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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Four Chants for Crossing the Threshold is the last complete work from Gerard Grisey, who along with Tristan Murail, was one of the founders of the 'Spectral' school of composition. As befits what is essentially a meditation on mortality, the mood is sombre and reflective throughout. Instrumental material is based on spectral analysis of the timbre of the voice. In this piece Grisey uses this method to create some fascinating timbral imitations between the instruments and voice. (One of the best examples can be found in the closing moments of track one, where the brass and voice exchange striking timbral correspondences.) These startling aural effects alone make this CD a compelling experience. The performance is of the highest standard throughout as is the recording quality.
Despite being a founder of one of the most significant new directions in contemporary music since Schoenberg, works by Grisey are seldom available for long. Buy this CD while you have the chance. (and any of his other pieces you can find). If Grisey has an achilles heel as a composer, it is that his pieces sometimes contain passages that develop with a glacial slowness. Allow yourself the time to sink into the soundworld of this piece however and you will be amply rewarded.
Despite being a founder of one of the most significant new directions in contemporary music since Schoenberg, works by Grisey are seldom available for long. Buy this CD while you have the chance. (and any of his other pieces you can find). If Grisey has an achilles heel as a composer, it is that his pieces sometimes contain passages that develop with a glacial slowness. Allow yourself the time to sink into the soundworld of this piece however and you will be amply rewarded.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
I've written elsewhere of the fascination of Grisey's music; and I have to say I hesitate to comment on this fabulous disc in the light of David Bessell's absolutely perceptive review below.
But I think there is much more here than this music simply representing some fine examples of spectral writing. Somewhat eerily like Jean Barraqué, Grisey died far too young having written far too little. Both men were massively under-appreciated in their lifetime, although this is the common lot of men who see too far ahead. Both men died with their greatest achievements being works obsessed with death.
This disc, Grisey's masterpiece, is far from morbid. I attended its UK première (perhaps its world première, I can't remember) by mistake in 1999 - I was more interested in another piece on the programme that evening. But there was no mistaking the extrordinary centrality of the Quatre Chants, a spellbinding experience. I can't readily think of another work in the repertoire which takes this subject in such a disciplined way (four kinds of death are set in the contexts of four different cultures), and yet delivers such an impassioned impact. You may find the second movement a little slow to develop, but its very stillness is extraordinarily evocative of the stillness of an Egyptian burial-chamber. The release provided by the concluding Berceuse is quite magical.
The CD is impeccably produced, with a handsome booklet giving the full texts and translations, two discussion pieces and a facsimile of a page from the Berceuse. Just listen to Catherine Dubosc sing that page - I can only gasp at her devastating performance.
The disc is undoubtedly one of the classics of our time - you should not hesitate to buy it while it is available.
But I think there is much more here than this music simply representing some fine examples of spectral writing. Somewhat eerily like Jean Barraqué, Grisey died far too young having written far too little. Both men were massively under-appreciated in their lifetime, although this is the common lot of men who see too far ahead. Both men died with their greatest achievements being works obsessed with death.
This disc, Grisey's masterpiece, is far from morbid. I attended its UK première (perhaps its world première, I can't remember) by mistake in 1999 - I was more interested in another piece on the programme that evening. But there was no mistaking the extrordinary centrality of the Quatre Chants, a spellbinding experience. I can't readily think of another work in the repertoire which takes this subject in such a disciplined way (four kinds of death are set in the contexts of four different cultures), and yet delivers such an impassioned impact. You may find the second movement a little slow to develop, but its very stillness is extraordinarily evocative of the stillness of an Egyptian burial-chamber. The release provided by the concluding Berceuse is quite magical.
The CD is impeccably produced, with a handsome booklet giving the full texts and translations, two discussion pieces and a facsimile of a page from the Berceuse. Just listen to Catherine Dubosc sing that page - I can only gasp at her devastating performance.
The disc is undoubtedly one of the classics of our time - you should not hesitate to buy it while it is available.
11 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Audio CD
The scant material on Grisey and his fellow 'Spectral School' composers available in English tends to concentrate on the formal characteristics of the music. For me, this misses the main point of this recording: its awesome emotional impact.
Make no mistake, this is powerful stuff. The four texts comprise a poem on the death of an angel by a deceased friend of the composer, fragmentary inscriptions from Egyptian Sarcophagi, lines on the quiet in the realm of the dead by an ancient Greek poetess and a depiction of the beauty of the world after the deluge from the epic of Gilgamesh. Grisey himself expired shortly after completing the piece. Gothic is NOT an adequate word for it all.
The music lives up to the texts. The modulated shrieks and wails of Ms Dubosc mesh with the sounds produced by the evocatively named Klangforum Wien to create a desolate, haunting beauty unlike anything I've heard.
Somewhere out there beyond Schonberg, Einsturzende Neubauten, Harrison Birtwhistle and Diamanda Galas. To be listened to by candlelight, over wine, among ruins.
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