Jean-Claude Éloy
Encyclopedia
Jean-Claude Éloy is a French composer of instrumental, vocal and electroacoustic music.
In his work Éloy realized one of the most significant syntheses of 20th-century music: between electronic and acoustic music, between Western and non-Western traditions. Although he received a very solid classical education, since his youth he is an admirer and a connoisseur of several non-western music traditions. Even if he never rejected the constructive complexity of the Western musical thinking, the experience of non-Western musics determines in a decisive way his artistic inspiration.
near Rouen
. After his classical studies at the Paris Conservatory (piano, chamber music, counterpoint, ondes Martenot and composition with Darius Milhaud), between the end of 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s Eloy attends several times the Darmstadt summer courses. From 1961 to 1963 he attended Pierre Boulez's composition master classes at the Musikakademie of Basel (Switzerland).
The young Eloy assimilates with great swiftness the lesson of the Second Viennese School (Schönberg, Webern, Berg) and of the music of Messiaen, as testified by works like Trois pièces pour piano (1960), Cinque poèmes de Saigyo (1960) for soprano voice and piano and Chants pour une ombre (1961) for soprano voice and 8 instruments.
From 1966 to 1968 Eloy was professor at the University of California, Berkeley. As a consequence of the american experience Eloy detaches himself from serialism and in his work becomes always more central the interest for the sound in itself and for the ritual dimension. From the beginning of the 1970s the cultural references to the philosophical and musical heritage of the Asian traditions (in particular India and Japan) become more explicit and frequent.
The work Kâmakalâ (Triangle of Energies) for 3 orchestras, 5 choral groups e 3 conductors represents a real stylistic turning point.
In 1972 Éloy was invited by his friend Karlheinz Stockhausen
to the electronic music studio of WDR in Cologne to realize his first electronic work. The result of his experimentations in the studio with the sound and the time of the sound was Shânti (Peace) (1972/73), a huge 2-hour-long fresco for electronic and concrete sounds, inspired by the Heraclitean philosophy (war and unity of opposites) and by the writings on yoga of Sri Aurobindo Ghose.
After the compositon of Fluctuante-Immuable (1977) for orchestra, between 1977 and 1978 Éloy worked at the electronic studio of Tokyo Radio (NHK), where he realized the 4-hour-long fresco Gaku-no-Michi (The Tao of Music), based on the dialectic between concrete (recorded sounds from daily japanese life) and abstract materials (purely electronic produced sounds).
Also the next major works have relations with Japanese culture and Japanese music: Yo-In (Reverberations) (1980) music for an imaginary ritual in 4 acts for tape and a character playing percussion; A l'approche du Feu Méditant ... (Approaching the Meditative Flame...) (1983) for 27 Gagaku traditional instruments, 2 Buddhist monk choirs (Shômyô singing traditional style) and 5 Bugaku dancers; Anahata (Primordial Vibration) (1984-1986) for electronic and concrete sounds, 5 Gagaku musicians and 2 Japanese Buddhist monks (Shômyô chant).
Toward the end of the 1980s Éloy conceived a great cyclic work about female characters with the title Libérations, which until today remains unfinished. On the occasion of this project Éloy began his intensive collaboration with female singers like Yumi Nara (Butsumyôe, 1989), Fatima Miranda (Sappho Hiketis, 1989), and Junko Ueda (Erkos, 1991; ... kono yo no hoka ..., 1996), exploring extended vocal techniques and reinventing ethnic musics in a imaginary way.
Éloy's works have been performed in Europe, Asia, the United States, Canada, and Latin America, under conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Ernest Bour, Michael Gielen, Bruno Maderna, Diego Masson, Michel Tabachnik, and Arthur Weisberg.
Éloy has founded his own publishing house and record label hors territoires in order to document his pluridecennial artistic work with the publication of books and discs.
s played a part—in a very obvious way in Équivalences, where fermatas are assigned values of ½, 1, 1½, 2½, 4, and 6½ seconds, and disguised by arbitrary arithmetic transformations in the rhythms of the withdrawn composition Macles.
