Jean-Etienne Marie was a French composer of contemporary music. He is an important figure in the history and exploration of Microtonal music

Microtonal music

Microtonal music is music using microtones—intervals of less than an equally spaced semitone. Microtonal music can also refer to music which uses intervals not found in the Western system of 12 equal intervals to the octave.-Terminology:...

 and electroacoustic

Electroacoustic music

Electroacoustic music originated in Western art music during its modern era following the incorporation of electric sound production into compositional practice. The initial developments in electroacoustic music composition during the mid-20th century are associated with the activities of composers...

.

Biography

Marie studied at the Conservatoire de Paris

Conservatoire de Paris

The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...

 with Simone Plé-Caussade

Simone Plé-Caussade

Simone Plé-Caussade was a French music pedagogue, composer and pianist. She wrote mainly works for solo piano and organ in addition to choral works, songs, chamber music, and sacred music...

. After WWII he dedicated his life to music. He worked at the Radiodiffusion Française where he was specialist in broadcasting contemporary music festival.

Marie was the disciple of Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...

 and of Darius Milhaud

Darius Milhaud

Darius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...

, but this is his meeting with microtonality pioneer Julián Carrillo

Julián Carrillo

Julián Carrillo Trujillo was a Mexican composer, conductor, violinist and music theorist, famous for developing a theory of microtonal music which he dubbed "The Thirteenth Sound" .-Biography:...

 that was crucial in his musical work. He created le CIRM in 1968 in Paris and set it to Nice in 1978. In 1979 He created the MANCA Festival (Musiques actuelles Nice Côte-d'Azur).

Music

He dedicated most of his work to microtonal and to mixed music. His works and his theorisation in microtonal music were significant in the modern knowledge of European microtonal music

Like Juan Carrillo, he explored the potential of a lot microtonal scales either widespread(1/4 tone, 1/3rd tone, 1/6tone) or less known (1/7th tone, 1/5th tone). One of his techniques was to use polytempered music, that is to say music exploiting the simultaneous use of several different microtonal scales. This concept suggested by Carillo. In "Tombeau de Carillo" he exploited 1/2, 1/3rd, 1/5th and 1/6 tone scales simultaneously.

He also tried to apply serialism

Serialism

In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...

 to these scales.In 1972 he wrote a serial and polytempered piece Ecce Ancilla Domini, where he uses rows

Tone row

In music, a tone row or note row , also series and set, refers to a non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitch-classes, typically of the twelve notes in musical set theory of the chromatic scale, though both larger and smaller sets are sometimes found.-History and usage:Tone rows are the basis of...

in 1/4, 1/5th and 1/6th tone.