Éliane
Radigue (b. 1932) is a pioneering French composer of undulating
continuous music marked by patient, virtually imperceptible
transformations that purposefully unfold to reveal the intangible,
radiant contents of minimal sound—its partials, harmonics, subharmonics
and inherent distortions. As a student and assistant to
musique
concrète pioneers Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry in the ‘50s
and
‘60s, Radigue mastered tape splicing techniques, but preferred the
creation of fluid, delicately balanced feedback works to the spasmodic
dissonance of her teachers’ music. Finding peers among minimalist
composers in America, Radigue began working with synthesis in 1970,
eventually discovering the ARP 2500 synthesizer, which she would use
exclusively for her celebrated electronic works to come. With
remarkable restraint, Radigue spent years on each piece, painstakingly
assembling series of subtle, pulsating ARP recordings to be later mixed
meticulously into hourlong suites of precise, perpetual mutation,
including masterpieces
Trilogie de
la mort and
Adnos I-III.
In 2001,
Radigue adapted an early feedback work to live performance on electric
bass,
Elemental II, and in
2004, with the encouragement of ongoing
collaborator Charles Curtis, she permanently abandoned electronics for
acoustic composition, beginning with
Naldjorlak
for solo cello,
composed for Curtis. As within each individual work, Radigue has
maintained an obstinate focus throughout the flow of her career, her
dedication to the materiality of sound earning her numerous accolades
and ensuring her place as one of the most important composers of our
time.
Between 1969 and 1970, Éliane Radigue created a series of works of
variable and infinite duration in her home studio in Paris. Made with
three tape recorders, a mixing board, an amplifier, two loudspeakers,
and a microphone,
Ursal, Omnht, Σ =
a = b = a + b, and
Vice-Versa,
etc…
consist of microphone and tape recorder feedback, reworked through
studio techniques such as slowing down and reversal of direction.
Recorded onto magnetic tape meant for simultaneous playback in loops of
different durations, Radigue presented these eternally mutating works
under the guise of
Propositions
Sonores
in museums and galleries, anticipating the contemporary practice of
sound installation. Created in 1970 as a multiple in an edition of ten
for the Lara Vincy Gallery in Paris,
Vice-Versa, etc…
was Radigue’s final feedback loop composition. It is comprised of a
single magnetic stereo tape with hand-written instructions for
diffusion suggesting that any combination of channels—right channel
alone, left channel alone, or both channels together—can be overlapped,
on several recorders, at any playback speed, forward or backward, ad
libitum.
As part of the program, cellist
Charles
Curtis
will lead a workshop pertaining to
Vice-Versa,
etc…. Acknowledged
internationally as a performer of new and experimental music, Curtis
was the first performer to collaborate with Radigue on a work for an
unamplified, acoustic instrument without electronic support or
accompaniment and is her longest-running collaborator.
Created between 1985 and 1993,
Trilogie de la Mort
is considered by many to be Éliane Radigue’s masterpiece. An extended
sonic meditation on death informed by Radigue’s dedicated engagement
with Tibetan Buddhism, the piece is made up of three hour-long ARP 2500
synthesizer compositions:
Kyema,
Kailasha, and
Koumé.
Kyema, the first piece of the
trilogy, was inspired by the
Bardo
Thodol, or
Tibetan Book of
the Dead,
with six sections reflecting the six bardos, or intermediate states of
life and death which constitute the existential continuity of a being.
Vice-Versa, etc…
and
Kyema
will be diffused using newly produced reel-to-reel tape editions of the
original masters, part of a series produced by Blank Forms in New York
in collaboration with Radigue for the high quality presentation of her
work.
Vice-Versa, etc
… and Kyema
are part of Éliane Radigue:
Intermediate States
,
a retrospective curated by Lawrence Kumpf and Charles Curtis and
developed in collaboration with Éliane Radigue for Blank Forms in New
York. The retrospective seeks to present Radigue’s practice in a richly
contextualized, holistic manner to draw out important connections
between her early and late periods of work, examining the breadth of
her practice and juxtaposing her compositions with new interpretations
and experimental re-stagings by contemporary composers. The
retrospective will continue in New York with more programs into 2020.
Éliane Radigue: Intermediate States
has been made possible with generous support from Wales Arts
International, the Goethe-Institut, and through the New Music Fund, a
program of FACE Foundation, with generous funding from the Cultural
Services of the French Embassy in the United States, Florence Gould
Foundation, Fondation CHANEL, French Ministry of Culture, Institut
français-Paris, and SACEM (Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et
Editeurs de Musique).