Yves Beaupré: Humeur de facteur: critiques

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Humeur de facteur

Yves Beaupré

Humeur de facteur

[The Maker’s Humour]

empreintes DIGITALes | IMED 0160 | 2001

CD 25.00 CA$ [?]

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Review

par Adrian Moore in SAN Diffusion (RU), 23 juin 2004 |6140|

«… truly original work…»

The Compact Disc label empreintes DIGITALes currently numbers some 65 discs and embraces a diverse range of electroacoustic music. Yet there are many common motivating forces in this collection, the most notable being the ‘quest’ for sound. The variety of sounds on offer is well highlighted by these two discs, yet the techniques and methods used are remarkably similar and are rooted in this desire to search out the right compositional material.

Humeur de facteur (The Maker’s Humour) is some 54 minutes in length and consists of six movements, each one an individual making up part of the whole. Beaupré, a harpsichord manufacturer and composer (in both cases a builder) seems to bring the same sense of attention to detail to his music as he does to his harpsichord construction. The work itself resides in the world of the harpsichord; mainly pitched material treated and resynthesised to offer new timbral worlds. Inharmonic drone-textures shelter granulated plucked strings whilst small metallic percussion hint at the delicate interior of the harpsichord. There is a highly fluid method of mixing, a delicacy often left behind when working with so many disparate sources. It would be all too easy to wallow yet Beaupré manages to create a polyphony that offers a unique combination of weight and power, with enough breathing room to take it all in. The polyphony relies upon submersion in pitch and mode and Beaupré creates transitions between modes through spatial dissolves and other ‘ethereal’ scenes. At times, Beaupré forces his sounds upon us through mechanical repetition, but we are quickly lured back inside his world through bell-like sonorities and other more ominous textures.

Without being in any way melancholic, the work hints at the solitary life of the instrument maker, alone (but at one) with his work. Perfectly mastered - if you want to hear some of the bass attacks you’ll have to endure a fair degree of midrange pitch material - Humeur de facteur presents some wonderful sound-worlds. It seems apparent that after listening several times, the uniqueness of each movement is not as obvious as it might have first appeared. Moreover, the relationship between the movements becomes more beguiling as the work develops. It would not be naïve to assume however that no matter where in the 54 minutes the form became unfathomable, it is possible to ‘readjust’ ones hearing, enjoy the sonorities on offer, and quickly come back to the piece as a whole. In fact this work raises some of the most fundamental questions about so-called ‘old school’ electroacoustic music: Sound over form; a polyphony of disparate sources and pseudo-narrative structures (despite the abstract sound-world, the vast landscapes afford visualisation and to a certain extent, quantification). It is Beaupré’s mixing that offers us some answers. It is colourful and delicate yet purposeful and at times profound. In a dark corner, this is perhaps where the Humeur de facteur can be found.

Fractures on the other hand finds itself rooted in a world of noise, chimeras born of real world sounds and synthetic noises. Whilst Beaupré placed emphasis on the vertical through mixing, Bouchard directs his attention to the horizontal, focusing our listening towards the passing of time: The montage here is timed to perfection.

Angle mort is a Kingdom hospital of sound, dealing with ‘the struggle between antibodies and viruses and the auditory point of view of the patient surrounded by machines in a hospital room’. Sounds are clear and well balanced; given their individual complexity, too much mixing would be inappropriate. At times, metallic drones provide a skin for the scars of glitch. But this is not really ‘glitch’. These small sounds, driven by dark rhythms possess a certain resolve. They are the right sounds at the right place at the right time. Whilst these small glitches could be heard as the sounds of mechanical error outside of the work, their contextualisation is definite; not only from sound to sound but within the sound itself. Each sound seems clinically prepared and the mastering is excellent. Bouchard draws you in to his dark and strangely impersonal world through a fairly frenetic opening section. We are suddenly made self-aware - and perhaps we are patient - as the sound world turns in on itself. As the piece draws on it becomes increasingly difficult to follow the pace of the music. The timbral invention of the first ten minutes loses some of its vitality, leaving one feeling slightly empty at the close of the work.

Bouchard then presents us with his sketches in the form of Trois miniatures en suite. These short vignettes shed light upon the remainder of the disc and give us an insight into Bouchard’s working method.

Without conjuring an inevitable Deleuze & Guattari moment, it seems safe to say that in Parcelles, a work focusing upon sounds that seem to organize themselves from what appears to be chaos and ‘create a music I am often the only one to hear’, Bouchard is talking about the elusive rhizome. Both Parcelles 1 and Parcelles 2 (some 20 minutes in total, split into 7 and 5 movements respectively) draw naturally upon Trois miniatures… but also incorporate the darkness of Angle mort. Dark however becomes bleak and impersonal becomes inevitable. The inevitability of sound pervades Bouchard’s music, as indeed does his compassion towards the recorded ‘scenes’ (something that transpired only after numerous auditions). At once a contradiction appears. We are borrowing Bouchard’s memories - it is wonderful but at the same time it is not enough. In Bouchard’s words these are ‘incredible moments’ he wanted to share but they are but ‘fragments of moments’. (I actually prefer the French, partager which doesn’t sound as personal.) We are continually invited to grasp at the moment but it is continually torn away.

These may sound like negatives but over a good pair of loudspeakers, one can almost touch these invitations of sound, such is the clarity of recording and mastering involved. So in a sense, one is offered a chance of being part of ‘the moment’, not too much so as to become overly attached and not too little so as not to recognise it.

