“… documents the work of an established composer.”
Musiques naïves, “Naive Music”: a beautiful title for this
collection of works by Yves Daoust. It aptly describes the
stolen melodies from Chopin and Schubert, the
memories, the children voices, the rediscovered natural phenomenons. Water
Music originates from the composer’s fascination with the sound of melting
icicles. A fantasy around water and the end of winter pleasures unfolds almost magically,
taking the listener on a beautiful journey, not exempt of ironic passages (a flushed toilet
evacuates winter altogether!) It is the best work on this CD, although Il était une
fois… (conte sans paroles) “Once Upon a Time… (Tale Without
Words)” also features all of Daoust’s best compositional tricks.
Résonances, a study on the bells of the Notre-Dame church in Montréal,
remains much colder and uninvolved. The same comments apply to Impromptu,
ten minutes of unconvincing computer treatments of Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu in
C# Minor, Op. 66. Fantaisie also has a classical motif at its heart,
Schubert’s Fantaisie in F
Minor, Op. 103. Phrases of it serve as the articulation for this work using excerpts
taken from the archives of the national French-Canadian radio. A commission from Radio
-Canada to celebrate its 50th anniversary, it is inhabited by a nice nostalgia, but
non-Quebecers will hardly be able to relate to it. Less essential than Daoust’s first
CD Anecdotes, Musiques naïves documents the work of an
established composer.
The opening CD notes give Yves Daoust’s biography that
includes a background in piano performance and an early interest in cinema and theatre. The
composer’s track notes, particularly those on the third track, provide the best insight
into what is being attempted here, and François Guérin’s analysis
of works in the CD notes give an overview of the composer’s main stylistic traits.
The opening track Impromptu is based on the composers MIDI recording of
Chopin’s Fantasie-impromptu in C sharp minor (Op. 66). Key motives are then
extracted to form the basis of ‘Chopin sound objects’ that are manipulated well
beyond the physical limits of the piano. Ideas freely collide in a mixture of the melodic and
textural, yet the piece is carefully controlled structurally. The sense of momentum,
particularly through the control of density and panning, is outstanding.
Il était une fois is a sound collage inspired by stories the composer
used to make up to put his daughter to sleep. Like a bedtime story, the work inhabits a
twilight world between reality and dreams, and the structure is accessible. The result is
surreal, evocative and haunting, with the specific and vague trading places for attention in
the texture.
Small ‘fetish’ sounds are the basis of the short work Mi bémol. The composer
indicates that the piece is a concentrate of his style and mains means of articulation. This
includes confrontation of heterogeneous materials, overlapping textures, anecdotal material,
and vacillation between musical and documentary approaches. This condensed work is tightly
controlled and the material is finely balanced.
Résonances was composed from bell sound samples. Attacks and resonance
are treated separately then blended into an atmospheric piece that has many subtle layers of
engagement. The effect is swirling and full of unexpected turns. The careful juxtaposition
and balance of the known with the surreal here continually captures ones interest.
Water Music; I initially played with some trepidation because the subject
matter has been so overworked in electroacoustic music it seem difficult to find an original
angle. The results here are anything but disappointing. Again, the balance of material,
careful control of texture and shape, and sense of development are a tribute to the
composer’s mastery of the idiom. The use of speech in this context, particularly
childrens voices, is an inspired touch.
The CD concludes with Fantaisie, a work commissioned by Société
Radio-Canada and based on samples from the radio sound archives. The composer aimed to create
a collage of memories from radio and express the power of the sound beyond the referential
significance of the material selected. Alluded to throughout is Schubert’s
Fantasie in F minor (Op. 103). The work unfolds slowly as the listener is drawn in.
The journey is rambling and drifts from the actual to the imaginary as material is
transformed.
This CD illustrates an astonishing array of generation techniques, and is particularly
imaginative in balancing the musical and documentary approach. Underpinning this is a solid
yet subtle sense of structural control, and a clear sense of artistic purpose. Deceptively
conservative, one is left with the sense of a series of parables allowing the material to be
read on a number of levels.
