)
This first boxed set of sixteen discs, published by Maison ONA and the Kairos label, covering Denis Dufour's career from 1977 to 2020, is a solid mass that opens up a fascinating world of sound. These works, the vast majority of which are unpublished, are classified not chronologically but thematically: "melodramas", "radio art", "suites", "tombeaux", "acousmalides", "sacred music", "electronica" and "musical moments". We have gone through them at length, immersing ourselves in this dense, multiple and immensely rich universe. Here we share some of our discoveries, the works that most appealed to us.
Denis Dufour offers a fine reference to Noh Theater in Les invasions fantômes (2011, CD 1), whose electronic treatments and sound arrangements sublimate the principles of Japanese music, at once clearly identifiable and eminently personal. In this "melodrama", the temporal management of tensions, explosions and relaxations, typical of this traditional music, opens the box set in spectacular fashion. As is often the case in the composer's works, a text by long-time collaborator Thomas Brando is featured, "L'Attente des nuages" (2009), read by Gilian Petrovski.
If he knows Japan, acousmatics also allow Denis Dufour to fantasize about a world, a country, a geographical space he has never explored. Les Cris de Tatibagan (2017, CDs 4 and 5) are a perfect example, in which Hamish Hossain recounts his childhood in India, in the Tatibagan district of Kolkata. The composer selects sounds from many sources to dress up the narrative, far beyond the few sounds that the narrator's brother recorded of the neighborhood on his phone. The sequences of street criers, dogs barking to the sound of the muezzin and train descriptions are among the most eloquent.
Also of interest Le Lis vert (1983, CD 6). This work, classified as a "suite", is conceived as a symphony in four movements: moderato, lento, scherzo, presto. The beauty of its sounds and the goldsmith's work in shaping them, revealing the palpable energy of the materials, make it a real eye-catcher. Denis Dufour confided to us that the piece had not been appreciated at the time of its creation, due to a sound material then considered not varied enough: "the variation is to be found in the writing, not in the sound." It is indeed the abstract construction that is remarkable, the way in which the composer gives rise to diversity from the same materials, namely sounds drawn from small razor blades recorded very closely in their rubbing and pizzicatos, as he told us. These sounds are rich enough to embrace the whole spectrum, from bass to treble. Everything else is a matter of structuring, even borrowing from historical forms such as the fugue.
Dedicated to Karlheinz Stockhausen, Ebene Sieben (1997, CD 11) brings two radically different temporalities into play on two simultaneous planes: long, drawn-out frames, like a stopped time, over which brief, incisive rhythms animate a more commensurable discourse. This superimposition of spaces acts like a long meditation, the sensation of an ecstatic quest that touches on the sublime. For this ritualistic piece, Denis Dufour borrowed sounds from Gesang der Jünglinge (1956) and Hymnen (1967).
On the same "tomb" disc, Terra Incognita (1998), a tribute to Pierre Schaeffer, takes us into an extraordinarily rich jungle of sounds, in which we can identify the sounds of waves, seabirds or ship's sirens, for example, but much more readily let ourselves be carried away by a listening experience detached from any imprint on reality.
L'Apocalypse d'Angers (1980, CD 13), featuring the voice of Benjamin Duvshani, is surprisingly bold, the young composer tackling a text that Pierre Henry sublimated in his famous Apocalypse de Jean in 1968. Denis Dufour told us that he had never heard this work before. However, his personal and captivating reading of the work immediately makes us want to hear many versions by other acousmatic composers. This powerful text is perfectly dressed, illustrated, supported and complemented by his proposals, and we find ourselves dreaming of what an apocalypse by Bernard Parmegiani, Michel Chion or François Bayle, for example, would have been like.
Christian sacred texts are a great inspiration to the composer, who delivers a fascinating rereading in his Missa pro pueris (2019, CD 14), at once respectful of the spirituality that emanates from the ritual, but also free to make bold appropriations and misappropriate the words ("Kyrie - Toi qui ririais"). Hamish Hossain (Hém-Ish) is back in this work, this time for diphonic and throat singing.
On Augen Licht (2009, CD 16), the composer explores the ecstatic effects of a continuous, evolving sound, like a drone, but by no means reducible to this simple description. Based on an idea by Thomas Brando, the work borrows many recognizable phrases from classical music, including an excerpt from Antonio Vivaldi's Le Printemps concerto. As Frédéric Acquaviva points out in his introduction to the boxed set, Denis Dufour retains his deeply personal style, yielding to no fashion, " drone, ambient, improvisation, field recording field recordingHe flies over them, accosting them in a highly personal way, to the benefit of a "global and panstylistic compositional project".
The rhythmic bacchanal Organa (2000, CD 15) seems to take the listener into the trance of a wild free party, whirling in an overflow of loops over a deafening techno beat. But it's the composer who holds the reins, imposing his own codes, his own methods of rupture, his own vision of the interplay between the unchanging and the changing.
These works, largely unpublished, have only fleetingly revealed themselves to listeners who have been able to attend concerts over the years. Now, in this essential boxed set, they are available for multiple, analytical listening.
Each of them brings out new details in this abundant music.
This is an opportunity that must be seized.
Guillaume Kosmicki