Naturally one must go beyond the traditions and forms of the past: these are short movements of between one and four minutes. Must they have a form? Can they not just be structured? What is fascinating about these two pieces is the continuity between cuts and the bizarre concoction of real life (albeit filtered and edited) and a lurking synthetic residue. Try to focus upon the ‘moment’ and physically edit the cuts out of the work and this music becomes frustrating. Let it wash over you and you will be disappointed. In short, Parcelles (and to some extent Angle mort) require extended, attentive listening, preferably over a good pair of loudspeakers that can project the beautifully crafted full range sounds, glitches and hard edits. I particularly liked the energy of the penultimate movement in Parcelles 2, Brazil Wins. We are presented with some truly original work on this compact disc.


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L’année des clavecins Yves Beaupré

par Réjean Beaucage in La Scena Musicale #9:6 (Québec), 1 mars 2004 |760|

«… un disque très original…»

C’est devant tout le milieu québécois de la musique de concert qu’Yves Beaupré, facteur de clavecins, est allé cueillir le 25 janvier dernier le prix Opus Reconnaissance à un facteur d’instruments. Le Conseil québécois de la musique lui a remis ce Prix, accompagné d’une bourse de 5000$ offerte par la Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC), pour l’ensemble de son œuvre, qui compte plus de 100 instruments livrés au Canada, aux États-Unis et en Europe.

Le facteur, complice du musicien

Cette distinction montre combien le travail des luthiers, facteurs et autres artisans importe dans la démarche artistique des musiciens. Cette importance peut difficilement être mieux démontrée que dans le travail d’Yves Beaupré. Depuis 1982, il permet aux musiciens d’explorer le répertoire baroque sur des instruments fidèles à leur époque de référence.

Pour Yves Beaupré, «le Prix Opus apporte une notoriété qui aide le travail mais elle met surtout en évidence le travail accompli». Les instruments qu’il fabrique ont déjà permis à des centaines de musiciens de participer au renouveau de la musique baroque.

Un bon instrument fait toute la différence pour le musicien. Le claveciniste Luc Beauséjour remportait trois Prix Opus en janvier dernier: «En faisant des clavecins bien réglés, inspirants, dont l’univers sonore permet de bien traduire la musique, le travail d’Yves Beaupré m’a forcément aidé car l’instrument, qui est en fait la ‘voix’ de l’interprète, est un précieux allié lors du travail de répétition ou lors d’une prestation en concert.» Bien qu’il n’enregistre pas exclusivement sur les clavecins Yves Beaupré, Luc Beauséjour fait presque tous ses concerts avec ceux-ci. Il possède personnellement un clavecin français à deux claviers fait en 1998, d’après Hemsch et Blanchet (deux facteurs parisiens du milieu xviiie siècle).

La démarche artistique de l’artisan

Depuis plus de 20 ans, les clavecins Yves Beaupré ont acquis une réputation enviable grâce à leur excellente sonorité, leur mécanique fiable, leur stabilité et leur apparence soignée. Comme beaucoup d’autres artisans, Yves Beaupré a d’abord débuté comme musicien. Il a choisi le clavecin pour le baccalauréat en interprétation à l’Université de Montréal, où Réjean Poirier lui a enseigné. C’est par nécessité qu’il en est venu à fabriquer son premier instrument à la fin du bac en 1977. Après l’étude approfondie des principales collections d’instruments anciens (Paris, Anvers, Édimbourg, Washington, etc.), Yves Beaupré a su s’inspirer des éléments les plus convaincants et les plus représentatifs des grandes écoles de facture.

Tous ses instruments sont fabriqués suivant les principes de la facture traditionnelle: choix des matériaux, mesures et conception acoustique. Réjean Poirier, le doyen de la Faculté de musique de l’Université de Montréal, connaît bien la démarche d’Yves Beaupré: «Les anciens ont porté à un haut niveau de perfection la facture du clavecin. Les facteurs d’aujourd’hui n’ont pas à réinventer le clavecin, mais ils n’ont pas non plus à se limiter à faire des copies serviles. Un praticien chevronné comme Yves Beaupré a développé une compréhension profonde de chaque type d’instrument. Chaque fois qu’il reprend un plan, il modifie certains détails afin, par exemple, de donner plus de stabilité, d’enrichir le timbre dans un certain registre, mais tout cela sans jamais dénaturer le lien avec le modèle.» Danièle Forget, sa complice dans le travail et dans la vie, décore avec goût et maîtrise chaque instrument, selon l’esthétique qui leur convient.

Luc Beauséjour dit encore: «Ce sont de très bons instruments, spécialement depuis une dizaine d’années. Ils ne sont pas toujours puissants mais la qualité de leur timbre fait leur force. Les meilleurs instruments de Beaupré sonnent particulièrement bien en enregistrement. L’égalité du toucher dépend du grand talent qu’a Yves Beaupré à tailler avec minutie les becs qui pincent les cordes. De plus, les instruments sont décorés sobrement et avec goût.»

Réjean Poirier se souvient des crises d’orientation de son élève: «Encore aujourd’hui, il ressent le besoin de toucher à autre chose. Maintenant, c’est la composition électroacoustique ! Je dois admettre que, là aussi, il fait de fort belles choses.»

