Reviews/Figures

Contemporary music is often thought to be the product of intellectual speculation, a constant praise of complexity. This is not entirely untrue. But to reduce all of today's musical creation to such statements is to ignore the work of François-Bernard Mâche, for example. Invited by Grame to take part in the biennial Musiques en Scène, this sixty-seven-year-old composer and musicologist draws all his inspiration from non-European traditions, reviving certain primitive aspects of music. François-Bernard Mâche's search for universals, i.e. everything that different cultures and eras have in common, has given rise to a personal language based on models and archetypes. In terms of content, he could be compared to the composer Stockhausen, who was also attracted by the idea of universal music. The form is totally different. Mâche lays bare ethnic sounds and rhythms, transforming and breaking them down to create a boldly coherent whole. This is by no means mere plagiarism. As he himself says, "What is perhaps most interesting about the phenomenon of folklore is its ability to reinvent itself and reincarnate itself in new forms". His music is therefore made up of multiple hybrids, reflecting the cultural cross-fertilisation of contemporary civilisations. The concert given by the Percussions Claviers de Lyon on Sunday 17 March at Les Subsistances was perhaps the easiest way to understand this approach. The four works presented (Hiérogamie, Phénix, Figures, Khnoum), all written for percussion (sometimes accompanied by a wind instrument), offered a global and faithful vision of the composer's resources: research into timbres, integration of Hindu rhythms, dilation of time, 'transposition' of mythological or sacred themes. It has to be said that the performance by the Percussions Claviers de Lyon, accompanied by a number of students from the CNSMD, made a major contribution to the effectiveness of this portrait concert.

                                                     S.S-A.  Lyon, March 2002

Mâche Normalien poète

It's superb: a banal phrase for a living composer, a disciple of Messiaen. This CD devoted to François-Bernard Mâche by Accroche-Note is nothing but a source of joy in the form of discoveries. There are both birds and insects in Mâche, who forages in the realm of sounds, making honey of everything his ears catch. For he believes in the "universals" of music as Messiaen believes in God. It doesn't matter if the result is constantly poetic. It is both constructed and natural, drawing on the many sources from which Mâche draws his inspiration, from birdsong to the Javanese gamelan.

                                                J.Doucelin Le Figaro 4 July 2002
                                  (Assai CD: Kengir, Phénix, Brûlis, Figures, Aulodie)

...This strangeness is found again in Figures, particularly in the timbre of the bass clarinet and in the combined use of this colour and the low register. Here and everywhere, we appreciate the detached exactitude and intelligent playing of the Accroche Note ensemble.

           Costin Cazaban, Le Monde de la Musique, September 2002
                                                   (CD Accroche Note, Assai)

Assai CD: Kengir, Phénix, Brûlis, Figures, Aulodie

An enviable university education (agrégation de Lettres Classiques), musical studies without blinkers, assiduous, patient and lucid study of non-Western music, the writing of major works and - of course! - listening - both openly and critically - to the music of his contemporaries, François-Bernard Mâche is a respected musicologist, an ethnomusicologist with very personal views, and an independent composer whom I deeply admire. In his introduction to the CD booklet, Martin Kaltenecker presents the whole with great sensitivity and intelligence, before briefly commenting on four of the works on the CD. These pieces were composed between 1991 and 1999, and the percussion - acoustic or synthetic - is treated with mastery and originality. Familiar with Mâche's work, the Accroche Note ensemble has once again demonstrated its talent. The group's percussionist, Emmanuel Séjourné, gave an analysis of Phénix in Percussions... Excellent booklet (English, French) with the lyrics of Kengir. I really like this record.

	                                            Percussions, November 2002

Profile of an independent
For years, François-Bernard Mâche (b.1935) has maintained an independent career, far removed from the main currents of the avant-garde. Mâche is the case of an intellectual/artist, whose work is born in line with a position towards music based on a considerable activity of reflection and research. In parallel with his creative work, the French composer has carried out an extensive and fruitful activity as an essayist, the most ambitious fruit of which is the book Musique-Mythe-Nature (1983). In these pages, Mâche develops his main theses: the criticism of serialism and a large part of the musical avant-garde of the second half of the 20th century for its cult of writing and abstract formalism. Mâche's poetics revolves around the so-called "musical paradigms", structural codes present in Nature, which composers have always assimilated and used in music. Mâche has been defining and determining them thanks to a profound study of the music of Nature (a field in which he has an impressive erudition) and throughout the history of music. His aim has always been the elaboration of complex musical models without losing the ability to communicate directly with the listener.
This CD on the Assai label is the third monographic album dedicated to Mâche, following those released on Erato (1993) and INA (1999). It brings together five relatively recent works (from 1982 to 1999) which, given the homogeneity and coherence of the composer's thought over the years, can be considered a good sample of his aesthetics and offer a valuable introduction to his music. The reference to instruments and musical forms coming from extra-European cultures, the assimilation of the lessons of Varèse, Messiaen and Xenakis are the most striking elements of his work, although not the only ones...
Phénix (1982) for solo percussion; Figures (1983) for bass clarinet and vibraphone and Aulodie (1983) for clarinet and recorded sounds, had already appeared in the monographic Erato. By designing a magical and primordial dimension, the first two give voice to a world in whose rhythms live the shadows of Xenakis and Messiaen.

S.R.   Diverdi 115(Espagne)  Mai 2003