Abstracts
Abstract
That Karlheinz Stockhausen played a crucial role in the musical development of the young Claude Vivier is beyond question. In an autobiographical note written in 1975, Vivier noted: “Born in Montreal in 1948. Born to music with Gilles Tremblay in 1968. Born to composition with Stockhausen in 1972. Indeed, the widespread view is that, during the years he studied formally with Stockhausen at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne (1972-74), Vivier hero-worshipped the German composer. Widely regarded as one of the leading figures of the international musical avant-garde, Stockhausen had held for two decades a position that, by the time Vivier began formal studies with him, was under assault. The whole system of values for which he stood, musical and otherwise, was being questioned to its foundations, even, in some quarters, reviled and demonised. The relationship between the young Vivier and his distinguished teacher is therefore a complex one. While Vivier evidently fell powerfully under the sway of Stockhausen’s music and ideas and his charismatic and domineering personality, this article explores the effect on him of the changing attitudes toward Stockhausen as the 1970s wore on. This article attempts to paint the complex relationship between the two men, focusing on the years of their closest contact – 1971-1974 – a time when both they and the world around them were undergoing profound transformation.
Résumé
Il est indiscutable que Karlheinz Stockhausen ait joué un rôle crucial dans le développement musical du jeune Claude Vivier. Dans une notice biographique que Vivier avait fournie pour accompagner une interprétation de sa Lettura di Dante à Toronto en 1975, il notait : « Né à Montréal en 1948. Né à la musique avec Gilles Tremblay en 1968. Né à la composition avec Stockhausen en 1972. » C’est cette année-là, durant une répétition de momente de Stockhausen, que Vivier prétendait avoir eu la révélation de « l’essence même de la composition musicale », un moment capital qui marque le véritable début de sa carrière de compositeur. Un cliché fortement répandu veut que, durant les années qu’il passa à étudier auprès de Stockhausen à la Hochschule für Musik in Cologne (1972-1974), Vivier vénérait le compositeur allemand comme un véritable héros. Largement considéré comme l’une des figures de proue de l’avant-garde musicale internationale, Stockhausen se maintenait depuis deux décennies dans une position qui, au moment où Vivier débutait ses études avec lui, commençait à subir divers assauts. Le système de valeurs qu’il avait érigé, musical et extra-musical, était remis en question de fond en comble et même, dans certains cercles, méprisé et démonisé. La relation entre le jeune Vivier et son distingué professeur est donc complexe. Si Vivier est certainement tombé sous le charme de la musique et des idées de Stockhausen et de sa personnalité dominante et charismatique, cet article explore les effets sur lui des changements d’attitude envers Stockhausen au cours des années 1970. Les premières partitions de Vivier montrent des aspects qui sont clairement, et quelques fois audiblement, reliés au travail de son professeur, tandis qu’il est difficile de détecter la moindre influence de Stockhausen dans les chefs-d’œuvre du Vivier des derniers temps. Cet article tente donc de rendre compte de la relation complexe entre les deux hommes, en s’intéressant particulièrement à la période 1971-1974, une époque durant laquelle les deux hommes, comme le monde autour d’eux, subissaient de profondes transformations.
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Appendices
Note biographique
Bob Gilmore
Musicologue, éducateur et claviériste. Né en Irlande du Nord, il a étudié à l’Université York (Angleterre), à l’Université Queen de Belfast (doctorat, 1992) et, grâce à une bourse Fullbright, à l’Université de Californie (San Diego). Ses livres, Harry Partch : A Biography (Yale University Press, 1998) et Ben Johnston : Maximum Clarity and Other Writings on Music (University of Illinois Press, 2006) lui ont tous les deux mérité le Deems Taylor Award (ASCAP). Il a beaucoup écrit sur la tradition expérimentale américaine, la musique microtonale et la musique spectrale, de même que sur les oeuvres de James Tenney, Horatiu Radulescu, Frank Denyer et Claude Vivier (de qui il achève actuellement la biographie). Il écrit régulièrement sur la musique des jeunes compositeurs irlandais dans The Journal of Music in Ireland. Il enseigne actuellement à la Brunel University de Londres. Il est directeur et claviériste du Trio Scordatura, un ensemble basé à Amsterdam qui se spécialise en interprétation de musique microtonale, qu’il a fondé, et il est membre de la Stichting Huygens- Fokker, la société hollandaise pour la musique microtonale.
Notes
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[1]
Vivier, 1991, p. 94.
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[2]
Gilles Tremblay interviewed by the author, Montréal, 5 November 2002.