Fasciné par le travail sur la sonorité, c’est tout naturellement qu’il en est venu à enregistrer les bruits produits par son travail en atelier pour ensuite se faire électroacousticien et produire un disque très original intitulé Humeur de facteur (Empreintes Digitales, IMED 0160)

Acquéreurs et utilisateurs

Les clavecins d’Yves Beaupré sont utilisés par plusieurs musiciens reconnus en plus d’avoir été aquis par plusieurs universités et orchestres canadiens. À Montréal et à Toronto, on peut penser à Christopher Jackson, Paul Jenkins, Catherine Perrin, Rachel Taylor, Yves G. Préfontaine et William Wright.


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Lancements

par Gilles Boisclair in SOCAN, Paroles & Musique #10:4 (Canada), 1 décembre 2003 |672_3|

«Un voyage insolite et intrigant.»

La musique électroacoustique est comme la peinture abstraite, sa séduction ne réside pas dans le figuratif ou la mélodie mais dans les textures sonores, dans la jouissance du son brut. Claveciniste et facteur de clavecins, Yves Beaupré a été aussi conseiller musical et à la prise de son. Ceci l’amène à s’intéresser à la qualité sonore puis, par la suite, à se passionner pour l’électroacoustique. Humeur de facteur est le résultat de cette passion. Yves Beaupré nous invite à découvrir les sons et les bruits qui habitent son atelier. Un voyage insolite et intrigant.


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Kritik

par M B in Testcard #13 (Allemagne), 1 juillet 2003 |741|


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Kritik

par Stefan Hetzel in Bad Alchemy #40 (Allemagne), 1 août 2002 |757|


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Kritik

par ASB in De:Bug (Allemagne), 23 juillet 2002 |505_9|

Das kanadische Label empreintes DIGITALes beschäftigt sich mit Elektroakustik, Musique concrète und Audio Art. All diese Musiken verarbeiten neben den Klängen von Musikinstrumenten auch konkretes Tonmaterial wie Alltagsklänge und gefundene Geräusche. Der Kanadier Yves Beaupré ist nicht nur Cembalo-Bauer und -Spieler, sondern auch Klangsammler. So finden sich auf seinem Debüt neben Saiteninstrumentensounds auch im Rechner bearbeitete Klänge von Holz und Holzwerkzeugen. Francis Dhomont ist Pionier der elektroakustischen Musik und Schüler von Pierre Schaeffer. Die Herkunft der in „Cycle du son“ verwendeten Originalsounds ist im Gegensatz zu Beauprés Musik durch die elektronische Bearbeitung nicht mehr festzustellen. Bei allen Unterschieden im Umgang mit dem Klangmaterial ergeben sich zwei sehr dichte und spannende Hörstücke zwischen abstrakten Soundcollagen und instrumentalem Hörspiel. Oder einfach „Kino für die Ohren“, wie Francis Dhomont seine Musik nennt. 4/5


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Kritik

par T™ in Black #28 (Allemagne), 1 juillet 2002 |516_5|


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Review

par Jeremy Keens in Ampersand Etcetera #2002_8 (Australie), 20 juin 2002 |516|

«… a delightful album of sounds which have been recorded selected processed and sequenced with an ear to the delicate and fascinating relationships that can be created through them.»

Beaupré’s is an album of harpsichord music, but composed from sounds recorded while he makes them (percussive, plucking, planing and so on) processed and constructed electroacousticly. Not surprisingly it is a complex album, which hardly ever really reveals its origin. Prélude démesuré rumbles, twitters, tinkles loops, percusses, sirens and fades. More fragments in La Beauséjour including some string strums, then looped rhythms, dits, soft tones, some voicey propulsion; strings looping and light hammering; tones chits and more voices, relaxed ratchets, computer boobles; building light percussion, the strums return manipulated, loose and stretched, whispering end. The other tracks are similarly eclectic - more angular in La Laurendeau with a loop that sounds like ‘into the car’ (unlikely as it is) and percussive, La Pelots Point is abstract and dramatic, with a plucked melody which leads to the still heart of the album, tones and scrabbly voices, very lovely. After which the piece rebuilds with some computer bubbles - the samples have been processed - keening tones. More little noises and melody in La DDB with swirls tones and processed voices (was Baupré talking to himself? The clittery clatter drones tones and more of Péroraison provide an rhythmic and lovely conclusion. Neither academic nor unapproachable, this is a delightful album of sounds which have been recorded selected processed and sequenced with an ear to the delicate and fascinating relationships that can be created through them. Begun in the labour of wood and metal work this is a grounded and delightful album.


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Review

par Frans de Waard in Vital #329 (Pays-Bas), 20 juin 2002 |514_3|

‘The Maker’s Humour’ is the translation of the title, and in this case the maker is Yves Beaupré. Not just the maker of this CD, but he’s also a professional builder of harpsichords, spinets and virginals. In the mid eighties Yves set up a small electronic studio, partly to do research for his instrument building, but also to create music. By using sounds from the instruments he builts, plus most likely from the process of building these, Yves crafts together six fine electroaoustic pieces. From this side of the musical spectrum we usually get all of these thumbling sounds which fall over each other, but Yves Beaupré treats his sounds in a rather fresh way. By looping, filtering and pitch changing, he builts very interesting collages of sound in the finest electroaoustic tradition, that will probably appeal also to pieces blend into eachother and form one large work, rather then six smaller parts.

From New Zealand hails John Young, who studied composition with Denis Smalley and worked in the UK for a while. He uses acousmatic sounds, ie environmental sounds and processes them. Unlike Beaupré he stays more in the classical sense of processing, even when at times the unprocessed field recordings shine through it. There scratches, wind blowing in microphones, rain falling on roofs and high peeps of metal scraped on glass. In general they are nice pieces, but at times a bit too long and a more accurate mix could have been possible and things would have hold their tension much better.


