Spectralism

Question 1

Context to spectralist composers (4)

Answer 1

Ecology of sound; hybridisation and difference; anti-institutionalism; new technology

Question 2

Why did Grisey say that he wanted to focus on Timbre specifically?

Answer 2

Irreducibility, lack of quantitative measurement, individualist/uniqueness of each sound

Question 3

How is Grisey’s fixation on Timbre related to the political context in France?

Answer 3

Anti-binary - neither Chance music’s naturalism nor serialism’s abstraction - a middle ground

Question 4

Ways in which timbre as a focus for spectralism mirrors French progressive politics? (3)

Answer 4

Drott - Difference acknowledged - artistic synthesis encouraged - timbre as a ‘correlated ensemble of energies,’; post-industrial focus on technology as a vehicle for culture; idea of interconnectedness prevalent especially with ecologists - Spectralists want to replicate interconnectedness

Question 5

Social context of Spectralism?

Answer 5

Humanistic - desire to return to how music affects the listener - drawing out what makes music music (sound) and focusing on that - experience factored in - duration, proximity. Anti-humanist in that it uses technology to create these experiences, therefore concerned with human reception rather than creation

Question 6

How was spectralism seen as a new type of progressive?

Answer 6

Looking inwards rather than out - post-colonial analysis of serialism by Dufourt sees the genre as ‘exploiting resources’ ‘violent’ ‘equates progress with ceaseless expansion,’ overlaps concurrent systems. Spectralism, by contrast, focuses on one aspect of music, progress through looking at difference and variety in one parameter.