metamorphoses", brings one back to a sort of dramatic awareness of the world; conflicts, still abstract, evolve into large harmonious structures : heartrending themes melt into vast syntheses; the national Japanese anthem slowly unfolds through this calm and solemn vision and at last is stilled on a long timeless chord. In this abridged version made for the record, Jean-Claude Eloy has deliberately excluded the most concrete and most recognizable elements, as if to signify that the essence lies in the heart of sounds themselves. From this rather secret homage to Japan, to zen philosophy and Buddhist mysticism, he has composed a great symphony, worthy of the Occident, whose immense, abstract architecture pays tribute to the guiding principle which inspires Oriental music: the "power of sounds" which leads to knowledge, indeed to enlightenment. JACQUES LONCHAMPT * Adès double record, 21 005. The preceding electronic work by Eloy, Shânti, was recorded last year by Erato (double record, STU 71205/206). ________________________________________________ NRC HANDELSBLAD (The Netherlands) Tuesday, October 21, 1980 Eloy risks it all with Gaku-No-Michi Concert: Gaku-No-Michi (The Ways of Music) 1977 – 1978, an imageless film for electronic and concrete sounds by Jean-Claude Eloy, produced in the electronic music studio of Tokyo's NHK Japanese Radio. The first electronic concert of the Combinatie van Utrechtse Muziekbelangen Foundation series, Monday night in the Geertekerk. By ERNST VERMEULEN UTRECHT, Oct. 21. – The Eduard van Beinum Foundation in Breukelen recently organized an international composition workshop (featured on November 21 by KRO on Hilversum 4), to which French composer Jean-Claude Eloy was invited last Sunday for a closing presentation around the theme "The perception of time in Eastern and Western music: an introduction to his recent work Gaku-No-Michi". A work of over four hours of music on tape arranged like an imageless movie, this fantastic piece indeed fully reproduced the sensation of time. We went to listen to it. The memory of Shanti talked us into it without difficulty. That work (Shanti) was produced in 1972/1974 in Cologne. It is a monumental composition that was also presented under the patronage of the Foundation in the Geertekerk, in Utrecht (1978). Eloy sure knows the subject. Born in 1938, he studied with Milhaud and Boulez but has been influenced by Messiaen to a greater extent– the central part of Gaku-No-Michi is a clear example! He taught at Berkeley in the sixties – which one can hear in Shanti –, where, for the first time, he fully opened up to Eastern aesthetics generally speaking, and to the passage of time in particular. Currently working in Paris, he produced a composition for percussions, synthesizer and tapes in the Studio of Sonology in Utrecht last summer. He is working on a book called Music without Borders. Gaku-No-Michi progresses along a spiral pattern to reach a climax, and then extracts the subsequent fragment. The work is divided into four parts: after the introduction comes the Tokyo part (sounds of everyday life in the form of sound metamorphoses going from recognizable concrete sounds to the musical abstract world) followed by a second part, the longest one, entitled Fushiki-e (a deciphering of "what is not knowable", the Way of meditation sounds, which reversely develops from the abstract to the concrete), attaining a static contemplation that can be stretched at will. Coffee Then the composer let us have coffee before hearing Banbutsu-No-Ryudo (the flow of all things, from the concrete to the concrete following an alienating direction, the emphasis being laid on the contradiction born by sound objects – a purely political debate can thus grow into a buzzing of bugs with rich tones), and, at last, Kaiso, which features reminiscences from the preceding parts, moving from the abstract to the abstract through the ways that enter our emotions beyond metamorphoses. Moreover, this fourth part evokes the tragedy of Hiroshima. All this sounds fantastic, and is indeed. Unfortunately, some promises were broken. There are also fragments with no real signification, much too static: a rest without tension. It is the risk of this type of composition where no fragment makes sense as everything has merged into the main lines. The concrete material is nonetheless very rich. Descending bell sounds can for instance be replaced by the beautiful declaiming voice of a woman followed by prayers: this is reminiscent of Berio's language. Nevertheless, Eloy is less refined, less structured, broader, and somehow much too European to really get close to refined Asian images mentally speaking. There is a lack of synthesis. Eloy provides a comment, however without merging into Eastern aesthetics. His bold Mahler-style attempt deserves our respect. Eloy is a one-of-a-kind character who dares to take every risk. It is a shame that several listeners did not stand dragging passages because the sound of chairs on the tiles of the Geertekerk did not suit the atmosphere. Yet, the atmosphere is essential to Eloy. ________________________________________________ UNO MÁS UNO (Mexico-city) August 21, 1981 Eloy: "Music: An East-West Conflict". The composer will give a conference tonight at the UNAM By PATRICIA CARDONA Considered the most independent of French composers of the second half of the 20th century, Jean-Claude Eloy defines the approach of the public as regards his music as a "psychophysical acoustic" contact, whearas, according to him, the experience felt by the listener hearing contemporary music has so far been mostly cerebral. Tonight at 8 pm, in the Carlos Chávez Hall of the Cultural Center of the University, the maestro will talk about the architecture of musical time in his work at a conference entitled "Unidirectionality – Multidirectionality: the limits between Asia and the West". Convinced of the influence of music on the psychological and neurological state of man, Jean-Claude Eloy will go further into the issue of the nature and the effects of secret ritual music falling under his work of creation and interpretation of the relations between the Eastern and Western cultures. "Computers, Eloy said, allowed music to reach a post-alphabetized" phase marked by a more direct character and more organized, which distinguishes it from the old Western tradition." The composer was able to get closer to the primitive universe through electronic music. That of Tibet, for instance, represents a point of contact between the most advanced musical approach in this genre and the ancestral tendency that man has to communicate organically with sounds. Eloy will facilitate a workshop organized by the Compañía Musical de Repertorio Nuevo, on August 24-29 around the theme "Practicing electronic music". The composer gained his experiences in that area in the biggest centers in Germany and Japan and on the UPIC music computer system at the CEMAMu of Paris. In addition, this close contact with Eastern music, which already turned into a "second nature" in his compositions led him to define the future of music as a conflict to be solved from cultural influences. The mix of cultures will be the basis of a new project; it will be about a meeting between past and present, between East and West. "In that regard, our generation is going through a difficult transition. We are at the same time the bearers of a tradition and the bearers of future approaches", he commented. He notes that this music must still enter a phase of stability, which will be perceived, in the history of music, as another classical period in the natural evolution of the genre. Not only does Eloy know the classical methods of conservatories as well as lab techniques, but he is also famous as an expert in traditional Hindu and Japanese music. "The mastery of the sound material is a prerequisite to the developement of a theoretical method", the composer declared. "The rapid evolution of electronic music has been marked by a succession of phases characterized by radical metamorphoses in sound management", explained Eloy, who taught as a composition professor at the University of Berkeley for several years. According to Eloy, the duration of the piece "Gaku no Michi" (four hours) was determined by his intinct, by the maturing of his psychological relation with music. His creative process has an objective origin. "Sufficiently open-minded listeners who let themselves carry by the music will face the sound just like they will face a film devoid of visual images", he commented. In favor of individuality in music creation, he does not believe in collective music. Eloy considers any music organisations conducted by a composer doomed to failure, and added: "If we continue to centralize everything within the IRCAM, headed by Pierre Boulez, French contemporary music will no longer exist thirty years from now." ________________________________________________ 10th anniversary " Autumn Festival in Paris, 1972-1982 " (publisher "Temps Actuels"). JEAN-CLAUDE ELOY A Path of Knowledge By JEAN-PIERRE LÉONARDINI Most people, when they think of the Orient, still conjure up images of the "Spice Road". Jean-Claude Eloy is among the few who don’t (as evidenced by a penetrating study, published later in this book). Though incorporating both practical and theoretical bases of integral serialism, he has endeavored to create a cross-breed of musical forms. His work is shaped by an uninterrupted dialog between elsewhere and yesterday, here and today. In Shânti, for example, on the program of the Festival in 1974, the sounds and the texts at work emerge from a dialectical interplay, triggering an autonomous duration where revelations abound for those who are able to capture them. In Shânti, Mao Tse Tong and Shri Aurobindo overlap, the " sound of meditation " follows a cry, the whole of the work fusing into one common and vast respiration. "Shânti – says Eloy – is a fabric of intertwining elements that both oppose and complement each other, while progressing from the most "abstract" of sounds to the most realistic " raw " material. But it also proposes a sound never before heard. Identifying with the sound, losing oneself in it. Integrating into this sound all of the implosive forces of consciousness, becoming one with a multiple, inner, serene pulsation." It is not surprising that in a letter addressed to the composer of Shânti – itself a Promethean gamble, given its