My silent piece came later

'To Whom It May Concern: the white paintings came first: my silent piece came later.' John Cage writes in Silence about Robert Rauschenberg who died on May 12, 2008. My photo of Rauschenberg in front of his White Paintings comes from an article about about the artist and Cage on Emvergeoning. Read more about cleaning the ears of the musically educated here.
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Danger - musicians having fun

In their 1951-2 season the Hallé Orchestra perfomed all six of the symphonies Ralph Vaughan Williams had then written. Five of them were conducted by the inimitable John Barbirolli, while No. 1, the Sea Symphony with its Walt Whitman text, was conducted by Vaughan Williams himself. When the symphony was performed in Sheffield with the composer conducting, the orchestra was a 'cello short, and at Vaughan William's request Barbirolli, a talented 'cellist, took the vacant seat.

I was reminded of this story when listening to Jordi Savall and Hesperion XXl's superb new CD Estampies & Danses Royales. The programme of music from the thirteenth century Chansonnier du Roi is for instrumental forces only, so soprano Montserrat Figueras (aka Mrs Savall) wasn't needed for the sessions. But she wasn't going to miss the fun, and there she is on the recording playing the kithara, a rare instrument which featured here recently.

Fun is what this new release is really all about. It is superb music brilliantly played and recorded; but above all there is a quality that seems to be disappearing from recordings and live concerts - the sound of musians having fun. As contemporary composer Kurt Schwertsik said - 'I believe the function of art is to denounce seriousness. It should be fun. There's a halo of awe around modern music. You achieve more if you're not serious'.

Vaughan Williams, Savall, Barbirolli and Schwertsik in one post? - that's what I call fun! And there's more musicians having fun here.
The Kurt Schwersik quote is from the excellent CageTalk (ISBN 9781580462372). Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Meredith Monk out of focus

Regular readers will know that monastic orders are one of my interests, so it will come as no surprise that I have been greatly enjoying ECM's new release of music by Meredith Monk. Impermanence is a moving meditation on the transitory nature of life that expands Monk's distinctive vocal writing to embrace a range of instruments including piano, elephant bells, marimba, vibraphone and, my favourite, a bicycle wheel. A beautiful CD that is recommended. But am I the only one that now finds ECM's signature out of focus monochrome cover art an irritating cliché?

More on ECM cover art here.
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Feminine music?

'Feminine music? Try Meredith Monk' - suggests Richard Friedman on From up here you should see the view.

Lots more music from female composers here.
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A composer who rebelled against modernism

Mr. Holland: I doubt that you would enjoy any of the Naxos McKay discs, and I would not waste your time and money on them if I were you. I think you probably would be appalled by all three of them.

However, I bet you might enjoy all three Naxos George Rochberg discs: the Violin Concerto, the Second Symphony and the Fifth Symphony. The Naxos recording of the Rochberg Violin Concerto is the original version, before Isaac Stern imposed severe cuts on the piece.

The Second Symphony is serial, and very, very beautiful. I think you would love it. I am told that George Szell admired the work. The Fifth Symphony is mostly tonal, and also a very strong work. It was written for Solti and Chicago.

I suspect that you would find the three Rochberg discs to be very rewarding, while I think any of the McKay discs would cause you to grind your teeth.

Writes Andrew on my post about puffery and closed-mindedness. Read more about George Rochberg in this tribute headed Composer Who Rebelled Against Modernism which quotes Rochberg as saying he 'experienced mounting disaffection with the New York avant-garde, which dominated intellectual circles in the 1960s. "I ran in to New York as often as I could to hear concerts, and it all sounded gray and dull, by people with vast reputations based on what, I'll never know," he recalled in a 2001 interview.'

As Philip Glass himself said: These were the factors that brought about the rise and fall of 'the twentieth century music' that became so familiar during the century's final decades, because in narrowing the field down to one that was financially supportable, it also narrowed down the musical options.

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Contemporary composer paints bigger picture

Ben.H has left a new comment on your post "A great American composer and artist besides": While we're naming names, Gloria Coates is another composer and painter, whose CDs typically use her art for the cover designs.