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[3]
Kevin Volans interviewed by the author, Knockmaroon, Ireland, 27 August 2006.
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[4]
Richard Toop, email to the author, 15 August 2002.
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[5]
Clarence Barlow interviewed by the author, Amsterdam, 11 August 2002.
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[6]
Cf. Iddon, 2004.
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[7]
We know very little about Vivier’s experiences that summer, except that it seems to have been a productive time for him: the manuscript of the first version of Hiérophanie, for soprano and ensemble, is signed “Heidelberg, août 1970”.
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[8]
Clarence Barlow interviewed by the author, Amsterdam, August 11, 2002.
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[9]
Claude Vivier to Pierre Rochon, undated [between June and September 1971], Archives Claude Vivier, Special Collections Department, University of Montreal.
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[10]
Walter Boudreau interviewed by the author, Montreal, 14 November 2002. Vivier had heard Stimmung previously (at the latest by September 1971), as he compares Stockhausen’s Sternklang unfavourably to Stimmung in the undated letter to his friend Pierre Rochon cited above.
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[11]
See Iddon, 2004, especially Chapter 4. Criticisms of the aesthetic rigidity of Darmstadt were nothing new, and similar sentiments had been expressed at least a decade or so earlier. See Attinello, Fox, and Iddon, 2007.
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[12]
Tremblay cited in Paul Griffiths, “Vivier”, in Griffiths, 2005, p. 186. In October 1971 Vivier applied for a second time for a “Bourse de Perfectionnement pour Artiste” from the Conseil des Arts du Canada for the year beginning June 1st 1972. He wrote: “Mon projet d’ailleurs commencé cette année se présente comme suit: Études centrales à Utrecht à l’institut de sonologie. Études à Cologne avec Stockhausen à la Musik Hochschule. Études à Paris avec Paul Méfano qui lui m’aide à faire le point entre Cologne et Utrecht et qui m’apporte le point de vue français… Donc lieu d’habitation Utrecht, travail en plus à Paris et Cologne.” Copy in the Archives of the Fondation Vivier, Montreal.
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[13]
Kurtz, 1992, p. 194.
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[14]
Vivier’s copy of Cott’s book (presently in the Archives of the Fondation Vivier, Montreal) is inscribed: “einen wunderschönen Monat Mai 1974/lieber Vivier/wünscht Ihnen herzlich/Ihr Stockhausen”. Stockhausen had a few months earlier given him a copy of his booklet Vier Kriterien der Elektronischen Musik published by Droste Verlag Düsseldorf, inscribing his wishes for a Happy New Year 1974.
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[15]
Several such film extracts are currently available on YouTube: see for example http://uk.youtube.com/ watch?v=pIPVc2Jvd0w&feature=related [accessed December 11, 2008].
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[16]
Clarence Barlow interviewed by the author, Amsterdam, August 11, 2002.
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[17]
The much-mythologised reasons for this expulsion are explored in depth in the first chapter of my book Claude Vivier: A Biography (forthcoming).
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[18]
8. Stockhausen in Cott, 1974, p. 26.
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[19]
9. Vivier interviewed by Claude Cubaynes, Radio-Canada, November 1981: cassette copy in the Archives of the Fondation Vivier, Montreal.
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[20]
Gilles Tremblay interviewed by the author, Montreal, November 5, 2002.
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[21]
Thérèse Desjardins interviewed by the author, Montreal, November 3, 2002.
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[22]
Parts of this sketchbook were published in the folder “Kompositions-Kurs über SIRIUS” distributed at the Stockhausen Courses in Kürten in 2000. Stockhausen adds that “I came upon the information about Sirius, the central sun, in Lorber’s Kosmos in geistiger Schau”. Jakob Lorber (1800-1864) was a Christian mystic and visionary (and a one-time violin pupil of Paganini) who, around the age of forty, claimed to hear an inner voice that he believed to be the voice of Jesus Christ. He produced an enormous body of writing, much of which was supposedly dictated to him by his inner voice.
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[23]
Richard Toop, email to the author, August 17, 2002.
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[24]
Walter Zimmermann, personal communication, October 2008.
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[25]
Vivier’s friend Walter Boudreau, then too hard up to afford a ticket, had sneaked into the same performance via the artists’ entrance, demonstratively carrying his saxophone, and had quietly taken a seat in the auditorium hoping not to be discovered. Vivier, sitting several rows behind, suddenly saw him, bellowed out his name and clambered over the rows of seats to greet his old pal. “I nearly died”, recalls Boudreau. Walter Boudreau interviewed by the author, Montreal, November 14, 2002.
