Gérard Grisey (1946-1998) was a student of Messiaen and a friend of fellow spectral composer Murail. Despite being one of the major early figures to work with spectral techniques, Grisey later rejected the term ‘spectralism’.

 

‘Talea’ is Latin for ‘cutting’. The first gesture of the piece is gradually cut and stretched, transformed by the composer just as a film might be edited. Like much spectral music, the dramatic impetus of Talea comes from the exploration of different facets of the harmonic series. Indeed, Grisey notes that the two sections of Talea, played as one continuous movement, ‘express two aspects or, more precisely, two auditory angles of a single phenomenon’. In the first part, he thus juxtaposes two ideas: a fast flourish and quiet sustaining chords. Throughout this first half the texture gradually becomes more and more complex, eventually establishing five independent polyphonic voices. These voices are then reconciled, put in phase, and it is this ensemble playing that launches the second section with the piano thundering away in the bass. This second half again juxtaposes two ideas: this deep roar in the piano and wave-like sustained chords. In this part of the work, however, Grisey follows an additive process: he reiterates this basic pairing 10 times, each time varied and gradually extended.

 

Talea is full of textural extremes, with the music constantly forming and re-forming like waves. The piece explores the intersection of harmony and timbre, sometimes focussing on familiar harmonic intervals and at other times bordering on noise. At times, the five instruments seem wildly incompatible whilst, at others, they operate in a complimentary manner, like one large instrument. For example, the winds and strings often provide the resonance for gestures set up by the percussive attack of the piano. A talea is also a component of a medieval technique called isorhythm, reinvigorated in the 20th century, in which a repeating rhythmic pattern (talea) is combined with a set of pitches (color) of a different length. In Talea, such machine-like processes are expressively distorted by the whims of intuition and memory.

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David Palmer