Yves Daoust instrument is the piano,
since as a child, therefore you find on this CD piano music. Not just classical piano music,
no experimental music with the piano. He does not avoid using the classical piano sounds in
combination with the new electronics. Impromptu (1994) the first composition
is a combination of both, a classical play of Chopin is recorded with a sequencer and
reworked. The result is a composition that starts with the classical timbre of the piano
surrounded with an ambient atmosphere that slowly transforms into a very hypnotic atmosphere
of piano tunes that comes and goes very quick. In the second track he goes completely an
other way, there he plays with sounds and tunes. This way he creates stories with several
atmospheres, sometimes you find yourself listening to a heavenly atmosphere of an other
dimension while a bit later the nerve breaking sounds of a fair comes over you. Playing with
sounds and tunes is what you also can found in the 4 other tracks on the CD. Especially his
search for what is able to do creatively in music with what is there on the world. He works
with sounds that he can creates and find around him, with the bell sounds of the Notre-Dame
in Montréal, Water Music is a composition made with several sounds of water,
and last but not least makes a composition with archive material from French Radio-Canada.
Yves Daoust is a master of the
composition, because he proves here that there is able to make music with the collage of
sounds, thanks to the several atmospheres that he is able to put into his compositions.
by Alan Freeman inAudion #42 (UK),
March 1, 2000 |340_001|
“… fascinating…”
Ah, the weird sonic world of empreintes DIGITALes, with an ever growing
catalogue of curious and creative music. […]
As ever all their CD’s are fascinating inventions in sonic art and
electroacoustic music.
Daoust is a name we’ve encountered
many a time before, and this new collection of works (dating 1986-94) shows him at his best
in melding sound into a melodic/amelodic texture. Each of the six tracks has a different
focus: Impromptu celebrates discovery with diverse sonic coincidences,
Il était une fois… is a brilliant piece of deep resonant cosmic
music, Mi bémol sound like a little avant-garde
firework display, Résonances presents a carillon of bells in a variety of
mutations, Water Music whilst being constructed from water sounds is not
quite what you’d expect (I won’t spoil the surprise), and then finally we have
Fantaisie in which Daoust lets all his ideas run free, as a
sort of bizarre sonic movie. All fascinating stuff, and largely original in style and
conception.
Yves Daoust ou l’art du palimpseste musical… un monde entre
rêve et réalité.
by Mathilde Henry inClub-culture (Québec),
September 1, 1999 |316_3|
“… l’art du palimpseste musical…”
Yves Daoust est l’un de ces
compositeurs dont l’œuvre, si singulière et surprenante soit-elle, ne nous laisse
pas indifférents. Concepteur sonore à l’ONF (Office national du film du
Canada) pendant quelques années, le compositeur a rejoint, dès 1978, la fondation de
l’ACREQ (Association pour la création et la recherche électroacoustiques du
Québec), dont il assumera la direction pendant près de dix années. Aujourd’hui
enseignant au Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, Yves Daoust y a développé un
programme de composition électroacoustique qui lui permet de poursuivre ses recherches.
Son dernier album Musiques naïves, édité par [DIFFUSION i
MéDIA dans la collection] empreintes DIGITALes, illustre bien cette
démarche de recherche: Yves Daoust nous invite à repenser
l’écoute des paysages sonores qui font notre quotidien, en les utilisant dans ses
œuvres comme des ‘instruments’ à part entière.
Son œuvre se compose tel un palimpseste: des sonorités nouvelles se superposent à des
œuvres plus anciennes qui fournissent, dès lors, une trame musicale de base. Ainsi, dans
le premier morceau de l’album, intitulé Impromptu, Yves Daoust
utilise la Fantaisie impromptue en do dièse mineur, opus 66 de Chopin comme
thème dominant de la pièce, laissant la sensation d’une composition en
surimpression.
De même, dans le morceau intitulé Fantaisie, Yves Daoust
utilise en filigrane la Fantaisie en fa mineur, opus 103 pour piano à quatre
mains de Franz Schubert, en lui superposant
des morceaux d’archives radiophoniques qui illustrent le pouvoir envoûtant de la
radio.
Mais, Yves Daoust est également un conteur,
un magicien qui se joue des oreilles de son auditeur. Il nous fait en effet perdre pied en
abolissant, dans ses compositions, la frontière qui existe traditionnellement entre notre
quotidien sonore (chants d’enfants, voix, bruits de foules…) et la musique.
