Her electroacoustic works
by Andra McCartney |imed_0159-0001|
“What is the composer’s attitude toward this technique? It is
with a completely new and liberated spirit that he must make the
electroacoustic approach to composition, and above all not forget that it is
easier to learn how to turn a knob than to know why he should turn it. The
difficulty does not lie in controlling the machine technically, but rather in
controlling his reflexes when in front of the machine. With electroacoustic
music, the composer maintains a constant relationship with the sound
material; his direct control of it allows him to verify that this actions
have given the desired results. The composer can also make use of the
distance of the listener, just as the painter can step back from the canvas
in order to see it better. Electroacoustic music is therefore a continuous
fusion of doing and hearing, a permanent equilibrium between the
composer’s intention (what is in his head) and the result (what is on
the tape).” (Coulombe
Saint-Marcoux, Le Devoir, June 27, 1970)
Micheline
Coulombe Saint-Marcoux’s approach to electroacoustic music was
important to the development of the form in several significant areas:
exploration of the voice as an instrument, integration of electroacoustics
with other artistic disciplines, reflection on the role of women composers,
and experimentation with spatial trajectories to make the movement of sound
more palpable to the listener.
Coulombe
Saint-Marcoux considered the voice as a fragile and important instrument.
During her childhood in the Lac Saint-Jean region, she constantly listened to
her family singing. She was aware of the incredible possibilities of the
voice, but considered it fragile because of its connection with each person.
When she was studying with Claude Champagne,
he insisted that students create works for voice, and initially she wrote
settings for poems by Verlaine. However, she was
dissatisfied with the gap between singer and accompaniment, and wanted to
integrate voice with instruments, to find points of fusion, change and rapid
juxtaposition, as in Arksalalartôq. She
believed in the abilities of contemporary vocalists to improvise, to
re-discover the vocal freedom of children: “the most progressive music
has its basis in the spontaneity of childhood” (Lamy
1971).
Another important aspect of Arksalalartôq is its
use of texts by two Québécois poets, Noël Audet and
Gilles Marsolais,
who also collaborated with her on Makazoti, a work for voice
and instrumental ensemble. Bernavir, a work for tape,
also used excerpts of a poem by Audet. Her works often
included texts by Québécois writers, including Paul Chamberland,
France Théoret, and
Nicole Brossard.
Her approach to their work was to consider both the meaning of the words, as
well as their less denotative but emotionally rich sounds and sonorities.
Coulombe
Saint-Marcoux was very sensitive to other artistic currents that
surrounded her in Quebec: poetry, theatre, painting, and dance. She worked
closely with other artists, finding that there was often a correspondence
between her work and the work in progress of colleagues in other artistic
fields. She believed that there is a reciprocal influence between ear and
eye, and between sound and theatrical gesture.
As the quote at the beginning of this text demonstrates, Coulombe
Saint-Marcoux was deeply interested in the role of the electroacoustic
composer, and her relationships with technology, society and culture. She
also spoke of her position as a woman composer. She was not satisfied with
simple access to composition studios, but wanted a more meaningful
recognition of the ideas and approaches of women. She noted that although:
“society admits to the presence of women creators, societal structures
do not change to allow them to live fully and with the same authority as
men” (Lefebvre 1991: 80).
Professor Lefebvre notes that during
the 1970s, Micheline
Coulombe Saint-Marcoux was the only female professor of composition in
the Montréal area, and so must have felt isolated. Also, her work has rarely
been performed in concert in Montréal except for one occasion a few weeks
after her death in 1985 (personal communication, October 1994). Micheline
Coulombe Saint-Marcoux spoke emphatically of her beliefs about the
importance of being permitted a truly feminist way of life in order for women
creators to live comfortably: “As the world that I inhabit does not, in
my opinion, allow me a place that can be considered truly feminist, I live
apart from it” (Lefebvre 1991: 80). Her
assertion points out both an alienation from the situation that she
experienced, as well as a determination to insist on a better and more
accepting environment.
Coulombe
Saint-Marcoux was strongly influenced by Iannis Xenakis, whom
she met in Montréal in 1967 while he was working on the Polytope of the
French pavillion at Expo ’67. It was Xenakis who recommended to
Saint-Marcoux that she study modern mathematics and then work with Pierre Schaeffer
at the GRM. As with Xenakis’ work,
Coulombe
Saint-Marcoux’s compositions are marked by blocks of sound
describing sweeping trajectories through space, what she refers to as
“circuits sonores” (sonic circuits). These organized sonic
circuits provide a kind of linear map of timbral, harmonic, rhythmic and
melodic movement for the listeners to orient themselves through the
composition, making the music more palpable, touching the listeners as it
arcs through space and time.
This disc presents all of Coulombe
Saint-Marcoux’s electroacoustic music for tape except for Chut (1969) (with Pierre Bernard,
Marcelle
Deschênes, and Richard Grégoire)
and Bernavir (1970), which
could not be found. Her other electroacoustic works are mixed, film
soundtracks, and incidental music: Trakadie (1970) for
percussion and tape; Arksalalartôq
(1970-71, 76) for voice, one instumentalist and tape; Alchera
(1972-73) for mezzo-soprano, flute (piccolo), clarinet, trombone, violin,
cello, harpsichord (Hammond organ), tape and lights; Miroirs
(1975) for harpsichord and tape; Regards (1978) for oboe,
clarinet, trombone, harp, piano, percussion, viola, cello, double bass and
tape; Tel qu’en
Lemieux (1973) film music for a film by Guy
Robert; Comment
Wang-Fô fut sauvé (1982-83) theatre music for a story by Marguerite
Yourcenar.
Coulombe
Saint-Marcoux writes, about Regards (1978): “The
creator is in perpetual development, an actor constantly learning and
re-learning his part. Having broken with the known world, the organized
world, the everyday world, he is an active participant in a multitude of
ever-varied situations, a sort of great ‘improvisation’ in which
the rules of the game are based on the most elementary laws of social
behaviour. It is chaos and a life of what appears to be anarchy, but an
extremely rich and stimulating one in which everyone who inhabits it is never
definitively defined.”
References:
• Gagné, Mireille, et
Maryvonne
Kendergi, Gilles Potvin.
Compositeurs
au Quebec: Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux. Montréal, QC: Centre de
musique canadienne au Quebec, 1986.
• Gagné, Mireille.
Micheline
Coulombe Saint-Marcoux ou l’art de conjuguer le mot femme.
Sonances, avril 1985: 25-26.
• Lamy, Suzanne.
Inventer
des sons nouveaux. Châtelaine, November 1971.
• Lefebvre,
Marie-Thérèse. Existe-t-il
une musique dite féministe?. Les Batisseuses de la Cité. Congrès de
l’ACFAS. Les
Cahiers Scientifiques 79, 1993: 233-40.
• Lefebvre,
Marie-Thérèse. La
création musicale des femmes au Québec. Montréal: les éditions du
remue-ménage, 1991.
• Potvin, Gilles.
Présence
de la musique électroacoustique. Le Devoir, February 3, 1979.
• Richer, Lyse. Micheline
Coulombe Saint-Marcoux accorde une entrevue à Lyse Richer. Anthology
of Canadian Music 18. Radio Canada International, 1984: 19-22.
• Coulombe
Saint-Marcoux, Micheline. À
la recherche d’une nouvelle écoute. Le Devoir, April 15, 1972.
Andra McCartney,
Montréal [ix-01]
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