Discography

Portulan

Ensemble Cairn
Guillaume Bourgogne (conductor)

Seven Lakes Drive

for 6 instruments

Feuilles à travers les cloches

for flute, violin, cello and piano

Dernières nouvelles du vent d'ouest

for viola, horn, piano and percussions

Les Ruines circulaires

for clarinet and violin

Garrigue

Bass flute (or G flute), viola, cello and percussions

Paludes

for ensemble

La Chambre des cartes

for ensemble

Tristan Murail's recent music, as Julian Anderson and Philippe Lalitte note, shows an "unusual stylistic consistency and sureness of direction", characteristic of a composer at the height of his creative powers. Long associated with the école spectrale, Murail's music today incorporates a range of influences and techniques, including many models and metaphors far removed from sonic analyses and frequency spectra.

Robert Hasegawa

Une rencontre (An encounter)

Marie Ythier (cello), Samuel Bricault (flute)
and Marie Vermeulin (piano)

Robert Schumann, Fünf Stücke im Volkston Op.102

for cello and piano

Attracteurs étranges

for cello

Une lettre de Vincent

for flute and cello

Robert Schumann, Fantasiestücke Op.73

for cello and piano

C'est un jardin secret, ma soeur, ma fiancée, une fontaine close, une source scellée...

for cello

Scenes from Childhood (Kinderszenen) Op.15
by Robert Schumann

Rereading for flute, cello and piano

The album, will be titled Une rencontre ('An encounter') and is a meeting of Romantic and contemporary music, climaxed by the premiere recording of Murail's "revisit" to Schumann's Kinderszenen, a transcription written especially for the cello soloist Marie Ythier.

Le Partage des eaux

BBC Symphony Orchestra
Netherlands Radio Philharmonic
Pierre-André Valade

Le Partage des eaux

for large orchestra

Contes cruels

for 2 electric guitars and orchestre

Sillages

for orchestra

Ever since Sables and Gondwana, Tristan Murail has persued a regular and highly successful exploratíon of the orchestra (with or without electronics) which calls into question the way in which one should "rehear the orchestra today".

The three works assembled here, all written after 1985, have never been recorded.

Terre d'ombre

Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Peter Eötvös (conductor)

Terre d'ombre

for large orchestra and electronics

[...] At the beginning of this work, an opening figure provides the initial presentation of musical material that will, after a pause, be taken up again differently. Little by little melodic lines emerge that are themselves the result of a transformation, or distortion, of the opening material. The discourse is in perpetual mutation. [...]

Les Nuages de Magellan

Ensemble Volta

Mach 2,5

for 2 ondes Martenot

Tigres de Verre

for ondes Martenot and piano

La Conquête de l'Antarctique

for ondes Martenot

Les Miroirs Etendus

for ondes Martenot and piano

Les Nuages de Magellan

for 2 ondes Martenot, electric guitar and percussion

These works are united here for the first time, performed by a new generation of musicians. Works for solo ondes Martenot, two ondes, ondes and piano and two ondes Martenot, percussion and electric guitar.

President's Prize from the Charles Cros Academy, 2014

Winter Fragments

Argento Chamber Ensemble - Michel Galante (conductor)

Winter Fragments

for ensemble and live electronics

Unanswered Questions

for flute

Ethers

for flute and ensemble

Feuilles à travers les cloches

for flute, violin, cello and piano

Le Lac

for ensemble

"Amongst the so-colled "spectral" composers, no one more than Tristan Murail puts Nature foward as a souce of inspiration; moreover this is often stated in the titles themselves... The return to melody, wich one cannot help but notice in his recent works, clearly meets a need to give rise to a discourse by means of salient elements. A kind of return to natural model."

Pierre Rigaudière

Complete piano works

Marilyn Nonken (piano)

Comme un oeil suspendu et poli par le songe

for piano

Estuaire

Près des rives - Au mélange des eaux

Territoires de l'oubli

for piano

Cloches d'adieu, et un sourire...

in memoriam Olivier Messiaen

La Mandragore

for piano

Les Travaux et les jours

for piano

"Can one still write for the piano today? Through the 19th century and to the begin¬ning of the 20th it was the emblematic instrument, the composer's confidant; but has it survived the array of tortures inflicted upon it by the end of the 20th century? After the clusters of Henry Cowell, the preparations of John Cage, the ornithological percussions of Messiaen, the electrified mantras of Stockhausen, and the various scrapings and pinch¬ings of strings, what space is left to the imagination?"