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Critique

par Pierre Durr in Revue & Corrigée #52 (France), 1 juin 2002 |509_4|

Non, il ne s’agit pas d’une quelconque opinion formulée par Besancenot, ni même une allusion au mécontentement de votre préposé habituel à propos de l’application des 35 heures à la Poste.

Yves Beaupré est facteur d’instruments. Plus particulièrement de clavecin. Il en joue aussi d’ailleurs. Passionné par ailleurs par les traitements sonores, il nous offre ici une suite en six tableaux, basée sur l’informatisation des sonorités des divers matériaux de son instrument de prédilection (bois, laiton…).

Chaque séquence, à la fois autonome et partie d’un tout, visite non pas tant des paramètres différents, mais un univers sonore distinct. Ainsi, La Beauséjour laisse davantage que les autres tableaux transparaitre les sons de cordes, plus ou moins cristallins, tandis que La Laurendeau travaille plutôt sur des timbres évoquant l’univers aquatique des bruitages de “Yellow submarine” ou de “Octopus Garden”: La Pelots point est parcourue de sonorités lugubres, d’effets de voix un peu chaotiques pour déboucher sur la DDB, vaste parcours d’un espace désertique parfois traversé et peu à peu animé par la présence de telle ou telle espèce virtuelle inquiétante.


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Critique

in JazzoSphère (France), 1 juin 2002 |509_1|

«Un travail surprenant et inventif qui… parvient à toucher à l’essentiel.»

Yves Beaupré nous présente avec son album Humeur de facteur une série de pièces en guise d’illustration d’une partie du travail accompli, depuis plusieurs années, sur le son et les musiques électroacoustiques. Yves Beaupré arrive à la composition après avoir longtemps réfléchi sur le timbre, l’acoustique et la facture des clavecins. Une activité qui lui tient à cour et qui lui a donné le goût et l’attention nécessaires aux mélanges de sons, aux juxtapositions bruitistes les plus diverses. Humeur de facteur reflète parfaitement son intérêt pour les recherches électroacoustiques. Les six pièces se lisent séparément et pourtant elles participent chacune au tout. Un travail surprenant et inventif qui, loin des péroraisons inutiles, parvient à toucher à l’essentiel. Exploration minimaliste entre son et silence pour le plaisir de l’auditeur.


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Nouveautés

in Virgin Megaweb Megactu (France), 1 juin 2002 |506|

«… qui s’écoute et se savoure.»

Humeur de facteur, c’est de la musique contemporaine qui s’écoute et se savoure. Plutôt ambient avec ses échos de clavecins modifiés, mais pleine de piquouses douces amères. Le Canadien Yves Beaupré en résume lui-même l’étrangeté: «Jour après jour, dans mon atelier de fabrication de clavecins, en plein travail concret et tangible, j’entends tous ces sons-bruits se superposant à l’odeur de bois qui m’entoure…»


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Review

par Matthew McFarlane in Musicworks (Canada), 1 juin 2002 |504_5|

«… his connections to older musical forms allow for a creative expression drawn to the past but intensely interested in the future.»

He has been featured in numerous press reports, he’s had sales all over the worid, and his craft has been featured on countless recordings. So you might be wondering why you’ve never heard of Yves Beaupré on the electroacoustic circuit. Well, Beaupré is known more for great harpsichords than for great compositions. He has, however, had a lifelong fascination with computers and electroacoustic music, and four years ago, from his workshop in the Plateau of Montréal, Beaupré listened to the sounds around him and decided that he wanted to try his hand at composition. Humeur de facteur, released by the prominent Montréal electroacoustic label empreintes DIGITALes, is the result of a nine-month sabbatical from the worid of drills, sanders, wood, and metal.

Beaupré is obviously influenced by the Montréal school of composers, such as Normandeau, Gobeil, and Dhomont. However, there is less cinematic vision in his work and more emphasis on musical and extra-musical sound. Beaupré gathered source material in his workshop and then manipulated it in his home studio. At times, reference to the harpsichord is very clear, particularly in La Beauséjour, a tribute to the famous Montréal harpsichordist. This piece strikes me as the strongest on the album. Full-textured and rich in sonic material, it is also, at times, extremely rhythmic. Beaupré, a true lover of music, admits to the influence of Montréal-school techno in parts of the disc. But he draws us back to his own craft by using recognizable harpsichord material. This grounds the listener, both musically and sonically.

A striking feature of the music is the thought that clearly went into the structural aspects of the work. In La Laurendeau, simple repeated patterns shift in and out of a richly textured background. Furthermore, Beaupré’s sense of layering is impressive. There is a sense that he is guiding us through a sonic geography. His ability to move from one sound environment to another without a sense of progression is magnificent. The fourth track, La Pelots Point, named for a location on Lake Champlain, is inspired by Beaupré’s love of sailing. The sharp opening rhythmic texture of the composition is broken midway through the movement by a Iyrical and harmonic passage that fades into the background. There is a meditative feeling to this section, almost as if Beaupré were alluding to the Renaissance with a type of electric chanting.

A highlight of this disc for me is its intense focus on musical elements, not just on sound. Both the quiet Iyricism and the moments of driving rhythmic intensity make this disc unforgettable. It’s not just sound that Beaupré layers, but musical textures and sonorities. Furthermore, his occupation and his connections to older musical forms allow for a creative expression drawn to the past but intensely interested in the future. Humeur de facteur is an auspicious start to Beaupré’s compositional career.