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[26]
Richard Toop, email to the author, 17 August 2002. The possible relationship of Stockhausen’s use of ring modulation in Mantra to the development of spectral techniques in Vivier’s music around 1980 is discussed in Gilmore, 2007, pp. 2-17.
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[27]
27. Richard Toop, email to the author, August 17, 2002.
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[28]
Clarence Barlow interviewed by the author, Amsterdam, August 11, 2002.
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[29]
Toop, 1998.
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[30]
Volans, programme note for his Nine Beginnings for two pianos (1976-1979): Chester Music.
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[31]
Volans quoted in Gilmore, 2006, p. 24.
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[32]
Barlow interviewed by the author, Amsterdam, August 11 2002. An interesting perspective on the aesthetic coherence in the work of the young Cologne-based composers at this time is given in Fox, 2007.
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[33]
Friday August 2nd 1974 saw the premiere of Vivier’s Désintegration, given in the Georg-Büchner-Schule by Herbert Henck and Christoph Delz, pianos, with the string compliment formed of Saschko Gawriloff and pupils (Kalevi Aho, Vjera Katalinic, Andreas Pflüger, Jacqueline Ross and Claes Pearce).
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[34]
Misch and Bandur, 2001, p. 518.
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[35]
5. Idem.
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[36]
Iddon, 2004, p. 60.
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[37]
Misch and Bandur, 2001, p. 557.
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[38]
Griffiths, 1986, p. 58.39. Iddon, 2004, p. 42.
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[39]
Iddon, 2004, p. 42.
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[40]
Vivier, report to the Canada Council, undated [c. March 1977]: copy in the Archives of the Fondation Vivier, Montreal.
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[41]
Vivier quoted in Gingras, 1974.
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[42]
Walter Boudreau interviewed by the author, Montreal, November 14, 2002.
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[43]
von der Weid, 2006.
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[44]
Richard Toop, email to the author, August 15, 2002.
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[45]
Griffiths, 2005, p. 188.
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[46]
Lesage, 2008.
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[47]
Volans quoted in Gilmore, 2006, pp. 22-29.
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[48]
Cott, 1974, pp. 32-33.
Bibliography
- Attinello, Paul, Christopher Fox, and Martin Iddon (eds.) (2007), Contemporary Music Review, vol. 26, no. 1, “Other Darmstadts”.
- Cott, Jonathan (1974), Stockhausen: Conversations with the Composer, London, Robson Books.
- Fox, Christopher (2007), “Where the river bends: the Cologne School in retrospect”, The Musical Times, vol. 148, no. 1901, pp. 27-41.
- Gingras, Claude (1974), “De Stockhausen à Claude Vivier,” La Presse, Montreal, September 24.
- Gilmore, Bob (2007), “On Claude Vivier’s Lonely Child”, Tempo, vol. 61, no. 239, pp. 2-17.
- Gilmore, Bob (2006), “Wild Air: the music of Kevin Volans”, The Journal of Music in Ireland, vol. 6, no. 6, pp. 22-29.
- Griffiths, Paul, “Vivier”, in Griffiths (2005), The Substance of Things Heard: Writings about Music, University of Rochester Press, pp. 184-198.
- Griffiths, Paul (1986), Encyclopaedia of Twentieth-century Music, London, Thames and Hudson.
- Iddon, Martin (2004), The Dissolution of the Avant-garde, Darmstadt 1968-1984 (unpublished PhD disseration, University of Cambridge).
- Kurtz, Michael (1992), Stockhausen: a biography, London, Faber and Faber Ltd.
- Lesage, Jean (2008), “Claude Vivier, Siddhartha, Karlheinz Stockhausen: La nouvelle simplicité et le râga”, in Circuit, musiques contemporaines, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 107-120.
- Maconie, Robin (ed.) (1989), Stockhausen on Music, London, Marion Boyars.
- Misch, Imke, and Markus Bandur (2001), Karlheinz Stockhausen bei den Internationalen Ferienkursen für Neue Musik in Darmstadt 1951-1996: Dokumente und Briefe, Kürten, Stockhausen-Verlag.
- Toop, Richard (1998), «Walter Zimmermann: A Portrait», <http://home.snafu.de/walterz/toopwz.html>
- Vivier, Claude, “Mantra de Stockhausen”, Circuit, vol.2, no 1-2, pp. 93-95.
- von der Weid, Jean-Noël (2006), “Drowned in his dying song”, liner notes for Chants…, 2-CD set of vocal works by Vivier performed by Les Jeunes Solistes directed by Rachid Safir, Paris, Soupir.
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