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Tristan Murail

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Tristan Murail was born in Le Havre in 1947. He first studied political science and economics and learned to play the ondes Martenot. This brought him into contact with Jeanne Loriod and her brother-in-law Olivier Messiaen, with whom he studied composition at the Paris Conservatoire from 1967 to 1972. In 1971 he won the Prix de Rome. Two years later he co-founded Ensemble l'Itinéraire. From 1991 to 1997 he taught computer music and composition at IRCAM in Paris and helped develop the composition software Patchwork. After that he was a professor at Columbia University in New York until 2010.

Music and breakthrough

Murail belongs to spectral music. This approach takes the natural properties of sound as the basis for harmony and derives chords and polyphony from sound analysis and electronic synthesis. His best-known works include Gondwana from 1980, Désintégrations for seventeen instruments and tape from 1982, Time and Again from 1985 and Serendib from 1992. He wrote Treize couleurs du soleil couchant for ensemble in 1978. Vampyr! is a rare classical piece for electric guitar, in which he refers to rock guitarists such as Carlos Santana and Eric Clapton.

Influence

Murail shows how close the classical avant-garde and the world of synthesizers and recording studios could come to one another. His way of thinking about timbre continues to resonate in a great deal of contemporary music.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Treize couleurs du soleil couchant and notice how the sound slowly changes colour, as if the light were shifting. Try to hear which sounds linger and which fade away.

Discography

Studio albums

Mentioned in other articles

See also

Categories: ArtistsSpectralism