The Octuor de Paris performed Mozart and Mâche at the Centre Pablo Neruda

A very fine evening: the perfect cohesion of this ensemble, and the confirmed talent of each of the performers, enabled a well-informed audience to appreciate Mozart's "Divertimento" and "Plaisanterie musicale" at their true value, before moving on to the masterpiece, perhaps less easy to approach, François-Bernard Mâche's "Octuor".
This contemporary composer is one of the most attractive and vigorously profiled personalities of the middle generation of French composers today....none of this generation has strayed further from the Webern-Boulez trend than Mâche; who acknowledges Varèse, Messiaen and Xenakis as his masters in thought, this implies that his music is above all a dialogue with sustaining sounds.

                                          Essonne matin, February 14, 1978

Mâche: Octuor

(One of the most original creators of French music today, fascinated in his works by exoticism and nature. Here, he explores the regions of pure music. Is it successful?)

CHŁOPECKI:
(It's a composition of sound durations, not events. Mâche speaks of pure music: is it really that? In Octuor, Honegger's Pacific is always present, one size below 231. In the final sequence, the winds send out Morse code signals. But after these few spots of sound, before which there was quite a lot going on, is there anything left but the fallen specks of a pen that knows how to write? Perhaps nothing should be left. So why look for something that Mâche didn't want to hide from us?)
KACZYŃSKI:
(Good piece by a very good composer, but poorly performed, so it was more poorly received than it deserved)
MALINOWSKI:
("Quarter tones are perhaps old-fashioned, because they lead painfully to effects close to those that music has achieved for quite a long time already, and in a richer, simpler and surer way wherever it has cut tonal scales and chosen sound materials)
PISARENKO:
(Intelligent and tasteful piece, borrowing from the sources of the classical art of chamber music. An experiment in micro-interval motorism, closer to Haba's experiments than to Ligeti's spectacular achievements. The piece requires the intimate atmosphere of the bedroom, which is why it failed in the Philharmonic's main hall).
ZIELI ŃSKI:
(One of the most remarkable works of the festival. Mâche's original music corresponds for us above all with a fascination for nature, animal voices, the sounds of rain, a sensuality, a sensitivity to noises and even exotic dialects. This time, the composer has exploited abstract sound material, but the result is the same: the style of the sound configurations, the space we perceive, the way the work develops, are no less fascinating than those of the world of birds or insects, as in Naluan or Korwar. It's the same style, the same personality, the same attention to detail, and it's well worth listening to!)

                                                            Ruch Muzyczny n°24 19.11.1978

The Octuor de Paris at Montgeoffroy: instrumental finesse and polyphonic intelligence 

...At last, a French composer, F-B.Mâche. Fernand van den Bogarde had taken over the direction of the octet for the realization of this work whose rhythms have the complexities and rigors of philosophical school hypotheses!
F.B.Mâche's octet is based on chromatic developments whose juxtapositions generate seductive effects. A slightly abrupt tone, sudden strokes and brief bursts of brilliance shake the attention.

                                                  J.F. Courrier de l'Ouest June 25, 1979

To conclude, the Octuor de Paris, at last complete, and conducted by Fernand van den Bogarde, presented the page that F-B.Mâche dedicated to them in 1977. An interesting detour into today's musical expression. It is probable that this sequence of chords and strokes, confirming the high virtuosity of the performers, obeys a certain logic and responds to an intention, but what is it? It's up to the listener to decide.

                                                           J.G. Ouest-France June 25, 1979

On Tuesday, the musical space offered some astonishing works....An Octet, at last, stretching out in tessituras, progressing in small steps for long curves, handling the strange and the everyday, the simple and the serious.

                                               D.M-A.