electronic means of expression - Karlheinz Stockhausen made this suggestion for the sound-projection in public : "One should listen with closed eyes.... In my opinion, in this particular work, seeing is not necessary." What could be more accurate ? Here, the awakened dreamer should receive, through his sense of hearing the tumult of a merciless struggle against an entropy of sound taking place on a worldwide scale. Gaku-no-Michi (the paths of music), with concrete and electronic sounds, constitutes another experience, beyond the concert. It takes place on January 11, 1979, in the "salle Wagram" in collaboration with the Autumn Festival. The work is comprised of four parts. The first one, "Tokyo", has its source in city noises, daily sounds that rise up in a spiral, from the concrete to the abstract. "Fushiki-e" calls on a majority of abstract material (electronically produced from the start), incorporating barely recognizable elements from Gagaku, from Nô theater and Shômyo religious chants...ending on a constant "sound of immobilization", like "an immense organ point". The third movement, "Banbutsu-no-ryudo", manipulates concrete sounds – political speeches, the nationalistic chants of fighter pilots, television commercials, hollow bamboo as it strikes a stone – in such a way that the original meaning is transformed ("violent speeches become insects in nature"). "Kaiso", in concluding, condenses the memory of the three preceding movements and ends on a "lamento". The Japanese national anthem, filtered and clouded over, closes the work. Gaku-no-Michi, in four hours, suggests (but does not impose) an invitation to embark on a philosophical journey, where the voyager is accompanied by an endless construction of sound that engages him in his very fiber on what can only be called a path of knowledge. JEAN-PIERRE LÉONARDINI Autumn Festival in Paris 1982 ________________________________________________ Neue Zeitschrift für Musik January 23, 1992 Solo Voices of Buddhist Monks Berlin's "Inventionen" feature Eloy's electronics and Cage's art of the violin One must not be short of imagination ("Inventionen") to organize a New Music Festival under that name gathering once again forty-odd proposals for this tenth year of the Berlin Jubilee. This applies to thinking heads. Moreover, concert attendants are recommended to have plenty of free time. Indeed, a few concerts are entirely devoted to one composer, and for some of them it is only a work or a series of works lasting the whole evening; the attention dwindles relatively easily, and one delightfully sits back to experiment something akin to culinary – or at least meditating – thought. As a matter of fact, the present goal of New Music is not – and should not be – to simply offend, give a feeling of insecurity, shake, even though these functions have remained. Sound in Space under a Star-Spangled Sky Sitting in the soft seats of the large Zeiss Planetarium – which has already hosted contemporary composers several times since the Biennials upon musicologist Gisela Wicke's initiative among others –, as it provides ideal technical conditions and a true spatialized hearing experience, it is even possible to bend one's head backwards (since, and this is new, the Berlin Workshop – Werkstatt Berlin – associated it with the Planetarium's star-spangled sky). Sounds carry you elsewhere and the work lasts four hours, so be patient. Frenchman Jean-Claude Eloy (born in 1938), a student of Milhaud's, then of Boulez' at the Master Class of the Basel Music Academy, has never stopped returning to Japan since 1976. He is presently in Berlin where he is a guest as part of the German University Exchange Program (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), and was thus properly considered. That exchange program, along with the Berliner Künstlerprogramm, was the true instigator of the festival. The public will be able to hear Libérations (1989-91) by Eloy on February 7, and the composer in person during a conference scheduled on January 30. A hundred minutes of Anâhata III were already heard during a live electronic music show [...] …………. […] I listened to the following composition, Gaku-no-Michi, a work lasting 240 minutes. There is only one sound coming from a magnetic tape: electronic, however very much of a concrete music. The whole piece melts into one unit that arouses the listener's interest, mesmerizes and fosters pleasure. One can hear the sound of an aerodrome and the announcements pronounced in local means of transportation, bells of various sizes, instruments of the No Theater. The sound increases, decreases, falls in harmony and calms extraordinarily. One even starts feeling a little Asian... Another concert performed in the Otto Braun Hall of the Westberliner Staatsbibliothek, was also dedicated to one composer only – its impact was the same albeit the difference in style. John Cage, the 80-year old composer to whom four programs have been devoted this year, was featured solo for the whole evening with his Freeman Etudes for violin. That is a total of 230 works composed between 1977 and 1980. Cage, a "Neutöner", a creator of new sounds. Certainly. However, he sounds quite classical here. […] ………………… […] Such