Ben, thanks for including the eternal feminine.
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BBC's Weir and wonderful programming.

Yesterday afternoon BBC Radio 3 had three clear hours to programme music Towards Judith Weir. They played Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique complete, they played the (inevitable) Shostakovich Piano Concerto No 2 complete, and they played just the finale of Ligeti's Romanian Concerto. What is wrong with the other three movements of the Ligeti - do they bite listeners?

That's György Ligeti in my photo, and you can read his Private Passions complete and unexpurgated here.
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Found - thousands of happy new ears

In only six weeks more than a thousand people have visited the Overgrown Path podcast page on iTunes, and this week James Weeks talking about the music of Elisabeth Lutyens has been added to my David Munrow and Alvin Curran podcasts. Doesn't that level of interest in music from the long tail tell us something?

Elsewhere there has been some good humoured discussion of Angela Hewitt world Bach tour T-shirts, with one defender of the Bach world tour marketing machine writing - 'I think you are missing the point here, which is trying to get new people interested in her, giving her profile in the press and recognition ... every interview, every talk show appearance is promotion.'

Every talk show appearance may be promotion. But all promotion is not good promotion. And promoting serious music to mass markets is a risky business. There are very few examples of large, and loyal, new audiences being created by mass marketing. But there are numerous examples that ended in tears, where mass marketing failed to attract a new audiences, but instead drove away the core audience. The most obvious example is BBC Radio 3, where going mass market has failed to attract Classic FM listeners, but has instead, literally, switched-off the network's core audience and resulted in a net loss of listeners.

New audiences are essential for the health of serious music, but so is being realistic. We live in an age of instant gratification, and today's arts administrators and broadcasters want immediate access to new mass audiences. This is not only unrealistic, it also often achieves the opposite result to that intended. New audiences can be reached, but we need to be less greedy and more adventurous to reach them.

As always on this blog these are my personal views. But they are based on real world experience. Yes, the sample size may be small, but, as I have pointed out before, the samples are larger than the focus groups used by the BBC and others. And before the cynics sniff at a few thousand listeners for David Munrow and Alvin Curran they should remember that it was revealed recently that Rupert Murdoch's new satellite Fox Business Network is attracting an average of only 6,000 daytime viewers.

The new audience for serious music is in the receptive long tail, not in the mass market short head. The long tail of classical music has received much attention recently. But there are many other long tails - for literature, for the visual arts, for the cinema, for techno and electronic music, and others. There is overlap, but there is also a sizeable new audience for serious music waiting in those other long tails. These are people who have been driven away from classical music by BBC TV's Classical Star and Classic FM's music for dinner parties. They see serious music today as being unexciting. They don't want to be talked down to by chummy radio presenters. They want the adventurousness of Boulez in the 1970s at the Round House and Proms in London, and at the Rug Concerts in New York. But, with a few notable exceptions, we are not giving them what they want.

I have talked to some of the new audience that my internet radio programmes and blog have reached. They told me they bought CDs and downloads of music by Guillaume Connesson, Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, Conlon Nancarrow and others after discovering them On An Overgrown Path. These new listeners are well educated, have disposable incomes, are interested in the media, travel extensively, have expensive stereo systems, watch art films, and read contemporary fiction. But they listen to non-classical music because they find it more exciting and challenging. They are the long-tail dwellers, they are a receptive new audience for serious classical music, but we need to be a lot more adventurous to reach them.

Sir Brian McMaster arrives at the same conclusion in his controversial and brave report on funding in the UK arts which was published last week. In the report he recommends 'that cultural organisations stop exploiting the tendency of many audiences to accept a superficial experience and foster a relationship founded on innovative, exciting and challenging work'. Or, as that great arts administrator and BBC Radio 3 controller John Drummond wrote "the arts are as much about controversy as about achievement".

We need to be more adventurous and controversial. We already have the exciting music. We should stop apologising for it.

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New music - but Weir is BBC's chief conductor?