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Kritiek

par SVS in Audiotest #11 (Belgique), 1 juin 2002 |504_3|

Het Franse label empreintes DIGITALes biedt onderdak aan een resem al dan niet obscure avantgardekunstenaars waarvan Robert Normandeau en Hildegard Westerkamp de bekendste zijn. Met Cycle du son betoont Francis Dhomont eer aan de legendarische geluidskunstenaar Pierre Schaeffer. Het vierdelige stuk maakt zowel gebruik van samples uit Schaeffers legendarische compositie Études Aux Objets, als geluiden uit Dhomonts eigen klankencollectie. De akoestische clash van die twee werelden is een onheilspellend, maar altijd boeiend geluidsdecor vol glashelder resonerende klankspelen.

Humeur de facteur van Yves Beaupré is een klankencollage opgebouwd uit timmerhokgeluiden: geluid afkomstig van en gemaakt door allerlei voorwerpen, gereedschap, hout en dies meer. Die bronnen worden vervolgens via elektronica van hun identiteit gestript en tot functioneel element van de compositie gebombardeerd. Het resultaat blijft over de hele lijn intrigerend en stuwt je door een vaak hallucinante dimensie van overheerlijke klankschepsels.

De Nieuw-Zeelander John Young dwingt de luisteraar zijn van wonderlijke details voorziene La limite du bruit met een hoofdtelefoon te beluisteren. Zo fladderen de ratelende, druppelende en schurende klankjes van Pythagoras’s Curtain je trommelvlies in. Even fascinerend is ’Inner’ dat aanvangt met het geluid van iemand die zijn adem inhoudt. Klassieke avantgarde/musique concrète die boeit van a tot z.


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Review

par Graeme Rowland in Brainwashed (ÉU), 26 mai 2002 |503_1|

«Any clot who thinks electroacoustic music has become irredeemably entrenched in the same old gestures and routines should open their ears to this stunning debut from a composer possessed of genius…»

Yves Beaupré beavers away in his workshop building a hundred harpsichords. As he hammers and strings and flexes the things he records the sounds of the instruments’ birth pangs. Lucky for our ears, he stitches the recordings into acousmatic soundscapes that are mysterious, evocative and plain beautiful. Any clot who thinks electroacoustic music has become irredeemably entrenched in the same old gestures and routines should open their ears to this stunning debut from a composer possessed of genius who is going to have a (sur)real challenge surpassing such a masterpiece. This is a richly transporting transparent journey into the guts of the creation process. Images pour from the darkened room into the minds eye of wood and varnish and nails and strings swirling about in a void and accreting magically into a heavenly harpsichord which looms ever larger as I shrink to dust mote size. Boxed inside the vintage contraption, rhythmic structures unfold and coalesce and drone visions of eighteenth century time locks emerge. Historic and modern worlds collide in the computer as small planks become dense forests. And all this without the aid of hallucinogens!


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Kritiek

par S VS in Rif Raf #135 (Belgique), 1 mai 2002 |493_1|

Het Franse label empreintes DIGITALes biedt onderdak aan een resem al dan niet obscure avantgardekunsteneaars waarvan Robert Normandeau en Hildegard Westerkamp de bekendste zijn. Met Cycle du son betoont Yves Beaupré eer aan de legendarische geluidskunstenaar Pierre Schaeffer. Het vierdelige stuk maakt zowel gebruik van samples uit Schaeffers legendarische compositie Études aux objets als geluiden uit Dhomonts eigen klankencollectie. De akoestische clash van die twee werelden is een onheilspellend, maar altijd boeiend geluidsdecor voI glashelder resonerende klankspelen.

Humeur de facteur van Yves Beaupré is een klankencollage opgebouwd uit timmerhokgeluiden: geluid van en door allerlei voorwerpen, gereedschap, hout en dies meer. Die bronnen worden vervolgens via elektronica van hun identiteit gestrip en tot functioneel element van de compositie gebombardeerd. Het resultaat blijft over de hele lijn intrigerend en stuwt je door een vaak hallucinante dimensie van overheerlijke klankschepsels. De Nieuw-Zeelander John Young dwingt de luisteraar zijn van wonderlijke details voorziene La limite du bruit met een hoofdtelefoon te beluisteren. Zo fladderen de ratelende, druppelende en schurende klankes van Pythagoras’s Curtain zalig je trommelvlies in. Even fasciinerend is Inner dat aanvangt met het geluid van iemand die zijn adem inhoudt. Wat volgt lkijkt op een sonische tocht door de bronchien van de proefpersoon in kwestie. Of de geluiden in de hersens van iemand na het inhaleren van een overdosis N2O, wie zal het zeggen? Verbaas uzelf.


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Reviews

par Gary Flanagan in Nightwaves #11 (Canada), 1 avril 2002 |488_2|

«… masterfully executed.»

This is the work of Montréal native Beaupré, who has dedicated himself to harpsichord playing and construction for many years. He is a self-taught expert on frequency analysis and musical composition, and he delved in to the world of electroacoustic music quite some time ago. He has worked with Édouard Lock, as well as the dance troupe La La La Human Steps.

This is a fractured, buzzing, humming ode to deconstruction. It features a clever palette of heavily treated sounds. It is a whirling, non-sensical homage to vertigo. Very avant garde and masterfully executed. Beaupré compares working with sound to working with wood. He is a true craftsman.