an old-age piece allows the most neophytes to enjoy New Music. Besides, Cage was already invited to Berlin in 1972 by the Exchange Program and thus took part in the first Inventionen. WERNER SCHÖNSEE ________________________________________________ LE MONDE DE LA MUSIQUE Issue # 18 - December 1979 MEETINGS WITH LE MONDE DE LA MUSIQUE JEAN-CLAUDE ELOY TOKYO VILLE ORCHESTRE (TOKYO ORCHESTRA CITY) Jean-Claude Eloy, Composer Chris Marker, Filmmaker You ride Yamaha, you are on Seiko time, you listen with Sony, you are already Japanese. Fair game: the Far-East takes the most of our vices as consumers. What about the trading of ideas? In that area, the blockade persists! Europe, which has built cultural forts throughout the world, still has no desire to seriously rub shoulders with foreign knowledge. When it comes to music, what is Japan? Jean-Claude Eloy went there to live. He is the only French composer of his generation - he is 41 – who has continuously tried to be acquainted with the great Eastern musical traditions, and the only one who has been able to learn from them. Chris Marker met him in Tokyo. He interviewed him on his way of apprehending Japan, on his contact with daily life, with Japanese sounds and the roads he has invented to lead them into his own music. J.C.E. : - Japanese composers can no longer be considered as European by-products. I am neither saying that the situation here in Japan is ideal, nor that creative power is overflowing. It would be exaggerating, however I am saying that Asia as a whole is currently moving towards a state of independence vis-à-vis the European model: the old Japanese composers all used to gaze at Paris or Berlin. As for the young ones, they have been rediscovering their past, their culture. Not like the Soviets, who took a theoretical stand and, one fine day, declared: "We must tap into the roots of national folklore." No. They do it naturally. In Japan, there is not one type but many types of music. This town houses the most varied styles of music. In daily life, one can hear an unbelievable amount of background music. You bump into loudspeakers everywhere, in the streets, on the beach, by the lakes... C.M. : - Why this flight in the face of silence, which has always been so important in the Asian world? - I do not know. I am just stating a fact. Those are phenomena that go far beyond the individual aesthetic conscience. However, business considerations obviously exist behind them. - Have you discovered Japanese sounds or did you already have an idea of what you were looking for when you came here? - I was fairly familiar with Japanese musical culture through records. But my ears were not trained to street sounds. That chorus of loudspeakers is very lively! Plus there are voices, screams. It all ends up creating a fascinating urban sound environment. People in Paris still see Japan as the land of kimonos and Mrs. Butterfly... And what aggravates me the most is to see how those who are interested in the traditional cultures of Asia, or worse, those who, like Takemitsu, reintegrate their own culture in their work are accused of "exoticism". There are amazing bridges and contemporary musicians here cultivate the old traditions without exoticism nor contradiction. Take an instrument like the shakuhachi, which is a famous recorder. When you compare it with electro-acoustics, you think that they form two worlds that have nothing to say to each other. What is interesting is to see, beyond the visible distance, how the shakuhachi, through the natural means of human breath in a bamboo, is able to produce acoustic phenomena that are very complex through the differentiation of breaths, of attack and play modes. For a very long time, Japanese music has been used to cultivate the acoustic body in its beauty. In Nô Theater, percussions are incorporated, screams are incorporated. Learned Western music rejected percussions and screams because they are overly complex acoustic bodies to enter the punctual relation of polyphony. All of this acoustic complexity in Japanese traditional music finds an echo in contemporary music. After the Kabuki Time for Tchaikovsky To a Japanese composer, trying to create a bridge between his own style and his country's tradition is a really natural attitude. It happens every day on the street, on TV or on the radio. You turn on the switch and you hear a kabuki (1) or a voice singing a minyô (2) with strange vibrations, and if you tune in to the next station, you hear an electronized Tchaikovsky! When I first arrived here, I was supposed to work on a production in an electronic studio. It was almost a "commission" but I enjoyed working in Japan. Of course, I tried to open my eyes and ears. The city sounds appeared so loud and so present to me that I could not resist the pleasure of recording. Little by little, I asked myself: Why not? It is a material even though I did not invent it. So was that urban Japanese life my first source. Then I went to Kyoto, I listened to the shômyô (3), I attended traditional ceremonies, among which the water and fire ceremony that takes place every year in March and lasts 12 days. I attended the last night. Everything I heard was so much more beautiful than what I