Record Erato STU 70860

Mâche belongs to the generation of Gilbert Amy, Gérard Masson, Paul Méfano, Jean- Claude Eloy and the late Jean-Pierre Guézec, all ten to twelve years younger than Boulez and Xenakis. Mâche is unquestionably closer to the latter than to the serial musicians, and this is what distinguishes him from his contemporaries mentioned above. On the other hand, a great deal of activity at the G.R.M., and then in other electro-acoustic studios, explains his predilection for "mixed" works (instruments and tape), of which the present disc offers two masterly examples. And finally, Mâche is a literary scholar and philosopher, the author of highly original musical analyses based on structuralist methods. His music, unlike that of many of his contemporaries, is essentially based on rhythm and movement. In this respect, Kemit probably represents a borderline case. It is true that it is not an original composition, but a faithful transcription of a darbouka improvisation from Upper Egypt. A task requiring uncommon concentration and fine ear.
Mâche also demonstrates this in Korwar and Temes Nevinbür, in which the sounds recorded on tape (natural sounds such as birdsong, the sounds of other animals or the elements) are transcribed into a soundtrack with astonishing precision.
The 1973 Royan Festival devoted an entire concert to works by Mâche for the first time and the great success of this concert was an important turning point in his career. It is the programme of that concert that the present disc revives, with the same performers. Only the electro-acoustic Nuit is replaced here by an older piece, Canzone Il for brass quintet. This short, brilliant piece, enhanced by a few rather Varesian violences, contains the earliest examples  of percussion on the mouthpiece, a procedure that has been used and abused ever since.
The two most important works on our disc, Korwar and Temes Nevinbür, are part of a cycle inspired by the Etruscans. are part of a cycle inspired by the strange ritual objects from Melanesia to which the titles refer: furniture containing skulls coated in painted clay. By analogy, these pieces superimpose a 'natural' object (the tape, made of sounds) onto a 'natural' object. "(the tape, made up of sounds recorded 'live' in nature, edited but not transformed) with a 'cultural' layer (the artistic part, which is the work of art itself). The tape can be played on its own (under the title, still Melanesian, of Agiba), and the works that incorporate it (we must add to the two Rambaramb, with solo piano and full orchestra) are then presented as so many variants,  or paraphrases, in which the tape acts as a kind of cantus firmus. They are also surprisingly different from one another: in Temes Nevinbür (for 2 pianos and 2 percussion instruments), at the end, the music is literally swept away, submerged by the elements, absorbed by the sea into which it melts, whereas in Korwar, on the contrary, it triumphs over these elements, and asserts the omnipotence of its own rhythm, quite different from that of nature. Both works, especially Korwar, are highly spectacular in their instrumental virtuosity, and contain gradations of a bewitching power that is very rare in today's music. All the performers here repeat their Royan prowess, and what Jean-Pierre Drouet achieves in Kemit is a prodigious feat - you have to have seen it not to believe that it is a montage. As for Elisabeth Chojnacka, she has already brought Korwar, the jewel in her repertoire, to the four corners of the world. Here is a disc unlike any other, an excellent portrait of a composer who is also unlike any other.
We can only warmly recommend it, noting that Mâche's music is in no way austere or off-putting; on the contrary, it radiates youth and joie de vivre.

Technique: 5/5
Harry Halbreich, Harmonie February 1975