Ligeti and Mâche

...This year, the Warsaw Autumn programme committee offered the public a more attentive appreciation, spaced out over time, of two composers: Ligeti, eleven of whose works were presented in five concerts, and Mâche, to whom an entire concert was devoted. It was a completely justified choice, at least in my opinion, since it is for these two composers that I have had the greatest interest and sympathy for a long time, considering them both - Polish music aside - to be the most precious personalities of our time...
Listening to the music of François-Bernard Mâche - born in 1935 - one is tempted to use an epithet that is almost forgotten these days - and rarely used in relation to contemporary music: simply adorable. It's already adorable, thanks to the beauty of the sounds, not to mention their artistic arrangement, which is also particularly meticulous and seductive. It is a new incarnation of the most typical traits of French art in general, such as sensuality, a taste for nuance, the elegance of the subtlest lacework, richness of colour, clarity of style, a fascination with the world outside rather than inside. The aesthetic principle of this music, despite its new technical aspect, is rooted in the tradition of several centuries, beginning with Janequin, then taken up by Couperin and Rameau, and continued by Debussy, Ravel and Messiaen.
Mâche is fascinated by nature and its mysterious charms, but also by man as a creation of that nature; he does not seek to set them in opposition. He is drawn to primitive and exotic cultures, to the languages of Africa and Polynesia, to myths, rituals and magic. In his music, alongside the most subtle sonorities and figures of speech, the power of the elements sometimes bursts forth; sometimes we hear, as if in a ritual trance, sequences of certain rhythms and emotional states. All this makes up a fantastic world, very homogeneous and full of colour. It's a world of images and sounds with a very personal, consciously researched style that caresses our senses like the finest pictorial art. Among Mâche's works for solo instruments, we had already heard Octuor and Anaphores - for harpsichord and percussion - so subtle in their figures and colours. The most interesting of these works, however, are the compositions for instruments and magnetic tape, on which nature sounds are recorded: birdsong, frogs croaking, insects buzzing. The sound of running water, wind and fire, as well as human voices. The composer does not distort the recorded sounds, but meticulously edits them and harmonises them with instruments. He does this so marvellously that the two layers form a homogeneous musical whole for our ears. In Mâche's own words, his intention is to blur the boundaries between nature and culture. Indeed, the instruments playing their part so closely resemble the sounds of recorded nature that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the component parts of arabesques obtained in this way. This correspondence, as well as the idea itself of 'secretly watching nature', in no way leads Mâche to gratuitous naturalism. Recorded by him - and artistically edited - the chirping of birds or the sound of running water lose some of their original meaningful context and suddenly reveal their hitherto unknown musical meaning. We've known for a long time that we can look at nature with a painter's eye and discover all its artistic forms, even the most abstract ones, unnoticed in an ordinary context. Mâche has proved that listening to nature with a musician's ear can also be inspiring and revealing, especially when it is linked to such a personal stylistic vision...
 And finally, two more recent works presented during this concert devoted to the composer Mâche - for two pianos eight hands performed by A.Dutkiewicz, S.Esztény, E.Knapik and K.Meyer. Listening to recordings of these works convinces me more and more. Very often the sound of the pianos evokes - and this is perhaps a particularly striking aesthetic image - the sound of many bells, all the more so as it is achieved through harmonic shifts of great beauty and logic (a new element in Mâche's style!). However, beyond a second work (Lèthè, written for the Warsaw Festival) that is deliberately more colourful, richer and livelier than the first (Styx), which is more austere, sombre and a little monotonous, what remains engraved in our memory is the marvellous progression of chords.
Ligeti and Mâche, two different personalities. I think that if they were the only ones composing nowadays, they would be enough to ensure that the contemporary era would not have to be ashamed when confronted with the musical achievements of the past.

             (Tadeusz A. Zieliński, Ruch Muzyczny n°24, 24 November 1985

(...With forty fingers on a keyboard, the density became too great. And this was a problem for all the pieces; the acoustics didn't help much. As a result, nuanced works such as Lèthè by the French composer François-Bernard Mâche lost some of their charm...)

                 Oscar van den Wijngaard, Leidse Courant, March 1992

(Much struggle and constant tension characterised the music of the Frenchman Mâche, by whom the end of the chair was well occupied (?))

                          Monica Schiks, Leids Dagblad March 1992

(About the Naxos CD containing Styx, Lèthè, Mesarthim, Areg, Nocturne)

François-Bernard Mâche, for whom sound is an essential element, has set out, without neglecting the other elements of the music, to explore it in all its aspects and to use it as the basis for his compositions for two pianos, two pianos for four hands, piano and magnetic tape. The resonances create a most bewitching sonic space, for there is, there is no denying it, a magic of sound whose effects the composer has perfectly measured and ordered.

                   Jean Roy, Le Monde de la musique n°315, December 2006