Paris Microtonality

Having just returned from the European Varese premiere of Graphs and Time
in Paris I thought it pressing to share an amazing realization:

Just Intonation and l'intonation juste are false cognates

The French term refers to playing traditional tuning (i.e. 12 ET) in
tune. There are "spectral" composers such as Grisey, Risset, and Murail who
round out overtone relationships to the nearest quartertone and eighthtone.
But the concept of a 5/4 just third is completely absent from both
practice _and_ theory.

Good friends - quite well known musicians all - finally got through to me
that they have never understood me on previous occassions.

That said, several composers have now begun breaking down the whole tone
into 16th tones (called 16ths music) following the influence of
Carrillo (incl. Alain Bancquart, Pascale Criton, Fernand Vandenbogaerde).

Alain Bancquart has prepared a piano room at the Paris
Conservatoire (newly built building) which contains to beautiful grands a
quartertone apart, the original 16th tone piano upright made by Carrillo
(formerly in Nice, France), a third tone piano, and a "mirror" tuned
quartertone piano which integrates quartertones in the order 3/4 tones,
1/4 tone, etc.

Publisher/Composer Gad Barnea (Editions Europeenes) is leading the way to JT
as we know it but it is pioneering work. Iannis Xenakis brings in more of the
sound spectrum than others, as does his former student Pascal Dusapin,
and the Varese premiere has ignited a whole new focus
on "The Liberation of Sound" (the name of Varese's monograph which is
most exemplified by my performance of the Graphs and Time conducting the
Ensemble 2e2m. The 8-member ensemble members had never improvised before
(except for the horn, tuba, and percussion). Its director Paul Mefano -
also a composer using quartertones and glissandi
regularly - favors large works with microtones galore, but up till now,
only those of 1/4 and 1/8 tones. The concert at the Pompidou Center
Great Hall included microtonalists Doinia Rotaru of Romania and Drake
Mabry the oboist/composer, all within the strictures of exact 1/4's 1/8/s
and glissandi.

Now I understand why Le Monde dismissed performances of Harry Partch
without the original percussion instruments performed by the AFMM years
ago in Nice, which they never actually attended: it is only through the
"sound sculpture" instruments that Partch was reduceable to music. For
France, Partch's monophonic fabric in its precision of relationships is
not constituted in music theory. For them there are 9 commas in an equal
tempered whole tone and nothing more. Ideas anyone on improving the JI
climate?

Johnny Reinhard
Director
American Festival of Microtonal Music
318 East 70th Street, Suite 5FW
New York, New York 10021 USA
(212)517-3550/fax (212) 517-5495
reinhard@styx.ios.com


Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 1 Feb 1996 15:12 +0100
Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
for id GAA25699; Thu, 1 Feb 1996 06:12:19 -0800
Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 06:12:19 -0800
Message-Id: <199602011410.JAA28816@freenet3.carleton.ca>
Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu