Murail: Winter Fragments

The Philadelphia-based Argento Chamber Ensemble and conductor Michael Galante have really taken to the music of Tristan Murail. This Aeon disc from 2007 offers performances of five works.

The first is early, when Murail was still establishing the spectralist school with a circle of other French composers. In "Ethers" for flute and five players (1978) the soloist produces pure tones on everything from a bass flute to a piccolo, and the small ensemble imitates them like a distorted mirror. This would be a great piece were it not for its part for maracas, rather grating. Furthermore, I find the Argento Chamber Ensemble's performance lacks confidence. You'd do better with the Accord disc where the Ensemble L'Itineraire, experts in the spectralist school, give a more solid performance.

We jump ahead nearly two decades to "Unanswered Questions" (1995), a four-minute solo for flute that is performed here by Erin Lesser. It's a slow and mournful piece, written in memory of a composer colleague who died young. Though straightforwardly melodic, Murail introduces harmonics that disrupt the traditional pure tone of the instrument. "Feuilles à travers les cloches" for flute, violin, cello and piano ("Leaves through the Bells", 1998) inverts the title of Debussy's famous "Bells through the Leaves" and sounds just like what you'd expect.

"Le Lac" for ensemble (2001) is inspired by the changing surface of a lake near the composer's home and its soundworld is a mixture of titantic tuttis to randomly distributed pizzicatos and pitched percussion. In "Winter Fragments" for 5 instruments and synthesizer (2000) the electronic part seems to evoke snowdrifts and icicles, dominating the music so that the human performers provide only commentary on it.

None of the late pieces here leave very much of an impression. I feel that Murail is really just repeating some of his earlier triumphs (hear them on a Naive disc, the aforementioned Accord disc or an Ades disc), but to diminishing effect. The music is invariably colourful and sinuous, but I don't feel like new vistas are being opened from work to work. Of the two founding fathers of the spectralist school, I'm more impressed by the explorations of Gerard Grisey.

Tristan Murail (b. 1947) is one of the founders of spectralism, along with Gerard Grisey (1946-1998). Murail, a computer music wizard, worked at IRCAM in the Nineties, and then taught at Columbia University from 1997 to 2011. In 2012 he took a position as professor of composition at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg. The five compositions on this 2007 Aeon disc were recorded in 2003 and 2004 by the NYC-based Argento Chamber ensemble, led by Michel Galante. Erin Lesser is featured on flute.

The title piece, the electro-acoustic "Winter Fragments" (2000 -- 14'06), is the most striking of these quite French pieces, all of which share a cool, inward, meditative aesthetic with lovely, typically sparse textures. According to Pierre Rigaudiere's liner notes, "[i]t is organized primarily on the evolution of a 'very simple melodic cell that is repeated and transformed.'" The opening sounds like a Chinese flute, and the flute is featured throughout along with violin and piano. While transformed by MIDI electronics, the acoustic instruments are clearly audible, punctuated by intense passages of electronic sounds.

Murail, using Diphone, Audiosculpt, Patchwork, Csound, and Max software to create samples triggered by a MIDI keyboard, created 225 different sounds in four classes: inharmonic percussive, noisy flute, bruitist surface, and crystalline sounds, isolated or in cascade. The music itself does not sound nearly that complex, a glittering succession of fascinating textures with plenty of space. The title leads the listener to think of an icy landscape, but while the liner notes emphasize "Nature" as a source of inspiration for Murail, reinforcing the inevitable Impression that we have hear a clear continuation of Debussy in the French tradition.

The bookend piece, "Le Lac" (2001 -- 23'06) for ensemble, works with a similar spectralist palette, expressed without the use of sophisticated electronics. Murail utilizes elements based on the acoustic analysis of the sounds of rain, the rumblings of thunder, birdsong, and frogs. This exploration of both acoustic and electronic sound and their intersection is a central preoccupation of Murail and the spectralist school.

In between are found the beautiful, lyrical flute solo "Unanswered Questions" (1995 -- 4'27), a delicate quartet for flute, violin, cello and piano -- "Feuilles a travers les cloches" (1998 -- 6'06), and the earlier "Ethers" (1978 -- 18'21) for flute and ensemble, another lovely piece which reveals the continuity of Murail's soundworld over the decades.