Ainsi, dans le morceau Il était une fois… (conte sans paroles), une
pléiade de notes, de sons et d’harmoniques accompagnent le chant d’un enfant,
nous entraînant ainsi dans un monde tout droit issu des profondeurs des rêves. Le compositeur
intègre donc la réalité (l’eau, par exemple, dans Water Music ) au
virtuel, à l’irréel. Il travaille sur notre quotidien sonore comme sur une partition;
il en tire des sonorités, des instruments même, atypiques, comme en témoignent
Résonances, composé à partir des cloches de Notre-Dame de Montréal, et
Mi
bémol, bâtit sur une polyphonie de sons très divers.
Ainsi, l’œuvre de ce compositeur semble être une pluie harmonieuse qui
transforme le monde réel en un monde magique; sa musique scintille tel un paysage après une
pluie…de notes, évidemment.
by Richard Cochrane inHollow Ear (USA), July 1, 1999
|314|
“This is a disc full of fascinating and well-realized works.”
Daoust has a febrile imagination. Nothing
stays still for long in these electronic works which fuse samples of recognizable sounds with
state-of-the-art digital processing and recomposition. He’s been making music this way
for twenty years, and his depth of experience shows in his expert handling of such delicate
issues as stereo panning — sounds constantly move around the field, but with a subtlety
that prevents them from ever merely ping-ponging back and forth.
The disc begins with [Impromptu] a filleting of a piece by Chopin, recorded
in its entirety by the composer and completely re-wired in software. While the postmodern
referentially of the approach is certainly not ignored, Daoust creates something quite alien
to Chopin’s melodic conception, sending
notes bouncing off one another like hyperstimulated atoms and occasionally allowing them to
accumulate into vast microtonal dissonance.
Il était une fois, on the other hand, supposedly conjures up the images
of bedtime stories he liked to tell his daughter. Perhaps they gave her nightmares. Certainly
the combination of children’s voices, harsh timbre and squealing rubber toys terrified
this listener. Atmospheric in the extreme but not for the faint-hearted.
It’s followed by the all-too-brief Mi bémol, a study in percussive tones
(sounding like xylophone or marimba samples) which ricochet off one another with jaw-dropping
speed and agility, accompanied by spoken word samples and other concrète bits.
Résonances uses the bells of Notre-Dame (the one in Montréal and not
Victor Hugo’s) for its
sound-source; a little grating but a sound he clearly likes. High-speed manipulations skid
this way and that, always taking the listener by surprise.
This is a disc full of fascinating and well-realized works. It’s not just for
musique concrète fans; indeed, it’s probably rather too conventionally musical for
their often ascetic tastes. Far from being compilations of “real” sounds, these
are musical constructions in the most conventional of senses; if they happen to also be
imaginative and stimulating, to refer to the non-musical auditory world and to seem to tell a
story, then so much the better.
by Henry Schneider inHenry Schneider (USA),
June 1, 1999 |311|
“… one of the more accessible discs of the genre, especially for its three
outstanding compositions.”
Yves Daoust is a Canadian
electroacoustic composer well versed in the manipulation and processing of natural and found
sounds. Daoust currently teaches a course in
electroacoustic composition at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal. Musiques
naïves is a collection of six Daoust compositions spanning 1986 to 1994.
The opening composition Impromptu is the most recent and an interesting
experiment in composition. Daoust recorded Chopin’s entire
Fantasie-impromptu in C sharp minor, Op. 66 on a sequencer. Daoust extracted
a few key motifs to create a series of ‘Chopin-objects’, which he used as
building blocks to convey the feverishness of Chopin’s writing by unleashing floods
of MIDI data, pushing this technique to its limits. The result being music that
builds slowly from warped strings, organ, and piano to rapid crystalline arpeggios sliced,
diced, and layered to create a wall of sound not unlike Paul Dolden or [John
Oswald’s] Plunderphonics on Grayfolded.
The second composition Il était une fois (1986) is a sound collage that
begins with street sounds and children playing on swings. It develops into a quiet surreal
dream-like world complete with electronic insectoids and birds making it one three standout
compositions on the disc. The third composition Mi bémol (1990) is a short little ditty
using processed bell sounds and voices played both forward and in reverse. The fourth
composition Résonances (1992) is a difficult piece constructed out of a few
bell sounds recorded at the Notre-Dame Basilica in Montréal.
Water Music from 1991 is another of the high points of the disc. Using
the spectrum of sounds created by water Daoust takes us on a sonic journey from a
melting icicle to a swollen stream. Dripping water loops create interesting rhythms that
merge and cascade into a rapidly flowing stream of sounds. The disc closes with another
excellent composition, Fantaisie, a radio collage commissioned by the
Société Radio-Canada for the Prix Italia 1986. It commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of
French production on the state radio network and is an extremely interesting and fun
piece.