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Review

par Ingvar Loco Nordin in Sonoloco Record Reviews (Suède), 1 avril 2002 |487_6|

«… how rich and varied this CD by Yves Beaupré really is.»

Yves Beaupré (1954) began his singular artistic and musical career at Université de Montréal, studying harpsichord performance with Réjean Poirier. Then he involved himself in the construction and building of harpsichords, with all the fine arts that this endeavor brought with it. He had to dig deep into facets like historical research and acoustic investigations into building material and timbres.

Beaupré has been building harpsichords, spinets and virginals for two decades now, rendering him an esteemed name internationally. During his instrument-making career he has built about 100 instruments in his Montréal workshop to date; a handsome collection of artistic gems!

However, Yves Beaupré’s intense interest in sound — the nature of sound — which he amply put to the test in his almost primeval focus on the smallest timbral effect of construction details of the pure instruments that materialized under his hands, led him further, into a private studio which he set up at home in 1985. Arriving at the art of recorded sound — tape music and electronic music — by way of harpsichord building, he had unusually well-tuned ears and an unusually focused sound-mind. It would seem his very original career would make him perfectly fit for the innumerable variation of timbres of electroacoustic, acousmatic and electronic music.

Beaupré keeps on building instruments, but a lot of his time these days is set aside for electroacoustic composition. He has, for example, teaming up with Édouard Lock, mounted a magnetic pickup system for harpsichord.

This release is his first CD. I can hardly think of anyone else who has lived such a long time in a preparatory state — even if that was not the conscious state of affairs, and even if my statement about “preparatory” only has a bearing on the electronic sounds on this CD (maybe to be considered just an off-spring or a side-effect of the craftsman’s craft…), but the thought or vision of electronic, electroacoustic music that takes its inspiration and dynamics from many years of building acoustic instruments and then reaches the world with news of sounds, only — in this particular context — submitting the story of the decades in the workshop in a subordinate clause, thrills me! Nonetheless, this was the road taken by chance or necessity by Yves Beaupré, and here we are with the result in the laser box, and I am inspired by looking at these pictures of the beautiful instruments that Beaupré has built, which you can se at his Internet site — and I also suddenly recall an old friend of mine (not one of the closest friends, but not just an acquaintance either) who went to harpsichord-building courses in Northern Germany in the early 1970s, and so this CD from empreintes DIGITALes opens up many new rooms inside my mind (some filled with memories I had forgotten…).

Track 1 — Prélude démesuré — commences in a François Bayle “Toupie dans le ciel”-atmosphere and progression… right there in the opening, swirling, rhythmically erotic spinning motion, which you wonder where it will head, out across a slippery slope of glass or ice… In the dark, rhythmic web of pulsation tiny sparks of sonic fire appear, like fireflies in hedges and bushes, and a second rhythmic layer in a higher pitch, counter-pointing the darker pulsation, rises out of nowhere and becomes clear and mosquito-whining. The whole scenery is panning wildly and fast, and the feeling of spatiality is one of fast back and forth-movements inside another, general, stronger movement ahead, as were you bouncing back and forth between the walls of a railway car in a steadily moving freight train across Big Sky Montana or Famous Potatoes Idaho!

The tingling sensation is that of sand particles or small industrial diamonds falling down on a conveyor-belt, or maybe like early morning sand-in-eyes or the sensation of invisible sand dust between your teeth after an Arizona sand-storm rolling across the highway outside Phoenix, having everybody stop on the curb; the poor guys without AC rolling up their windows, still having the nasty minerals seep in everywhere… yes, such is the seasoning sensation of tingling, grating sounds of minuscule auditory grains in this part of Yves Beaupré’s Prélude démesuré!

It’s a pleasurable, fast moving sensation, listening to this music; breezy, intricate, at times soaring on a certain level, while still anchored in rock bottom material through darker, ambient audio, which towards the end allows for a repetitious deep percussion, while the grainy level turns into jingle jangle tingle tangle chain sonics, like passing through a hippie curtain of Indian Hare Krishna bells attached to hemp ropes or macramé of cold water flat passages between hallways and bedrooms in London or Stockholm in 1969…

La Beauséjour is the title of track 2. The music opens with sharp incisions and a turning perspective of timbres, until shortly a surprisingly acoustical zither- or harp sound spreads its gold. I suppose it is Mr. Beaupré sliding his fingers across the strings of one of the instruments he builds. The topography gets rougher here than in the preceding piece, but soon a train line rhythm sets in, and you’re just waiting for the steam whistle to blow — and it’s Long John from Bowling Green… and did you hear that Dylan bootleg; maybe it was “Great White Wonder”, but could’ve been one of the other, early, famous bootlegs by the youngster from the Mesabi iron ore range up in Hibbing, Minnesota…

You’re inside a trembling oil barrel, as the vibrations tap manically on your tympanic membranes. Sad and absent-minded soft melodies are more sensed than actually heard through the web of sounds, like fragments of dreams or the beginning of thoughts which blow away before taking shape, and much is going on; lighthouse-much on a day when winds are gusting and gulls flutter around the lonely tower out at sea, shrieking, ascending, descending in white, noisy motions above the waves…