Murail is not currently well represented on disc. Hopefully some of these recent compositions will be recorded and released soon:

"Terre d'ombre" for large orchestra and electronic sounds (2004)
"Contes cruels" for 2 electric guitars and orchestra (2007)
"Les sept Paroles" for orchestra, chorus and electronics (2010)
"Le Désenchantement du Monde" piano concerto (2012)

I don't find this Aeon disc to be as impressive as the earlier set of Murail's Eighties electro-acoustic works, but it is worth hearing for anyone interested in spectralism in particular or contemporary classical in general.

My four-star rating reflects the light, fleeting impact of this music. It is of-the-moment, but leaves only faint traces. Perhaps this is unfair -- it is certainly finely crafted, and deserves to be heard above the din.

(verified purchase from a large brick-and-mortar bookstore)

we come to the music of Tristan Murail for beauty and mystery,as French post-modernity seems to nourish the aesthetic object full-tilt,it was never residing in exile as exhibited in other cultures,here for example,USA, the aesthetic has been homogenized,digitalized;the French still bind their cultural objects around some poetic-narrative-image, some temporality of darknessand gesture with cognitive baggage, where the weight of intellectual and cultural history, mostly within the paradigm of Franco-phile dimensions, comes to dominate their work,Proust, Mallarme, Valery, Rimbaud,Poe are all vibrant icons resounding, revolving within aesthetic space;simply flip through art that happens in Paris,it is all strongly ferverently attached to these past temporalities;
Murail worked in "spectra", spectral analysis,overtones,a one time IRCAM pioneer, now residing in NYC,this is a kind of deep penumbral appreciation for fine particles, fragments of timbre, timbre can come to be analyzed with the aid of computer systems, trying to locate 'granular' arborecences "rhizomatic" like associations with harmonic overtone phenomenon, Murail however tries to find an aesthetic equivalent within his music for this theory and has fascinating works on this. What has been nebulous in post-modern trajectories has benn the area of interface with electronic/acoustic means, Murail finds beauty there as well without resorting to the genres of free graphic improvisation as others; his resolutions are often elegant, refined nourished blends with acoustic points as in the "Winter Fragments"the primary work here, there are structural freedoms you also come to locate in his music,the music seems spontaneous at times,not forced into an aesthetic tunnel,nor overburdened with darkness;but he tends to that; there is always morphological shapes to whatever he does, but he also doesn't desire to force this imagery of passing time, into too confined spaces, sometimes this happens, as in the "Winter Fragments" where we find successions of flute and cello linear lines, quite neo-romantic to be close to arbitrary gestures, we come to hear lines that really have no sense of linear being,nothing refers to itself backwards, parametrically, only forward;yet much of the time in this music there is no reason to continue, accept the arresting beauty Murail seems committed to, this timbral interface with electronics is where the acoustic points are augmented with volume, ensemble envelopes being shaped together,un-blended at times; coming off in a sharp decrescendo, the reiteration of this is what drives the piece forward,this incessant gesture; as in the best piece herein, "Ethers", a kind of again morphology represented in space. You may find much of this music quite cold,distant, third person, not engaging,but I think there is a price paid for when the theoretical constructs supporting a body of music that never entirely recedes, the music always seems to be about theoretical discovery of musical/electronic representation, the way Murail's music lives and is nourished with this paradox I think is what gives it its mystery and power, nothing is really over-written, or over-determined,theory does in fact stop at some point;, there is a finely honed balanced relationship always with an acoustic principle at the base morphology of the music.
There is a flute solo as well here,the flute timbre a frequent player in French culture; "unanswered question" poses a question of destiny,finely honed lines going no wheres really;tres vif, does the piece need continue as it does?, and solo asks?, perhaps a second hearing would releive me of my doubts.The compact shape is exciting,and attests to itself,self-contained;,again Murail's music works best within the hidden timbres of ensembles,he knows how to shape forces as Dufourt, and Dalbavie, Bonnet,Harvey,and Manoury other interesting composers; Murial's compositional power comes from shape to foment harmonies forward, evocative solo lines seem dissapate quickly, like the erosion of submerged wood just hitting the surface, as Venice;solos for Murail escape a more controlled linear gaze; The Ensemble playing is exquisite, finely balanced is commonplace now for this music.