had heard on records! Eventually, this material was integrated in my work in progress, and suggested, through its presence, new developments in the electronic circuits I was composing daily. I can say that that work – Gaku no michi – is linked to my discovery of Japan. All in all, everything you do at a time of your own creative activity is linked to what surrounds you. - Yes, although there is a tradition of solitary work where everything happens within the musician's mind... - Yes, I know. However, that is abstract music, that is writing, isn't it? In electro-acoustics, you do not switch on the same things, and I think that is what brought us closer to filmmakers. You evolve among the sounds of life and reality that traditional written music ignored. When I use street sounds I do not think about integrating the anecdote into the work at all, but instead about playing on the meaning of things. For instance, there are quite characteristic sounds here, namely political speeches. Every one comes up to give a speech with loudspeakers set in a city square, and sounds resonate high up; the Japanese style yields a rather rough tone. I recorded a few of them. I used this material, which was metamorphosed through the magic of electronic circuits. A nationalistic speech turned into an insect buzz. There was also a small piece of nationalistic chant that is often heard, a fighter pilot chant, which I only processed electronically and which grew into a huge and very slow track, of the utmost quietness, the utmost peace. You do have metamorphosis powers. It is a fairly fun game for a musician to have such control over reality. - Supposing you had the required technical infrastructure, what would you like to do? - I very much want to work with Japanese instrumentalists; they are incredible. I would like to create "mixed" pieces, that is for soloists and electro-acoustics. In this field, every dream can come true, sounds know no limit. I would also like to work towards the opera, however I would alter the situation of the show entirely, by integrating video or film elements for instance. My whole evolution these past years has led me towards the opera because there is a drama dimension in sounds: the abstract electronic material and the concrete material taken from life are like two poles standing against each other, fighting against each other thereby implicitly creating a dramatic situation. All there is left to do is to verbalize them. Speeches turned into Insects - Have you already undertaken something? - I have thought about many things, but I prefer to keep quiet regarding it. Anyhow, you may very well have your utopia but actually you can only plan on transforming it the day when you feel you have all the means. I am not there yet. - In an opera, would you remain a French musician? - It is one of my issues, and I still have not resolved it. I cannot fathom something that will purely be French... it would irritate me... I would find it ridiculous... no, it would not work. Generally, an opera text is not really understandable. Instead, I am thinking of a multilingual text... - A multilingual thus multicultural musical piece intended for an audience whose interests will need to be manyfold, don't you feel you are working for a society that does not exist? - Well, yes … very much ... all the better! That is what creations have always been about, and there is nothing doing. - Earlier on, you were talking about the metamorphosis power of the composer. Don't you think that contemporary music composition is trying to find a fundamental role for music again? - Indeed, you have put the finger on something essential. To me, composing and listening to music are an important and serious action. Then again, there is a function to music, a very old one, which is that of entertainment: unfortunately, it has often become an excuse for glorifying an orchestra conductor, a singer, a violinist... The public awards prizes, nobody can really be deeply affected, and people are entertained. No spiritual dimension... I dare not say that word. Usually, people jump in the air and slip a priest's cassock on me. No. I simply think that a communication is established through music. When I perform an electronic concert, people often say that there is no life, that my presence is not necessary. If I were not there, I swear that what you would hear would not sound like the original at all. I spend hours fine-tuning a set-up before a concert. Electronics allows to integrate music where it could never go. I have performed concerts in the heart of Indonesia, in Bandung, in front of audiences of young people who had never heard anything like that. I discussed with them for two to three hours: there was a definite communication between them and me. I was happy to meet other people, to be confronted to other reactions. - Wouldn't you have a similar contact with a European audience? - No, and in Paris less than anywhere else. The Parisian audience is completely blasé, dead. They have seen it all, heard it all. - Perhaps concerts are no longer adapted to this kind of music? - Yes, of course, that is what everybody is saying but, unfortunately, there is no practical solution. The music world is terrible; it