In his work Éloy realized one of the most significant syntheses of 20th-century music: between electronic and acoustic music, between Western and non-Western traditions. Although he received a very solid classical education, since his youth he is an admirer and a connoisseur of several non-western music traditions. Even if he never rejected the constructive complexity of the Western musical thinking, the experience of non-Western musics determines in a decisive way his artistic inspiration.
Musical training
Jean-Claude Éloy was born in Mont-Saint-AignanMont-Saint-Aignan
-People:*Birthplace of Jacques Anquetil , the first cyclist to win the Tour de France five times.*Viviane Asseyi footballer*Jackson Mendy footballer*Matthieu Louis-Jean footballer*Mohamed Sissoko, Juventus F.C footballer, was born here....
near Rouen
Rouen
Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...
. After his classical studies at the Paris Conservatory (piano, chamber music, counterpoint, ondes Martenot and composition with Darius Milhaud), between the end of 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s Eloy attends several times the Darmstadt summer courses. From 1961 to 1963 he attended Pierre Boulez's composition master classes at the Musikakademie of Basel (Switzerland).
The young Eloy assimilates with great swiftness the lesson of the Second Viennese School (Schönberg, Webern, Berg) and of the music of Messiaen, as testified by works like Trois pièces pour piano (1960), Cinque poèmes de Saigyo (1960) for soprano voice and piano and Chants pour une ombre (1961) for soprano voice and 8 instruments.
Career
The confrontation with Pierre Boulez was crucial for his musical education. His first works to have a public resonance are Etude III (1962) for orchestra (dedicated to Darius Milhaud) and Équivalences (1963) for 18 musicians (dedicated to Pierre Boulez).From 1966 to 1968 Eloy was professor at the University of California, Berkeley. As a consequence of the american experience Eloy detaches himself from serialism and in his work becomes always more central the interest for the sound in itself and for the ritual dimension. From the beginning of the 1970s the cultural references to the philosophical and musical heritage of the Asian traditions (in particular India and Japan) become more explicit and frequent.
The work Kâmakalâ (Triangle of Energies) for 3 orchestras, 5 choral groups e 3 conductors represents a real stylistic turning point.
In 1972 Éloy was invited by his friend Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
to the electronic music studio of WDR in Cologne to realize his first electronic work. The result of his experimentations in the studio with the sound and the time of the sound was Shânti (Peace) (1972/73), a huge 2-hour-long fresco for electronic and concrete sounds, inspired by the Heraclitean philosophy (war and unity of opposites) and by the writings on yoga of Sri Aurobindo Ghose.
After the compositon of Fluctuante-Immuable (1977) for orchestra, between 1977 and 1978 Éloy worked at the electronic studio of Tokyo Radio (NHK), where he realized the 4-hour-long fresco Gaku-no-Michi (The Tao of Music), based on the dialectic between concrete (recorded sounds from daily japanese life) and abstract materials (purely electronic produced sounds).
Also the next major works have relations with Japanese culture and Japanese music: Yo-In (Reverberations) (1980) music for an imaginary ritual in 4 acts for tape and a character playing percussion; A l'approche du Feu Méditant ... (Approaching the Meditative Flame...) (1983) for 27 Gagaku traditional instruments, 2 Buddhist monk choirs (Shômyô singing traditional style) and 5 Bugaku dancers; Anahata (Primordial Vibration) (1984-1986) for electronic and concrete sounds, 5 Gagaku musicians and 2 Japanese Buddhist monks (Shômyô chant).
Toward the end of the 1980s Éloy conceived a great cyclic work about female characters with the title Libérations, which until today remains unfinished. On the occasion of this project Éloy began his intensive collaboration with female singers like Yumi Nara (Butsumyôe, 1989), Fatima Miranda (Sappho Hiketis, 1989), and Junko Ueda (Erkos, 1991; ... kono yo no hoka ..., 1996), exploring extended vocal techniques and reinventing ethnic musics in a imaginary way.