Make no mistake, Musiques naïves is experimental music and exists for the
adventurous listener. However, it may be one of the more accessible discs of the genre,
especially for its three outstanding compositions.
“Musiques naïves is evocative and imaginative, and it’s
electroacoustic!”
On Musiques naïves, Canadian electroaoustic composer Yves Daoust
presents an interesting assortment of concert tape music. Impromptu is made
of a flurry of MIDI messages triggering musical motives drawn from the works of Chopin. It
is frenzied and saturated, meant to capture the “feverishness” of Chopin’s
work. Il était une fois is a highly fanciful soundscape inspired by bedtime
stories the composer once told his daughter. Water Music celebrates nature
by focussing on the sound of water dripping for 13 minutes. Fantasie
commemorates 50 years of French national radio and draws its sonic material from archival
recordings, very nostalgic I’m sure. All in all the stuff on Musiques
naïves is evocative and imaginative, and it’s electroacoustic!
by M P inVital #161
(Netherlands), February 10, 1999 |297|
“Once again, empreintes DIGITALes have produced a musical
gem…”
Yves Daoust released the CD
Anecdotes on this same label several years ago, and now there’s this
[(Musique naïves)], in the nifty [OPAK] cardboard packaging which I have
come to associate with excellent electroacoustic music. (Before I get to the aural content,
full marks for the absolutely gorgeous photo-collage [by Luc Beauchemin] on the
cover.)
The CD opens with Impromptu — the most recent piece on this
collection — in which Yves dissected Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu in
C sharp minor, Op.66, by recording it note-by-note and treating it inside a computer.
It starts with a nervous, tentative piano chord, which unexpectedly fluctuates drastically in
pitch setting the tone for the rest of this excellent composition. It slowly builds into a
seething deluge of notes, attack is forcibly seperated from release and the threatening
distortion is cooled towards the end by by a slight shower. It made me think of the
composition Return by our chum Morton Subotnick (thanks for the
responses to last week’s review, all of you who did), which was executed on reasonably
horrid Yamaha synthesizers by Yamaha sequencers and was “a distillation of the piano
works of Scarlatti” (or something like
that), according to Morton himself. Return, by the way, was composed as a
celebration of the Halley’s Comet periodic flyby a couple of years ago.
Next on Musiques naïves is a piece titled Il était une
fois… (conte sans paroles) which is a soundtrack to a dream, lingering
‘somewhere between the narrative and the musical’ with sounds that caress,
floating like weightless feathers and others that leap out in joyful surprise. No danger
here. This is followed by Mi bémol, a three minute piece composed
for the first empreintes DIGITALes compilation Électro
clips, which was also my introduction to this label — an absolutely brilliant CD,
which was followed by a similar compilation in 1998, Miniatures concrètes
— a celebration of 50 years since musique concrète’s ‘invention,’
which I own but have not fallen so rapidly under the spell of.
The fourth track Résonances was constructed from church bell sounds.
Again the individual sounds are split into tinier and tinier fragments creating shimmering
cascades of bells which gradually smear back into their original shape and pitch, now tight,
then loose. Sustain is stretched — faint reflections and scattered points of sound
bounce off drifting clouds of dust motes in ancient buildings. Water Music
was inspired. like so many pieces, electroacoustic and otherwise, by the element water.
(Check out Annette Vande Gorne’s
release Tao [and Musiques
naïves by Yves Daoust] on this same label for a
superb piece around this theme.) Perhaps it’s because the rich palette of frequencies
and moods inherent in water can evoke and inspire any emotion, feeling or memory. The final
track Fantasie was constructed from radio archives and was commissioned to
commemorate the 50th anniversary of French production on the state radio network.
Once again, empreintes DIGITALes have produced a musical gem, no easy
listening or background sounds here, but a demanding and rewarding journey through the
topography of Yves Daoust’s imagination.
Sublime!
Oh Yes! I nearly forgot to mention Robert Normandeau’s
definitive CD Lieux inouïs, which is perhaps my favourite CD on this label,
can I have a copy please, sir.
His other full-length CD on empreintes DIGITALes,
Tangram, was made [originally] available as a double CD of the same track,
the second CD was recorded from a multiple speaker performance master (if I remember
correctly?) and was also a gem.