is a world that is absolutely destructive, negative to the last degree, small... First, there is this very small surface of audience, so small, so ridiculous; naturally, everybody covets the same two hundred or three hundred listeners... Secondly, music in France has been brought up under the control of the State and ultracentralized. There are no hatching points left. Paris. Paris. Paris. History is the one to blame... -There are festivals though... - No, they are unable to generate a decentralization process. Take the recent failure of La Rochelle. Towards the end, there were about 50 people attending the concerts; the local people are not interested. You have to admit that regarding this issue composers are not so innocent. And to tell the truth, some contemporary creations are so boring that it is enough to put off the audience. Pretentious and woolly abstractions that do not belong to any kind of sound reality. No communication is set, and eventually you are cut off from the people. - Couldn't television and the radio help prepare the public? - Of course they could. In this area too, Japanese composers live on the fringe, the good composers I mean. They suffer from it too. The minds are so subject to the pressure of the media clichés that they become stereotyped regarding everything. It may be even more difficult to instill a new idea in minds like those. However, on the other hand, every composer lives on thanks to television and the film industry. They are asked to produce commercial music. Takemitsu composed 50 original scores! - In this case, do they sometimes express themselves in their own language or do they think that it is not accessible to the masses? - They quite obviously make compromises, which, however, are not overly excessive. They are still trying to make something different from the "cliché industry", while in France, as far as I know, so-called serious or hardly interesting composers are completely cut off from any commercial creation. Commercial music is made by specialists. That system is very unhealthy. - The Japanese system is positive to the extent that it helps composers make a living. Nevertheless, it does not help promote their real music. There is some kind of a fate pattern: on the one hand, the same technology provides them with instruments to widen their music language, on the other hand, it closes doors to public art. - Yes, it is a spiral... However, I do think that the situation will still be debated. How long have televisions been around? Thirty years? That is nothing. - That is nothing, except that within that short period, it looks like the situation is getting worse! Japanese television is now worse than when I was here last time! - That is possible! It is very odd. Take a channel like NHK: it broadcasts very interesting cultural programs, language courses, music courses... I have seen very well designed piano lessons showed at prime time. - Do people watch them? - I do not know the statistics. But it must be like mostly anywhere else: the Samurai movie broadcasted at the same time must get a bigger audience... However, these programs do exist, and that is already a reason not to say that the spiral is inevitably heading to nowhere. Some reactions show that the trend could be entirely reversed. I asked a young Japanese composer: "Where do you see your future?" He answered: "On the radio or on television because a composer can only express himself through the media." - You admit that contemporary music is in a marginal situation nearly everywhere. In the end, what is missing to this music is almost being the support to a religion: with its temples, its worshippers, and, consequently, ways to be heard. - What you are saying is quite cruel. - Not at all! But religion, in the negative meaning of the word, may have only stirred still insufficient approaches to something more deeply necessary to human breath. There are certainly other ways. - Certainly, indeed. That is when it becomes closely akin to metaphysics, after all. Man's question on the why of things, the why of his existence and the universe in which he lives is actually that of every scientist, it is that of man who is trying to pierce through the limits of the universe with radiotelescopes. To eventually know... what? Religions have always tried to give an answer. Getting rid of religions does not get rid of the questions nor metaphysics. It is not without a reason that today we all – I in particular – are inclined to be keen on so-called magical music. That of Tibetan monks for instance. Indeed, it is a more than religious type of music. It is magic music, and monks are sound magicians. They consider that sound carries power. They create those sounds with their voices, but not only to act as celebrants; they are convinced that vibrations have an effect on things. I know that there is a great part of legend around. Nevertheless, these things are real. Magic music exists in Africa, Latin America, everywhere. And haven't musicians always had the deep desire to hold powers? Interview with CHRIS MARKER (1) First popular form of Japanese theater blending chanting, dance and game. (2) General term to refer to popular chanting. (3) Buddhist chant.	DOWNLOAD