Le 29 juin 2017
de 16h00 à 16h30
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
salle 3206
Séance précomposée - Spectralism on the Margins: Spectral Ideas and Intercultural Influence
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : Nicole Grimes
This paper analyses a new approach to spectral composition in Donnacha Dennehy’s Grá agus Bás and Aisling Gheal. Dennehy uses spectral techniques to analyse overtone-derived material of sean-nós songs based on anonymous eighteenth-century poetry. The juxtaposition of microtonal variation of sean-nós song and new timbres resulting from spectral analysis of the human voice determines the timbre of these works. Dennehy cites Vivier as exerting the strongest influence on his spectral thought. Yet he also acknowledges the impact of French spectralists. Beyond the use of transitory and electronic phenomena, there is an affinity in the approach to ethnicity of Grisey and Dennehy who discuss issues of imperialization and decolonisation of ethnic musics. For Dennehy, ethnicity is manifest in the ancient art of sean-nós singing: the spectral analysis of the grain of Iarla Ó’Lionáird’s voice distils the irreducible vocal trace that serves as the compositional basis of something more potent. This bears the emotional complexity and the dark undertones of fraught sexuality in these poems and allows the composer to amplify the affective essence of the originals. I interrogate the cultural diversity of these works and explore the physicality of the human voice that gives rise to these compositions.
