Jean-Claude Risset

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Jean-Claude Risset (born March 18, 1938 in Le Puy-en-Velay , † November 21, 2016 in Marseille ) was a French composer of both classical and electronic music and a pioneer of computer music .

Life

Risset studied mathematics and physics at the École normal supérieure from 1957 to 1961 , where he received his doctorate in 1967, as well as piano and composition with André Jolivet . After some compositions of classical music (like Prelude for orchestra , 1963) he turned to experimental computer-generated music. During a stay at Bell Laboratories ( Max Mathews ) in 1965 and 1967 to 1969, he used Mathews Software Music IV for the computer-generated generation of brass instruments for the construction of psychoacoustic paradoxes (audio illusions). After his return, he set up a computer music studio at the faculty of the University of Paris in Orsay in 1970 and, at the invitation of Pierre Boulez, after founding the IRCAM , took over the computer music department of the IRCAM from 1975 to 1979 . From 1969 to 1972 he worked at the CNRS in Marseille, where from 1985 he was Research Director of the Laboratoire de Mécanique . From 1999 he was retired research director there . Risset taught from 1972 to 1975 and 1979 to 1985 at the University of Marseille , where he also set up a computer music studio. He has given lectures worldwide, for example in Argentina, Australia, the USA, Japan and Finland.

Risset died in Marseille on November 21, 2016 at the age of 78.

plant

Jean-Claude Risset uses computer technology to create sounds in compositions such as Little Boy (1968), Mutations (1970), Songes (1979) and Sud (1984). He also mixes classical instrumentalists and vocalists with computer music, for example in Duo pour un pianiste , which he wrote as Artist in Residence at the MIT Media Lab in 1989, where he was also Artist in Residence in 1987. In this piece, a pianist on the same piano is accompanied by a computer that reacts to his piano playing. Risset also wrote classical music for orchestra, piano music, chamber music, choral and vocal music, and ballet music.

One of his psychoacoustic paradoxes is a continuous variant of the Shepard scale (Shepard-Risset-Glissando, after Risset and Roger Shepard ), which he first used in Little Boy in 1968 . Similar to some pictures by MC Escher , it sounds infinitely ascending, although the starting note is reached again after twelve semitone steps. The reason is that the envelope of the partial tones is shifted with the pitch. Risset created similar effects with rhythms (Risset rhythms) in which the tempo seems to be continuously increasing or decreasing.

Awards

Risset received the SACEM Grand Prix for symphonic music in 1981 . At the Concours International de Musique Èlectroacoustique in Bourges , he won First Prize in 1980, the Euphonie d'Or in 1982 and the Prix ​​Magisterium in 1998 . He later won the Golden Nica at Ars Electronica , Linz (1987), the Grand Prix National de la Musique (1990), the Grand Prix Musica Nova in Prague in 1995 , the Ars Nova in Prague in 1996 , and the EAR Prize in 1997 in Budapest and in 1999 the gold medal of the CNRS .

In 2009 he received the Giga-Hertz Prize from the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and the Experimental Studio of the SWR for his life's work , which after him even more popular players in electronic music such as Pierre Boulez and Brian Eno received.

He was an officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1986) and Knight of the Legion of Honor (1989). In 1994 he received an honorary doctorate in Edinburgh and in 2000 in Córdoba .

Fonts

  • An introductory catalog of computer synthesized sounds , 1969, 2nd edition, Wergo 1995

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Olivier Lamm: Mort du compositeur Jean-Claude Risset, pionnier de la musique électronique . Liberation , November 22, 2016, accessed November 23, 2016 (French).
  2. ↑ cf. Eveline Vernooij et al .: Listening to the Shepard-Risset Glissando: the Relationship between Emotional Response, Disruption of Equilibrium, and Personality. In: Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 7, March 2016, Article 300: Introduction. doi : 10.3389 / fpsyg.2016.00300 .
  3. ↑ cf. Dan Stowell: Scheduling and Composing with Risset Eternal Accelerando Rhythms. In: Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference 2011 , University of Huddersfield , July 31 - August 5, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Risset, Jean-Claude
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French composer
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Le Puy-en-Velay
DATE OF DEATH November 21, 2016
Place of death Marseille