Éloy's works have been performed in Europe, Asia, the United States, Canada, and Latin America, under conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Ernest Bour, Michael Gielen, Bruno Maderna, Diego Masson, Michel Tabachnik, and Arthur Weisberg.
Éloy has founded his own publishing house and record label hors territoires in order to document his pluridecennial artistic work with the publication of books and discs.
Style and technique
Through most of his career, Asian (especially Hindu) music and aesthetics have had a strong influence on Éloy's music. In some earlier works, Fibonacci numberFibonacci number
In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers are the numbers in the following integer sequence:0,\;1,\;1,\;2,\;3,\;5,\;8,\;13,\;21,\;34,\;55,\;89,\;144,\; \ldots\; ....
s played a part—in a very obvious way in Équivalences, where fermatas are assigned values of ½, 1, 1½, 2½, 4, and 6½ seconds, and disguised by arbitrary arithmetic transformations in the rhythms of the withdrawn composition Macles.
Works (selection)
- Trois pièces pour piano (1960) (13')
- Stèle pour Omar Khayyam (1960) for soprano, piano, harp, and percussion (20')
- Cinque poèmes de Saîgyo (1960) for soprano and piano (9')
- Chants pour une ombre (1961) for soprano and eight instrumentalists (18')
- Études I et II for flute (1962), violoncello, and harp (21')
- Étude III (1962), for orchestra (20')
- Équivalences (1963), for 18 instrumentalists (10')
- Faisceaux-Diffractions (1970), for 28 instrumentalists (25')
- Kâmakalâ (1971), for three orchestral groups, five choral groups, with three conductors (ca. 32' )
- Shânti (Paix, 1972-73), for electronic and concrete sounds (1h45', WDR Electronic Music Studio, Cologne)
- Fluctuante-Immuable (1977), for large orchestra (20')
- Gaku-no-Michi ("Les Voies de la musique", also translated for "La Voie des sons" (1977-78), film without images for electronic and concrete sounds (3h50', NHK Electronic Music Studio, Tokyo
- Yo-In (Réverbérations, 1980), théâtre sonore for an imaginary ritual, with an actor-percussionist, electroacoustic music, and lights (3h40' in 4 acts, Instituut voor Sonologie, Utrecht)
- Étude IV (1979), electroacoustic music, UPIC – computer with graphic interface - (20')
- A l'Approche du Feu Méditant (1983), for 27 instrumentalists of a Japanese gagaku orchestra, qith two choirs of Buddhist monks from the Shingon and Tendai sects, and six percussionists (2h30')
- Anâhata (Vibration primordiale, ou d’origine, 1984-86), for two solo Buddhist-monk singers, three gagaku-orchestra instrumentalists, percussion, electroacoustic music, and lights (3h45')
- Butsumyôe and Sappho Hikètis ("La cérémonie du repentir", "Sappho implorante", 1989), for two female voices (extended vocal techniques), electroacoustic music (1h00')
- Erkos ("Chant, Prière", 1990-91), for a soloist playing Satsuma-Biwa and a vocalist (techniques from "Shômyo"), with electroacoustic music (1h05', WDR Electronic Music Studio, Cologne)
- Several American Women (1996), for two women's voices (sung and spoken techniques), with electroacoustic music
- … kono yo no hoka … (" … ce monde au-delà …", 1996), solo voice (extended vocal techniques, exceeding those of "Shômyô", 30’)
- Galaxies (1996), electroacoustic music, with solo voice (1h15’)
External links
- Jean-Claude Eloy information's site
- Books revues, interviews, recordings, scores, memories
- hors territoires (books and Cds)
- musical examples: http://www.eloyjeanclaude.com/eloyjeanclaude.org/index.html
- List of texts of Jean-Claude Eloy: http://www.eloyjeanclaude.com/EloyListeTextes.html