Yves Daoust is a master of sound
manipulation. In the beginning, a piano fights for space with itself. Two minutes in, there
is a chaotic battle of notes involving the piano vs. that same piano, which ensues into a
melee of bickering between the piano’s close relatives and finally, burst of white and
pink noise which drive the piece into the new millennium. As the storms calms, the sounds of
rain is introduced as a sort of closure. This 10-minute absorption follows with the familiar
sound of a child’s swing-set. Daoust stretches the screeching hinges
farther and farther out into a computer-generated piece which could pass for hypnotic
robot-speak. Daoust’s strength lies in his ability
to take found sounds and stretch them into a new, yet unheard environment. At the same time,
artificial sounds emulate our daily environment. It is a dichotomy that proves exciting with
every listen. The final piece, Fantaisie is created entirely from radio
samples. The environment Daoust sculpts proves to be such on
oxymoron, it is disturbing, yet equally enthralling. A distant piano rambling on, stuck in a
decrementing timer, slowly winding themselves down, while other samples of otherworldly radio
nature weave their way into the mix. Musique naïves is perhaps the most
exciting collection of found, and manipulated sound I have ever witnessed.
by Dominique Olivier inVoir
(Québec), November 26, 1998 |283_8|
“… très beau disque de Daoust, touchant, à la fois familier et
débordant d’imagination: Musiques naïves.”
Lors du dernier mini-festival d’art acousmatique Rien à voir
— organisé par Réseaux au Théâtre de la Chapelle -, l’étiquette
de disques montréalaise empreintes DIGITALes lançait sa plus récente
fournée. L’étiquette, qui n’est consacrée qu’à la musique
électroacoustique, offre deux nouveaux «compacts-compacts», c’est-à-dire des disques
d’une durée plus courte dans un boîtier plus compact, et trois CD d’une durée
normale. Comme toujours, les pochettes sont absolument admirables. Les compositeurs Yves
Daoust, Jacques Tremblay, Robert
Normandeau, Darren Copeland et Ned
Bouhalassa nous en font voir de toutes les couleurs, couleurs de son, bien entendu. À
souligner, le remixage de Lieux inouïs de Normandeau et le
très beau disque de Daoust, touchant, à la fois familier et
débordant d’imagination: Musiques naïves.
by Clément Trudel inLe Devoir
(Québec), October 26, 1998 |282_1|
“L’étiquette empreintes DIGITALes lance trois
disques…”
Dans ce qui pourra se révéler un «cinéma pour l’oreille», le théâtre La Chapelle
propose, du 28 octobre au 1er novembre, une immersion dans la musique concrète ou
«acousmatique». Cinq jours d’électro pour souligner les 50 ans d’une musique
inventée par le Français Pierre Schaeffer.
Parmi les compositeurs de musique concrète, l’un des plus prolifiques est François Bayle qui dirigea à Paris,
durant 30 ans, l’INA-GRM ou Groupe de recherches musicales de l’ORTF. Ces
journées organisées par Réseaux font la part du
lion à Bayle que certains qualifient de «légende
vivante». Le samedi, 31, les concerts de 19h et de 21h (Rétrospective no 1 et Rétrospective
no 2) portent entièrement sur des œuvres de Bayle. Ces concerts sont repris le dimanche
(1er novembre) aux mêmes heures. François Bayle s’entretient
dimanche (14h) avec de jeunes compositeurs.
Un catalogue abrégé de ses œuvres présenté par la revue d’esthétique musicale
LIEN (printemps 1994) contient une cinquantaine de titres. Sous la direction de Michel
Chion, LIEN a recueilli une vingtaine de témoignages de musiciens et de compositeurs sur
Bayle, auteur de plusieurs ouvrages
théoriques. Certains ont découvert l’électroascoustique au contact d’œuvres
comme L’Oiseau chanteur ou Espaces inhabitables de Bayle, dont
l’un des disques porte le titre Motion-Émotion.
Cet événement Rien à voir (4)
accueille trois autres compositeurs: le Montréalais Stéphane Roy (mercredi 28); le
Suédois Erik Michael Karlsson qui
offre (jeudi 29) ses propres compositions (19h) suivies à 21h, d’une Carte blanche.
Venu d’Allemagne, le compositeur Ludger Brümmer, qui a remporté en
1993 le prix Ars Electronica d’Autriche, offrira deux concerts le 30 octobre.