What is immediately attractive about Francis
Dhomont, fortunately, apart from appearances, is that he posses
nothing of the Cloven Viscount, the Italo Calvino
hero whose two halves, misfortune and kindness, scatter along the way loss
mixed with consolation. If that story has a happy ending — where, after a
duel, both halves of the mini viscounts re-emerge as one reharmonized entity
— and if this fable comes to mind at this moment it is because of a profound
tendency towards this dichotomy characteristic of today’s composers, to which
some do not escape, either by perverted coquetry — slandering and
vituperating contemporary art while being in it themselves — or by naive
proselytism — discrediting their work by making an irremediable gap between
the ambition of their discourse and the aesthetical result.
In the case of Francis Dhomont, the process is
out of the ordinary. We have with him the interesting double union of a
composer whose work is constant with consistent quality, varied but with
unity of style, colored but with great coherence. And, as a bonus, he is a
teacher who produces numerous quality good students, devoted to listening to
others and thinking about their discourse, a constant mover and continuous
analyst of the theories of an art which remains experimental, who encourages
an art allowing as much musical as human exploration, both abundant qualities
of this composer.
Because each half may exist without the other — one nourishing the other —
we can explain this remarkably balanced case of acousmattitude…
The term acousmatic appears frequently in the texts of this book.
Yet, what does it mean?
An English neologism, which comes from the French acousmatique,
has its origins with Pythagoras (6th century BC) who
was (it is said) delivering his — uniquely oral — teaching behind a curtain
to prevent his physical presence from distracting his disciples, allowing
them to better concentrate exclusively on the content of his message.
Closer in time to us, at the beginning of this century, one finds in the
two-volume French dictionary Le Larousse pour
tous:
Acousmate
n. (from the Greek Akousma, what is heard). Imaginary
sound, or of which the cause is not seen.
In 1955, the writer and poet Jérôme Peignot, at
the beginning of musique concrète, used the adjective acousmatic,
meaning ‘a sound that we can hear without knowing its cause’, to designate
“the distance that separates a sound from its origins” by obscuring behind
the impassivity of the loudspeaker any visual element that may be connected
to it. In 1966, Pierre Schaeffer mused about giving
his Traité des objets musicaux (Treatise on Musical
Objects) the title “Traité d’acousmatique” (Treatise on Acousmatic). Finally,
around 1974, to mark the difference and to avoid any confusion with
incidental or transformed musical instruments (ondes Martenot, electric
guitars, synthesizers, real-time digital audio systems…), François Bayle introduced the expression acousmatic music as a
specific kind of music, as the art of projected sounds which is “shot and
developed in the studio, projected in halls, like cinema.”
It is true that over the past twenty years, under the term
electroacoustics there has been a proliferation of sound pieces which have
little in relation to each other except a common use of electricity. It was
therefore important to affirm, with precise terminology, æsthetic choices, a
body of thought, and a language. It is also in this spirit that, since 1989,
the Rencontres acousmatiques (Acousmatic Meetings) of
composers in the south of France have been organized.
Thus, this music — or better: Acousmatic Art (Denis Dufour) — was conceived from its beginnings to be heard
without the use of visual intervention. It does not involve any
instrumentalist on stage — with the exception of the person who projects the
work during a public performance in order to maximize the use of the given
space. It organizes morphologies and sonic spectra, “images of sound”
(François Bayle), coming from a multiplicity of
sources, but that the absence of visual identification makes anonymous,
unifies and prompts a more attentive listening. (Is it by pure coincidence
that the hearing of blind people is reputed to be so refined?)
It follows its very own mechanisms that, due to their newness, require
coherence and intuition. It is a causa mentale. Finally, it sets or
fixes onto a medium (magnetic tape, computer disk or other) with precision
and no maybes, the most subtle nuances chosen by the composer: what we hear
doesn’t resemble what is wanted, it is what is wanted. This last
point is very well presented by Michel Chion in his
recent book, L’art des sons fixés, ou la musique
concrètement (The Art of Fixed Sounds, or Music in Concrete
Terms).
Further, let’s stress a fact that remains underrated. If music has always
been closely associated with its reproduction by performers, as opposed to
many other art forms that are once and for all fixed on a medium (painting,
literature, cinema, video…), it is due to the impossibility to do so
differently, and not by choice. Never before, until this day, could one
capture, keep, and reproduce a faithful image of sound phenomena. Before it
was necessary to use a more or less precise symbolic notation to capture the
ideas of composers. This gave birth to a quasi-universal practice that we
have no reason to complain about or tire of.
However, this situation is neither a fatality nor a law since today we
know how to fix sound as we do for visual images or text. To pretend the
opposite is only to rely on habit and on the largely publicized fetichism of
the performer.
Acousmatic, the art of a century that prevents the disappearance of sound,
is a new and autonomous art form which certainly finds in the compact disc —
a genuine sound book — one of its most convincing vehicles. The seven works
brought together here belong to this reality, still young but already engaged
in the next millennium.
Francis Dhomont,
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (France), July-September 1991 [ix-91]
This acousmatic triptych recounts the Journey and some of its symbolic
projections (escape, love, flight, space, the limit of disappearance, the
loss of oneself) while merging natural images with pure abstractions;
metaphors of a metaphor, since in music any tale is inherently a
transposition.
The composition of these three works spans a period of eight years;
already, this suggests for me that the act of wandering both in its proper
and figurative meanings — movement, change, mobility, roving dreams,
upheaval, and revivals — all weave the very material of life itself.
There are thus three sections to this Cycle begun in late 1981
with Points de fuite (Vanishing Points), for which
… mourir un peu (… dying a little, 1984) is an
extended commentary in nine movements and Espace /
Escape (a bilingual anagram — ‘espace’ being French for ‘space’)
(1989) is the final outcome definitively exploring spatial
preoccupations.
These last two works draw some of their material from Points de fuite, a communal well. This is perceptible particularly
in the fourth movement of … mourir un peu, its longest
section, 4. Thème de la fuite (Theme of Flight) which
is both a large scale reprise-variation of Points de
fuite as well as the central axis for the eight other movements.
Under the title Mouvances~Métaphores
(Mobility~Metaphors), seven works are united around the common theme of
movement as with virtual displacement of sound in geometric space, or
metaphorical transferences of meaning into the realms of imagination.
[This text was originally intended for the 1991 edition]
As before, I wanted to offer the most interesting, precise and complete
document possible. The most beautiful as well.
As before, we find photos, an introduction by a privileged observer, and a
presentation and program notes by the composer on his work.
As usual, it is in French, and in English.
But, this one isn’t exactly like the others. It’s somewhat different; it’s
a little more. It is for Francis Dhomont: to mark an
hard to believe 65th birthday; to underline a multiplicity of activities
whose repercussions link generations, passions, creations, the displacement
of sounds, people, even continents; to resonate the uniqueness of the
work.
Therefore we trace his trajectory, his paths; we put him in perspective.
To better grasp, better know. We listen and listen again to the pieces,
energize them, burst them open for the discs.
We… the magical complicity of Robert Normandeau,
the curiosity of François Guérin with the generosity
of Laurie Radford and Claude
Schryer.
We, also… the enthusiasm of Konrad Boehmer from
BVHAAST and François Bayle
of Ina-GRM, the support of the Canada Council [for the
Arts].
I, Jean-François Denis, Montréal
[xi-91]
electrocd.com
Francis Dhomont: Cycle de l’errance (CD): liner notes