Luc Ferrari: Presque rien No. 1 ‘Le Lever du jour au bord de la mer’

Luc Ferrari is not so famous compared with Boulez, Stockhausen and so on. However, he is an imporatnt composer, especiall, in the electronic music. Especially, his  Presque rien No. 1 ‘Le Lever du jour au bord de la mer’has conspicuous characteristic. In this work, he recorded various natural sounds, such as sounds of boats in a port. In short, he recorded various sound in placid everyday scenes. This work is his typical work and the music style is called 'musique concrète.'
Compared with theoritical music, such as Boulez's 'Structures I & II", we can listen to and enjoy Ferrari's works naturally without musical analysis.

For reference:
"Presque rien" means "Almost nothing."
"Le Lever du jour au bord de la mer" means "The daybreak at the seaside."
In Japanese, Presque rien No. 1 ‘Le Lever du jour au bord de la mer’is ｔranslated as 『ほとんど何もない　第一「海岸の夜明け」

Presque rien No. 1 ‘Le Lever du jour au bord de la mer’ (1/3)

Presque rien No. 1 ‘Le Lever du jour au bord de la mer’ (2/3)

Presque rien No. 1 ‘Le Lever du jour au bord de la mer’ (3/3)

Nono: "No hay caminos, hay que caminar - Andrej Tarkowskij"

After the WWII, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luigi Nono  began new style music activities. Boulez made intellectual music based on total serialism . Stockhausen made experimental music. Nono also made experimental music However, his works had political intentions. That was the different feature compared with works by Boulez and Stockhausen.

In one of Nono's works, the title of "No hay caminos, hay que caminar - Andrej Tarkowskij" gave me a strong and vivid impression.

Graphic Notation e.g. Stockhausen Studie II

When I a primary school student, I was fascinated by the score --  Graphic Notation -- of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Triangle and square figures are on a musical sheet, instead of traditional musical notes. I wanted to listen to that kind of music. However, in music classes in the primary school, only traditional classical music was taught.
After 20 years old, I had chance to linsten to "Stockhausen: Studie II." I was very fascinated by music, since the music is totally different from the traditional sound such as a piano, violin and so on.

Today, we can easily listen to a lot of pieces of graphic notation on the Internet. It's a great benefit to us.

Pierre Boulez: Douze Notations pour piano

As many people know, Pierre Boulez died at 90 in 2016. In Japan, The NHK broadcast a special TV program on his conductor activity about "The Miraculous Mandarin." However, NHK didn't broacast Boulez's early works such as "Douze Notations pour piano" and "Structures I & II" and so on.
Including NHK, many Japanese media praised him as  "a great composer and condcutor" without introducing the above early works.
I think that the media should tell us not only his latest conducting activities but early composing activities.

So, instead of Japanse media, I introduce "Douze Notations"(1945) to you.

Xenakis: Eonta / Metastasis / Pithoprakta

I would introduce the CD (Eonta / Metastasis / Pithoprakta) to you. The works were composed by Iannis Xenakkis who gains high esteem given by not only 20th century classical music fan but experimenta, electonic musician.
This time I refer to the following CD.

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Orchestra: Paris Contemporary Music Instrumental Ensemble, French Radio National Orchestra
Conductor: Konstantin Simonovic, Maurice Le Roux
Composer: Iannis Xenakis
Eonta / Metastasis / Pithoprakta
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Please try to listen to the three works.


●Eonta

●Metastasis

●Pithoprakta

If you are satisfied, I would recommend that you buy the CD.
Because the CDs in the field of 20th century classical music become soon  out-of-print albums, you may not buy the CD.