The myriad of little tweaks make me feel the invisible presence of minor munching creatures, munching away at time and duration like some little Sesame Street guys… and the music turns merry-go-round minimalistic, in a modern Italian-style Luca Miti electronica homage to Terry Riley and old gurus at the shores of the Ganges in Varanasi. Phase shifts and in-and-out stitching into the web make you a little dizzy; pleasantly so, like were you somewhat intoxicated by a small amount of hard liquor… and then it all oozes out into some free-form improvisational jazz, like a section of Rotcod Zzaj or some of the flimsier moments of master musician Ernesto Diaz-Infante of California…

Track 3 is called La Laurendeau, opening on a strong timbral note, flapping out, winding up like a doll-house grandfather’s clock gone completely watery berserk, accompanied by softly bulging aquarium fondlings of water and kind thoughts, floating about like submerged intensions of good will. I think of smiling seals in old Beatles songs, or perhaps Cousteau undersea films, replayed on Discovery Channel. The bulging, swaying quality of this music, paired with the pitch shift effects on the beads of prickly, tiny percussive dots have me lay back in an imagined floating position, hearing bells of submerged cathedrals toll for you know who — don’t ask for whom! — and it’s all a fairy tale of a character and a sensualism not unlike the phase-crazy hydrophone recordings of David Dunn in his wonderful piece “Chaos and the Emergent Mind of the Pond”…

So far I haven’t gotten any associations at all back to Yves Beaupré’s inspirational instrument building shop in Montréal, which is a good mark, showing that the composer hasn’t made it easy on himself.

I might quote myself from a posting I did to the CEC mailing list (cecdiscuss@concordia.ca) the other night, when someone wanted all verbal thoughts on music — I guess he basically talked about the writing about music, and even more precisely; program notes — banned, since if the music wasn’t self-sufficient without accompanying words, it wasn’t much to talk about anyway. I said:

“Listening to music and expressing anything that is awoken or induced by the music can lead to mysterious places that you’ve never visited before, and in the end it may have nothing to do with the music that started that chain of inner events - but the sequence began in the music. Writing about music is riding a jerky horse at a Texan rodeo in Mesquite; a bouncing adventure which might land you in the dust, but that’s the moment when DUST becomes interesting, and you can slip down into the mineral worlds - and you’ll still be writing about music. Let go and let happen, Mr. Man!”

This general approach that I advocate above is inherent in Yves Beaupré’s musical work. He begins in his workshop, but ends up anywhere, as my review plainly tells. This is good! It demonstrates what a fantastic adventure life is; this life, all the ones before and the millions to come. Keep on keeping on! Om Mani Padme Hum!

Sometimes the pace — though in a constant movement — comes to a peculiar, meditative rest, right there inside the movement forth, and that’s when I like this the most, when the craftsman sort of raises his hands from his work and breathes…

The 4th track is La Pelots Point. It immediately fills the sounding space available with eerie timbres of the hereafter or the imminent hereafter, or perhaps of a daydream anxiety-event while riding a turboprop waying westward, like in Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain” (beautifully interpreted by Peter, Paul and Mary); that long lost longing for “home”; a metaphysical home of homes, which can not be found as long as we insist on being born all the time, over and over… never getting tired enough of this flickering, blinding sequence of lives that pass, pass, pass — so fast that the stream of lives, seemingly an obvious rhythmic encounter, turns into pitch (which in turn reminds me of how Stockhausen turned pitch into rhythm and vice versa in “Kontakte” of 1959 - 1960). It never ends. It truly never does end! It just twists and turns and spirals through the space-time continuum! Tally-hoe! The Space Cattle Herders are on the move! The Universe is our Home! Make yourself comfortable!

Sparky, sudden events of short durations kick in and out, giving me nice feelings of early electronic music of the WDR-studio of Cologne, but soon this veers over into the French idiom of poetic acousmatics of GRM (Groupe de recherches musicales) of Paris, equally nicely felt inside my musical frames of reference — and I realize how rich and varied this CD by Yves Beaupré really is. There is no time to get tired of his sounds, but there are places to rest, sections to meditate — and places to mourn, as I hear sounds reminding me of radio transmissions from the ship Estonia which went down all of a sudden in a September storm in the Baltic Sea in 1994, drowning over 800 people — and I used those radio transmissions to compose a radiophonic textsound piece simply called “Requiem”, which I paired with another piece of mine called “The Land That is Not”, dealing with the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986, on a private CD that will never be commercially available (it was mostly a way for myself to work through these events and try to understand them in a physical, fleshy way)… and here I hear a soft and caring melody in the distance inside Beaupré’s work, slowly disappearing inside deep murmurs as of buses passing by outside, giving off infra sounds, but the soft, melodic, modal sounds reappear, like individual organ pipes of an old stone church in Gotland emitting encoded messages for times to come… and for the first time on this CD I hear people, voices, whistlings, calls… like in a memory or a dream… out of time…

Track 5 is cryptically entitled La DDB. It has body, and sparkles with gushes of twinkling sounds, riding on rolling carpets of auditory enforcements, embellished timbres welling forth like the northern lights in Lapland a bitterly cold January night… The feeling of friction in the layers of sound that grind against each other also have me think of cold nights, starshine and snowy expanses, where survival can be dependant on a pair of mittens and a thermos with hot soup…

Growling and cawing sounds conjure up inner sights of secret winter-forest sceneries; a lynx leaving big traces in the snow, the trunks of spruces reflecting from its eyes (bent in a fish-eye manner on the surface of the eyes of a lynx in Lapland) — and a black raven circles the tree-tops… No human in sight, no human for miles and miles and miles — and this secret barely audible inside Beaupré’s music…

Cosmic forces interact with the smallest nuances of shades across the snow, and with the faintest grain of audio inside this music. It’s all in all! The workshop in Montréal set this music off through wood and varnish and keys and strings, and a lynx and a raven appeared in my mind in Scandinavia! All in all! What is real? What is reality? Anything that isn’t eternal isn’t very real… but maybe everything is eternal, and therefore… real — like my lynx and raven in Beaupré’s music!

