Spectralism

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

Spectralism · In Paris in 1973, Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail founded the ensemble L'Itinéraire and began to investigate sound itself. Grisey had a low E on a trombone analysed electronically and divided its overtones among eighteen instruments: this is how Partiels (1975) begins. A piece became the slow unfolding of a single sound. The Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, who worked at the Paris research institute IRCAM, built on these ideas.

Listening

• 
  Partiels (Asko Ensemble) · Gérard Grisey, 1975
• 
  Treize couleurs du soleil couchant (Multilatérale, Léo Warynski) · Tristan Murail, 1978
• 
  Lichtbogen (Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, Hannu Lintu) · Kaija Saariaho, 1986

See also

• Olivier Messiaen
• Pierre Boulez
• Iannis Xenakis
• György Ligeti
• Serialism
• Electronic studio and musique concrète