"While I thought Boulez, Stockhausen, Berio were all great composers - especially Berio, who had melodic poetry and eloquence that stood out for me - there was a sense that the postwar serial tradition was starting to fray at the edges. It was ripe for change, and for people to cock a snook a bit" - says 53 year old Judith Weir in a Guardian interview previewing the forthcoming BBC Symphony Orchestra composer weekend featuring her music. My header photo shows Judith Weir on the set of her 'A Night at the Chinese Opera'.

It's great to see some much needed adventurous programming from the BBC in the Judith Weir festival from January 17th to 20th. As well as talks and films there are seven concerts featuring many of her works, and all are to be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. Full concert details here, broadcast details here, and a Judith Weir feature On An Overgrown Path here.

With the BBC Proms handed over to reality show winners these annual composers weekends are now the showpiece contemporary music event for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and they are playing in three of the concerts. Two are conducted by Martyn Brabbins, and one by André de Ridder. None are being conducted by the orchestra's chief conductor Jiří Bělohlávek. So where is the BBC's peripatetic maestro? Recording an unadventurous CD of Brahms with the BBCSO, and last seen on the podium in Amsterdam with the Concergebouw Orchestra conducting Dvorak.

Another contemporary opera composer from Scotland here.
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4.5 hours of new music - it was incredible

When did a listener last describe a piece of new music to you as incredible? I've been filing away responses to my overnight broadcast on Future Radio of Alvin Curran's Inner Cities and thought this typical message was worth posting. Shows that there is an audience for contemporary music - if you can reach it.

Hi, I was listening to the show last night (around 12-1am maybe) and I heard a piece of music which lasted 4.5 hours long, preceded by an on-air phone call with the pianist from Belgium I believe. Could you please give me more information about this piece of music? I thought it was incredible.
Many thanks, TL

Proof that the music hasn't died on every radio station.
The score in my photo of the Future Radio studio isn't by Alvin Curran. But it is by another contemporary composer. Can any reader with supernatural powers tell me who the composer is? Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Musical stocking fillers from Overgrown Paths

* Walter Braunfels' Te Deum from Furtwängler and the forgotten new music. A major successs in the lifetime of this now forgotten composer, Braunfels' Wagner influenced Te Deum is a response to the horrors of the First World War - on CD from Orfeo.
* Philippe Boesmans Julie from New music from the old world. Video release of the opera's 1995 premiere production at the Théâtre Royal de La Monnaie in Brussels - on DVD from BelAir.
* Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Simplicius Simplicissimus from The Well-Tempered Concert. This video captures the Stuttgart production of Hartmann's only opera. Written in 1935 it uses the Thirty Years' War as a metaphor for Nazi oppression - on DVD from Arthaus Musik.
* Francisco Guerrero's Missa Super flumina from Size does matter. Rising early music star Michael Noone and his Ensemble Plus Ultra presents the premiere recording of a Guerrero Mass - on CD from Glossa.

More simple gifts for Christmas here.
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Belgium bags Alvin Curran premiere

New music is alive and well in Belgium. Tomorrow (Dec 15) sees an Alvin Curran (photo above) premiere in Ghent played by pianist Daan Vandewalle (who featured in my Inner Cities webcast) and cellist Arne Deforce. The new Alvin Curran work is called Malapromptus. This is the programme, and more details here:

Anton Webern - Sonate 1914 (2')
Anton Webern - Drei Stucke opus 11, 1914 (2')
Morton Feldman - Durations II 1960 (5')
Edison Denisov - Drei Stücke 1967 (6')
Galina Ustvolskaya - Grand Duett 1959 (22')
Alvin Curran - Malapromtus 2007

Hear Daan Vandewalle talking to me about Alvin Curran's music here. And a double bill of new Belgian music here and here.
Photo credit Hannah Frenzel. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

John Cage and chance spelling

Swapping from William Schuman to Robert Schumann in recent posts has presented a spelling challenge, and, quite rightly, a reader corrected me a while back when I fused the American composer's Christian name with the German composer's surname.

So I was reassured to read the following in David Revill's book The Roaring Silence - John Cage: A Life - 'Cage continued to spend many hours preparing letters seeking support for a center for experimental music. On the back of his inventory of percussion instruments he scribbled one night, "Composers interested in electrical: Jacob Weinberg, Henry Brant, Paul Bowles, William Schumann (sic)"'.