The concluding piece — track 6 — is Péroraison. It smalltalks like kittens on the kitchen floor, or like the almost schizoid thoughts inside the sound poetry of Hebriana Alainentalo, perfectly enacting the absentminded concentration of a little girl of three with a bucket of sand… and in Yves Beaupré’s last work on this amazing CD tiny strands of vibration have me smell the rubber of rubber bands and ponder over the theory of vibrating superstrings vibrating everything into existence… and I hear wolves howling deep, deep inside this piece, like the call of the wild from our own inner wildernesses, sloppily painted over with a thin layer of so-called civilization, which easily crumples like wayward toilet-paper in a brain-storm… and the last minutes of the music is the sensual tapping of fingertips across your forehead and your mind, as the music leaves you in hypnotic beauty and attuned senses.


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Review

par Anatoly Motkin in Vesty #12 (Israël), 21 mars 2002 |487_2|


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Review

par François Couture in All-Music Guide (ÉU), 1 mars 2002 |485_3|

«This beautiful surprise is highly recommended.»

Humeur de facteur (“The Maker’s Humour”) consists of one large work in six movements. It is Yves Beaupré’s first album and first major work published - at age 47. This harpsichord maker has managed to create, in his spare time so to speak, one of the most touching, enjoyable and rewarding piece of electroacoustic music this reviewer has heard in a few years. One of the main reason why it works so well is probably because Beaupré tapped into his own sound world. Humeur de facteur mainly draws on sounds he hears everyday in his workshop and therefore consists of both a recreation and a fantasy of his quotidian environment. The piece sounds fresh, free of academic rules. The composer does not hesitate to integrate classic musique concrète techniques (pitch shifts, cut-and-paste, analog filtering, etc.) with computer music, even some electronica flavors. The latter never sound gratuitous, they simply naturally fit the man’s vision. The Prélude démesuré (“Enormous Prelude”) briefly exposes some of the basic material, drawing the listener into his world with a grip that won’t let go for the better part of an hour. La Beauséjour, the best movement, opens with a short harpsichord figure, the only snippet of the completed instrument on the whole record, and launches in a highly suggestive daydream of the maker’s labor of love. The Péroraison closes the piece with an unexpected turn to electronics, ending more like a Pan Sonic track than anything empreintes DIGITALes had previously released. The music follows a path similar to the music of Robert Normandeau and Francis Dhomont, playing with narratives and the unconscious. This beautiful surprise is highly recommended.


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Review

par Den Ciul in The WholeNote #7:5 (Canada), 1 février 2002 |473|

«It is clever, charming, and humourous.»

This recording could not have fallen on more sympathetic ears. I share a profession with M. Beaupré (harpsichord building) and also a life-long interest in electroacoushc music (and my son, Michael, is a composer in this genre).

The sounds that provide the raw material for these works were recorded in M. Beaupré’s harpsichord shop -- the bumps, thumps, whirs, tappings, clickings, pluckings of harpsichords as work in progress. Some of the samples are musical, some are just sounds. The structure follows the form of a Suite (“Ordre”) of pieces by Francois Couperin, one of the brightest lights in the harpsichord world.

This is a very interesting genre as it draws composers from many musical styles, from rock to classical. The realization here is well crafted and it is evident that there is structure and development of the material. Six hours of recordings were made of the daily workings of the harpsichord shop and these sounds were processed and manipulated as computer samples. It is not music in the conventional sense, performed from a score on musical instruments by musicians. It does have thematic material and a kind of polyphony. There is exposition and development following classical forms. M. Beaupré speaks of working and assembling the parts into a whole, as he works the components for his harpsichords from carefully selected materials into the finished instrument. Here we have the transmogrification of the physical workshop into an electronic one.

The title Humeur de facteur (The Maker’s Humour) is perhaps a pun on several levels, and an indication that this work is not to be taken too seriously. This is certainly not to everyone’s taste, but it is worth a hearing. It is clever, charming, and humourous.


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Review

par Geert De Decker in Sztuka Fabryka (Belgique), 14 janvier 2002 |797|

«… resulted into warm compositions…»

After studying harpsichord performance Yves Beaupré devoted himself to the building of harpsichords. The last twenty years he has builded about hundred instruments including spinets and virginals also. He is also interested in acoustic research on timbres and materials and since 1985 in sound recording. The material on this CD comes from six hours of tapes which he recorded during the construction of harpsichord. Recordings from the materials, the tools… used in this process. It needed only the skill of the musician afterwords to transform raw material into a composition. This has resulted into warm compositions which you can compare with ambient music. The sounds has the vibe of strings or the warm feeling of wood. The sounds are edited in such way that it creates musical compositions which sounds as it is improvised. Yet a hidden structure and rhythm transforms it into atmospheric compositions. This thanks to the computerised transformation of the recorded material. It is a wonderful CD with warm electronic transformed improvised music.


autres textes dans

  • Blow Up #49 (Italie), 1 juin 2002
  • Deep Listenings #24 (Italie), 1 juillet 2002
  • Circuit #12:3 (Québec), 1 septembre 2002

Yves Beaupré: Humeur de facteur: critiques

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