Tristan Murail

Gondwana - Désintégration -
Time and again

Orchestre National de France, Ensemble de l'Itinéraire,
Yves Prin (conductor)
Beethovenhalle Orchestra,
Anton Rickenbacher (conductor)

Gondwana

for orchestra

Désintégrations

for ensemble and electronics

Time and again

for orchestra

Originating in the spectral movement, the music of Tristan Murail deploys its profound harmony in a continuous flow of luminous coloured waves, whether he is evoking the separation of now sunken continents as the Hindu legend of Gondwana, a voyage to the centre of sound itself with Désintégrations, or the distortion of time, compressed and dilated, in Time and again.

First Prize from the Charles Cros Academy, 1990

Treize Couleurs du soleil couchant

Ensemble Les Temps Modernes - Fabrice Pierre (conductor)

Treize Couleurs du soleil couchant

for 5 instruments and electronics

Winter Fragments

for 5 instruments and live electronics

Bois flotté

for 5 instruments and live electronics

"The music of Tristan Murail presented in this recording reflects the composer's evolution in the electroacoustic sphere over the course of the past three decades. Althrouh Murail is not usually categorized with the inner circle of electroacoutic musicians, his work has continuously put electronic sound sources and instrumental sounds into relation, particularly in chamber formations."

Thierry Alla

Tristan Murail

Ensemble Les Temps Modernes - Fabrice Pierre (conductor)

Treize Couleurs du soleil couchant

for 5 instruments and electronics

Bois flotté

for 5 instruments and live electronics

Winter Fragments

for 5 instruments and live electronics

Interview of Tristan Murail

by Omer Corlaix

"There is no doubt that the perception of an image in motion changes the perception of music in its very temporality"

Tristan Murail

First Prize from the Charles Cros Academy, 2002

Allégories - Vues aériennes - Territoires de l'oubli

Ensemble Fa, Dominique My (piano and conductor)

Allégories

for 6 instruments and electronics

Vues aériennes

for 4 instruments

Territoires de l'oubli

for piano

The three pieces on this disc each innovate with regard to the traditional expectations associated with they are scored...Murail's music is based on the acoustic properties of sound itself, rather then upon any arcane, abstract theory, or on any notions of what "chamber" or "piano music" should be.

Julian Anderson

President's Prize from the Charles Cros Academy, 1992

Mémoire/Erosion

Alain Noël (horn), Ensemble l'Itinéraire,
Charles Bruck (conductor)
Pierre-Yves artaud (flute), Ami Flammer (violin),
Geneviève Renon (viola), David Simpson (cello),
Joëlle Léandre (doublebass),
Christian Marchand (trombone),
Jacques Mercier (conductor)
Sylvie Altenburger (viola)
Jeanne Loriod (ondes Martenot),
Orchestre National de France, Yves Prin (conductor)

Mémoire/Erosion

for horn and 9 instruments

Ethers

for 6 instruments

C'est un jardin secret...

for viola

Les Courants de l'espace

for ondes Martenot, synthetizer and chamber orchestre

"The three large works grouped on this disc constitute a special set of pieces sharing similar concerns, forms and even processes. Each features a solo instrument with ensembles of varying sizes and in each Murail attempted to renew or rather, reinvent the concerto form."

Julian Anderson

Le Piano contemporain

Dominique My (piano)

La Mandragore

for piano

Cloches d'adieu, et un sourire...

in memoriam Olivier Messiaen

Dominique My engages her pianistic talent to promote the contemporary solo piano repertoire, bringing six French composers together (Dufourt, Lenot, Murail, Pesson, Singier and Troncin) through the performance of eight pieces written between 1991 and 1996. This instrument, so widely used today, still possesses "imaginary spaces" (Murail) for contemporary composers. A good survey of new works for piano from the late 20th century that helps the listener hear to what extent each composer's stylistic individuality makes the piano sound different, singular and ever new.

Tristan Murail

Ensemble intercontemporain - David Robertson (conductor)

Serendib

for large ensemble

L'Esprit des dunes

for ensemble and electronics

Désintégrations

for ensemble and tape

In this indispensable collection of contemporary music, the three pieces by Tristan Murail, as performed by David Robertson and the Ensemble Intercontemporain, brings us what the composer calls "the revolution of complex sounds" (Darmstädter Beiträge, Schott, 1980). The composer demonstrates his great virtuosity in spectral manipulation as well as the results of sound analysis, heard as conglomerates with characteristics that can be broken down today: wind, diaphonic singing, traditional instruments, etc.

Couleur de mer

Ensemble Court-Circuit
Pierre-André Valade (conductor)

Couleur de mer

for 15 instruments

L'attente

for 7 instruments

Treize Couleurs du soleil couchant

for 5 instruments

Attracteurs étranges

for cello

La Barque mystique

for 5 instruments

"The five pieces united on this recording extend over a long period - from 1969 to 1993. One should not be surprised to find a gret diverty of styles. In spite of the apparently diverse aspects of the pieces, I hope that the listener distinguish a coherent and progressive transformation of musical styles and materials."

Tristan Murail