John Cage Christmas gift suggestion here.
Cage collage taken at Les Gargoris, France (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Olivier Messiaen in Bryce Canyon

Henry Holland has left a new comment on your post On the path of Stockhausen's teachers - "It's actually Bryce Canyon in the photo used for the poster, the rock formation that looks like a cup above the 'h' in Southbank is the giveaway; Messiaen, of course, visited Bryce Canyon, which is mentioned in the 7th part of Des Canyons aux Etoiles."

My photo above is also from the Southbank Centre's Messiaen festival brochure, and shows the composer in Bryce Canyon.
Photo (c) Yvonne Loriod. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

On the path of Stockhausen's teachers

In 1950 Karlheinz Stockhausen was accepted into Frank Martin's composition class at the Cologne Musikhochschule. The relationship was not a success, Stockhausen had only a few hours of tuition with Martin, and most of this was spent analysing his teacher's own compositions. More Frank Martin down this path.

Two years later Stockhausen started studying composition with Darius Milhaud in Paris. But once again Stockhausen was dissatisfied with his teacher, and after a few weeks he stopped attending Milhaud's classes. My photo above shows the house that Milhaud was born in at 4, Bd de la République, Aix-en-Provence. His birthplace, which I visited in September, is now the Hotel Artea and not a museum. There is a discount if you check-in after 8.00pm, which cannot be said for many composer's birthplaces.

Milhaud's other pupils at various times included Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Burt Bacharach. Alvin Curran was not among them, but there are connections. Aix-en-Provence supplied my recent Inner Cities photos, and from 1991 to 2006 Curran was Milhaud Professor of Composition at Mills College in Oakland, California. This Chair was endowed in memory of Milhaud who taught there after being forced to leave France in 1940 because of his Jewish backgound. Milhaud's Jewish ancestors had lived in the ghetto in Cavaillon. This town is close to Avignon, sometime home of the Popes, which is where Stockhausen's third teacher, the devout Catholic Olivier Messiaen was born.

Stockhausen's relationship with Messiaen more than made up for his failures with Martin and Milhaud. Stockhausen and Messiean shared the Catholic faith, and the young composer attended Messiaen's course in aesthetics and analysis in Paris twice a week for a year. Stockhausen later said: 'In many respects Messiaen did the opposite of what I wanted. He never tried to convince me. That made him a good teacher. He did not give instruction in composition, but showed me how he understood the music of others and how he worked himself.'

Olivier Messiaen was born on December 10, 1908. His birthplace Avignon is only a short distance from Milhaud's in Aix-en-Provence. In fact all my paths converge in Avignon as the city also has connections with Pierre Boulez, who was another pupil of Messiaen and a colleague of Stockhausen.

The work of Messiaen, Stockhausen and Boulez also converge in London in one of the highlights of 2008, which is, of course, Messiaen's centenary year. The event is the Southbank Centre's festival The Music of Olivier Messiaen - From The Canyons to the Stars. If anything was to tempt me to move back to London it would be this year long feast of twentieth-century music. Full details here, and below are some of my personal 'must attends'.

* Opening concert February 2 - Messiaen Des canyons aux étoiles played by Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by Susanna Mälkki
* February 7 - Southbank Gamelan Players followed by Messiaen Turangalîla-Symphonie with Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.
* February 13 - Messiaen Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard.
* February 15 - concert by Royal Academy of Music Manson Ensemble including Stockhausen Kontra-Punkte and Xenakis Jalons.
* February 17 - must be THE concert of 2008. Boulez Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna and Messiaen Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum with London Sinfonietta conducted by Peter Eötvös (who is one of the conductors of Gruppen in my Future Radio webcast this Sunday Dec 16).
* May 1 - Ascension Day service in Westminster Abbey including the organ version of Messiaen's L'Ascension.
* May 11 - Pentecost Mass including movements from Messiaen's Pentecost Mass for organ, Gregorian chant and Victoria's Missa Dum complerentur.
* October 20 - organ recital in the London Oratory that includes a rare chance to hear the Kyrie from Satie's Messa des Pauvres, and movements from Tournemire's L'Orgue Mystique. The Satie fragment was composed for the church that the composer founded, and at which he was the only worshiper, the Eglise métropolitaine d'Art.
* Centenary concert Dec 10 - Messiaen Couleurs de la cité céleste and Sept Haïkaï, Boulez sur Incises with Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by Pierre Boulez.

I'm just adding up how much a ticket for every concert will cost ...


Now playing - Messiaen's Des canyons aux étoile (From the canyons to the stars) on the double Apex CD with Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen, and Ensemble Ars Nova. The couplings are Messiaen's Hymne au Saint-Sacrement and Les offrandes oubliées, the sound is excellent, and there are decent sleeve notes. You can buy it from Amazon resellers for not much more than a Starbucks latte. What can I say, other than ask that seasonal roast chestnut? - is recorded classical music too cheap?

Header photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Wagner Dream comes true

'In terms of new music, 2007 was less special, save for Magnus Lindberg's fine violin concerto, Heiner Goebbels's indefinably moving Songs from Wars I Have Seen, and Jonathan Harvey's adroit chamber opera Wagner Dream. There were no premieres worth mentioning at the Proms, save Esa-Pekka Salonen's Piano Concerto, quite the worst new piece to come my way all year' - writes Andrew Clements in today's Guardian.

Read more about Jonathan Harvey's Wagner Dream in Malcolm Miller's review, which is where the production shot from the 2007 Holland Festival in Amsterdam came from. (Photo credit Clärchen and Matthias Baus). More on Jonathan Harvey here.
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Surgeon General's Warning: Inner Cities

"The German psychologist Dr. Weisenhutter interviewed the musicians of the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and found them beset by psychogenic illnesses. The players are impotent. They hate new music. After playing it they cannot engage in sexual activity. This is understandable, for musicians are emotional people and if a musician is not convinced of the validity of what he does, his sexual life is bound to suffer" ~ from Boulez - Composer, Conductor, Enigma by Joan Peyser (Schirmer ISBN 0028717007)

Be prepared for a disturbed night, or worse. At 12.01am tonight UK time the first complete broadcast of Alvin Curran's Inner Cities will start. The four and a half hour cycle will be broadcast in full without any announcements or advertisements, and pianist Daan Vanderwalle will be introducing the performance with me. The programme starts at 12.01am on Wednesday December 5 in the UK, which is afternoon or evening Tuesday December 4 in North and South America. Convert to your local time zone here.

Read the full Inner Cities story here. Now, can I attempt some Putin style vote rigging? If you think projects like the complete Inner Cities webcast should be a regular feature please go to the Future Radio web site now, and send a message of support to the station via either the the studio messenger or email links. The station can't measure the internet listeners, but it can measure messages, so every response counts.

Photo credit Andrology.com Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

New music premiere for internet radio

Inner Cities are where you go to get debriefed, to watch Trisha Brown levitate on Bach in San Francisco; to help Cage squeeze lemons into his fresh taboule on 18th Street and watch David Tudor mix chili peppers and lasers at the Grand Hotel des Palmes; to play the Sydney Harbour like a bandoneon; to teach advanced-orchestration in the Greek Theater at Mills College with Pauline Oliveros and the ghost of Harry Partch; to shake Stravinsky's hand in the American Sector-Berlin and Varese’s in New Haven; to watch Kosugi dance his electric violin around Marcus Aurelius; to get thrown off stage in London as a warmup act for the Pink Floyd; to meet Stockhausen at a strobe-light show in Düsseldorf; to open windows on Cage’s cue for adding real cold air to his Winter Music; to camp out with Teitelbaum and Rzewski for Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point; to hear Terry and LaMonte’s landmark concerts at the Attico in Rome ...

Inner Cities is a twelve part cycle for solo piano that lasts for four hours twenty-four minutes and twenty-two seconds. Its composer Alvin Curran studied with Elliott Carter, and founded Musica Elettronica Viva with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum. The notes above and below are by Alvin Curran.

