GRISEY Gérard (1946-1998)

A French composer born in 1946 in Belfort who died in 1998.
A pupil of Olivier Messiaen, Henri Dutilleux, György Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis, Gérard Grisey was in residence at the Villa Medici from 1972 to 1974. The initiator with Tristan Murail and Hugues Dufourt of spectral music, he took part in the foundation of the ensemble L’Itinéraire (1973). He organised many composition seminars, taught at the University of Berkeley, then at the Paris Conservatory until his death. Constantly refining his scientific approach to the aural phenomenon, he explored its microphonic aspects, arriving at a stretched and ‘complexified’ temporality integrating contrasts, ruptures, and superposing different speeds, zones that are compressed or dilated to an extreme. His works include the cycle Les espaces acoustiques (1974-1985), Le temps et l'écume (1989), Vortex temporum (1996), Wolf Lieder (1997) and, his ultimate work, Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil (1998).