Asymmetry Music Magazine » Barriere

Barrière Miscellany

michaelkarman — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:27:48 +0000

Aside from the two solo discs, there are numerous other pieces by Françoise Barrière scattered about other CDs. Here are some observations about and clips of some of these.

Quand Philippe de Macédoine – The two disc Les Sixte Livre dit Électroacoustique de François Rabelais set is my least favorite of the Bourges collections, and Philippe is my least favorite piece by Barrière. And that is quite simply and solely a matter of talking. The selections that make up Les Sixte are heavy on the talking, not conversation or multi-layered voices or distorted ones (though there is some of that), but just talking. A little of that goes a long way, with me. If you like radio drama, though, you will probably enjoy the pieces that make up Les Sixte.

(...)
Read the rest of Barrière Miscellany (394 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Françoise Barrière

michaelkarman — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:48:13 +0000

When I visited Bourges in 2006 for the annual international festival of electroacoustic music, both Françoise Barrière and Christian Clozier, the festival’s founders, took time out of their busy schedules not only to give interviews to Asymmetry Music Magazine but to show me around the studios of IMEB. I’d like to thank both of them for their hospitality and generosity and to apologize for taking so long to publish the interviews and the reports on the 2006 and 2007 festivals.

Asymmetry: What did you listen to early in your life?

Barrière: Have you listened to Dessus la mer? That’s a long piece, 26 minutes, which I composed from ’95 to ‘97 or ’98. I began from a text by Rabelais, and the subject was exactly that: to expose in this piece the music that I preferred in my youth. Not all of it, of course. But some. And not always immediately recognizable, but as if the sound were ice, were frozen, and then becoming enlivened. The music developed after into something more. I thought classical music was in danger in this world where popular music is so much to the fore. And not only music, but nature, which I also love, and which I saw also as in danger. So I mixed nature in danger and music in danger.(...)
Read the rest of Françoise Barrière (1,998 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Barrière – first album

michaelkarman — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:45:09 +0000

At first hearing, this CD may seem stylistically all over the place. The first two pieces, the four movement Par temps calme et ensoleille for piano and tape and the one movement Par temps calme et ensoleille for cello and tape seem hardly to warrant the same name, and neither are anything like Musique pour le temps noël or Ajourd’hui, which are sort of like each other. But a few listens will soon dispel that early impression. Without taking anything away from the unique nature of each piece, these four are clearly by the same person.(...)
Read the rest of Barrière – first album (382 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Barrière – second album

michaelkarman — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:44:42 +0000

This album, unlike Barrière’s first, is stylistically varied at any hearing, the first or the hundred and first. Indeed, the first piece itself, Dessus la mer, is all over the place, as befits a piece that attempts (among other things) to present the musics the composer enjoyed growing up. It is an endlessly fascinating piece; in its quiet way more wild—full of sudden shifts and unusual juxtapositions—than any non live improv piece has any business being.

–

(...)
Read the rest of Barrière – second album (264 words)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh