François-Bernard Mâche's informal movement for instruments is a valuable source of material.
                                          Der Kurier, Berlin, 2.10.1964

...(More interestingly, in the first movement of his composition "Le son d'une voix", François-Bernard Mâche juxtaposes isolated and harsher instrumental effects, which struggle to combine, while making effective use of such simple means as string notes without vibrato).

                                     S.M., Tagespiegel 3.10.1964

The only thing that remains astonishing is the certainty and virtuosity with which composers such as Guezec, Miroglio, Mache and Xenakis arrange effects of serial origin in compositions.
                                                                                                  Wgb

(François-Bernard Mâche's block-shaped composition is full of contrasts).
                                                 We., Berliner Morgenpost 3.10.1964

The first movement of François-Bernard Mâche's "Son d'une voix" lets 14 instruments live in memories of Alban Berg's "Wozzek"... Everything... was conducted with exemplary accuracy and perfect knowledge of avant-gardism in music by Bruno Maderna.
                                                 Rheinische Post, Duisburg, 6.10.1964

Two more compositional successes can be attributed to the French. Among the eight new compositions (some of them written especially for "Warsaw Automn" presented by the Ensemble Instrumental de Musique Contemporaine de Paris under the direction of Konstanty Simonowicz, works by Mache and Ferrari - probably the most outstanding young artists in the group (school?) of the father of musique concrète Pierre Schaeffer - were of particular interest. A work by Annis Xenakis composed with the help of digital machines was an interesting element, but not in the same league as other works by the same author (for example the composition "Metastasis", played on the same day at another concert, to which I am not devoting a separate note, as it is a work that has already been played here). The French pieces written especially for the festival were a delight. It turns out - and not for the first time - that it is very difficult to create something good on commission. But let's not complain too much. Seven compositional hits in two days is enough. Let's hope they're genuine rediscovered planets of new music and not fleeting festival meteors....
         
                                 Tadeusz Kaczyński, Sztandar Młodych 25.9.1964

The most positive elements were certainly the interesting "Flashes" by Luc Ferrari and "Le son d'une voix" by François Mache.
                                                  
                                     Jόzef Kański, Trybuna Ludu 26.9.1964

The form of François-Bernard Mache's composition Le son d'une voix is a faithful transposition of Paul Eluard's poem, produced with the aid of a sonograph. The sound recording of the recitation of the poem becomes the determinant of all the musical parameters of the piece, giving the whole a certain uniformity. But, as with Ferrari, it is not the formal idea alone that determines the value of the work, but its original realisation, freed from Boulézian and Schaefferian influences. Ferrari and Mache are the only composers of the younger generation who can unhesitatingly be described as French avant-garde.

                            Tadeusz Kaczyński, Ruch Muzyczny N°21, 1-15.11.1964

In Le son d'une voix, François-Bernard Mâche has attempted to set Paul Eluard's Poésie ininterrompue II to music, in other words, the rhythm of the poem's words, their intensity and the speed with which they are delivered have served as the framework for the sober, dense musical composition. The work is remarkably eloquent. We have high hopes for future scores by F-B. Mâche.
                                             Gérard Zwang, La France, 5.4.1967

A remarkable work followed... François-Bernard Mâche presented the French premiere of "Le son d'une voix" which, as the composer confided to us, "ceased to be Eluard's in Poésie ininterrompue II, to become mine, as soon as I turned it away from poetry to try and make it admit to music". We have heard this warm, vibrant voice change from a whisper to anger. Poetry then abolishes all syntax, like a tenuous arch that still links us to the inaccessible. The sound of this voice is indicative of this young author's great sensitivity and talent, but we already knew that. A triumphant welcome from the Royan audience who, it should be noted with pleasure, are people of taste who don't applaud just anything.
                                                 Florence Mothe, Sud-Ouest 5.4.1967

François-Bernard Mâche's Le son d'une voix (1935) was a highly original piece of research. Taking as his subject the spoken text of a poem by Eluard, he transcribed not the words themselves, but all the sound qualities of the voice, meticulously listened to and analysed as if through a prism. And this score is a poem too, in which we find metal, movement, attacks, harmonics, all the unknown richness of the spoken word, revealed by a wide-ranging instrumentation, but very fine, like those cinematographic close-ups which, instead of making a face scream, illuminate the depths of the being. 
						
                                             Jacques Longchampt, Le Monde 7.4.1967

R.R.Bennett's Calendar pales in comparison with Machev's Son d'une voix and P.Golas's Un opéra de voyage, two scores that exploit the basic physical characteristics of the human voice instrumentally, albeit in completely opposite ways.
                                               Olivier Alain, Le Figaro, 7.4.1967

"Le son d'une voix', already performed at the Automne varsovien 1964, allows François-Bernard Mâche to 'divert' the music from a text by Eluard to make it more present, more direct, more sensitive through a kind of exclusively instrumental narrative with deep poetic resonances.

                        Maurice Fleuret, Le Nouvel Observateur, 12-18.4.1967

In Le son d'une voix, François-Bernard Mâche uses musical techniques to imitate the sounds of a poem by Paul Eluard, independently of its expressive meaning. Sonograms have helped him to analyse the finer articulations of a text whose sibilants are entrusted to the maracas, the dentals to the pizzicati of the strings etc...
                                       Jacques Bourgeois, Arts, 12-18.4.1967

I also very much enjoyed "Le son d'une voix", by François-Bernard Mâche. "Richer and truer than what this voice says". The author has tried to exorcise this old metaphor of "musical language" linked to abusive humanism. He has achieved a total anamorphosis of the text by literally setting it to music. The poem in question is by Eluard, Poésie ininterrompue II. The result is very fascinating, very beautiful. We'll talk about it.
       
                           Martine Cadieu, Les Lettres françaises 13-19.4.1967

Le son d'une voix, (first performance in France), a profoundly poetic work, an extremely original attempt at the instrumental transposition of the voice into a kind of inner sound photograph of a poem by Paul Eluard.

                                   Claude Rostand, Figaro littéraire 13.4.1967

Le son d'une voix, by François-Bernard Mâche, a subtle search, not always easy to follow, for an instrumental transposition of the essential characteristics of the spoken voice.

                        Marc Pincherle, Les nouvelles littéraires, 13.4.1967