Inner Cities 10 is dedicated to the Belgian pianist Daan Vandewalle. His repertoire includes Ives, Ligeti, Lutoslawski, Cage and Clarence Barlow, and he has had works written for him by Fred Frith, Chris Newman, and Frederic Rzewski as well as Alvin Curran. Daan has played Inner Cities complete in concert, and has recorded it on the Long Distance label.

Inner Cities has never been broadcast complete to our knowledge. But on December 5th Future Radio is letting me go where others fear to tread. The four and a half hour cycle will be broadcast complete on that day without any announcements or advertisements, and Daan Vanderwalle will be introducing the performance with me. The programme starts at 12.01am on Wednesday December 5th, which is afternoon or evening the previous day in North and South America. Convert to your local time zone here.

Inner Cities described by Daan Vandewalle can be heard as a podcast from iTunes. If you do not have iTunes installed click here to download it. With iTunes you can subscribe to future On An Overgrown Path podcasts.

Inner Cities photographs are by me, and show the Cité du Livre and the Pavillon Noir in the Avenue Mozart in that most musical of cities, Aix en Provence. Alvin Curran has the last words ...

Inner Cities contain no "drive-by" anything; there’s merely back alleys, empty lots full of stubborn weeds and clear sky, trails of memory which may or may not lead anywhere or even have relevance to the music at hand. The bottom line: these pieces are a set of contradictory etudes - studies in liberation and attachment, cryptic itineraries to the old fountain on the town square whence flows all artistic divination and groping for meaning in the dark.

Inner Cities complete continues the proud tradition established by WHRB's classical music 0rgies. Yet more confirmation of the importance of the long tail of radio
Photos (c) On An Overgrown Path 2007. Listen by launching the Radeo internet player from the right side-bar, or via the audio stream, on Wednesday December 5 at 12.01am UK time. Convert time to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Henri Pousseur serial continues

Dear Pliable. Just to put things right: The reader who told you that Henri Pousseur's birthplace Malmédy was German speaking, is not quite correct. While Malmédy is part of the so-called East Cantons (which were originally German, but became Belgian after the First World War), and which are now part of Wallonia, it is officially a French speaking town with language facilities for the German speaking minority there.

I promise this will be the last time I bother you with the Belgian situation. ;-) Great blog, by the way.

Cordially, Ivo Swinnen, As, Belgium

Ivo, please don't apologise. All this helps explain why Belgium hasn't been able to form a government for nearly six months. And this path took me to some wonderful graphics connected to Henri Pousseur. That's where my header image comes from, it's part of a portrait of Henri Pousseur by Maxime Godard. Thank you for helping us explore the labyrinth of serial music.
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A new serialist from the old world

Kyle has left a new comment on your post "New music from the old world":

I see that Belgian serialist Henri Pousseur is not mentioned. Or, perhaps, he has already been forgotten.

Not forgotten Kyle. Just wating for someone to fill in the details. Henri Pousseur was born in Malmédy in French speaking Wallonia in 1929. In the 1950s he was active in the international avant-garde music scene (dodecaphonic, serial, electronic, aleatoric music), together with Boulez, Stockhausen, Berio, and others, and like Boulez he was heavily influenced by Webern. The image above is a page from Pousseur's score for Electre (credit Universal Editions, Vienna).

After 1960 Pousseur rejected the narrow viewpoint of the avant-garde, and, in collabaration with the French writer Michel Butor, he adopted an inclusive approach which embraced a range of styles and viewpoints. Their 1962 opera Votre Faust forged a connection between contemporary music and history by casting the audience as performers. The influential Centre de recherches et de formation musicales de Wallonie (CRFMW) in Liège was founded by Pousseur in the 1970s. He also established the Institut de Pédagogie musicale de Paris in the 1980s, which is now integrated into Paris' Cité de la Musique.

Among Henri Pousseur's prolific output are the electro-acoustic music sequences for the 1961 production of Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. The choreography for this opera was created by the great Maurice Béjart, who died yesterday (Nov 22, 2007) aged 80.

The English website of Henri Pousseur's publisher is here, his own French website is here. And read about yet another serialist from the old world here.
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