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Became known as founder of l1Itinéraire, a group of
artists that took a stand against Pierre Boulez1 Opaper music1 and
formulated
a musical language based on a personal experience of sound. Murail turned
to the Opure sound1 he got to know during his studies of acoustics and the
perception of sound. Giacinto Scelsi strengthened him in his conviction
that he should look for the world within the tone. This is how Ospectral
music1 was born, a genre in which one makes use of computers to analyze
overtones which are subsequently made audible. As Murail argues, spectral
music is first and foremost a new approach to music, an attempt to find a
way out of the structuralist contradiction.
At first glance Vampyr! does not belong in this
category. In the preface to the work, Murail writes: OThe desired sound is
rather like that of the solo guitar as played by Carlos Santana, Eric
Clapton etc.1. And then, in bold type and with an exclamation mark: OThe
player should put into Vampyr! all the energy of rock music and that
includes the appropriate number of decibels!1
Vampyr! is part of Random Access Memory, a cycle of pieces intended to
span the gap between rock and classical music. Murail wanted to realise a
series of highly idiomatic timbre studies. According to the composer, the
piece presents a sound Ofor which electric guitars were created1: the
typical distorted rock sound. Vampyr! bears no relationship to spectral
music when it comes to structuring pitch, although other parameters, such
as the development of the compass, do have a link with Murail1s thinking.
The rather striking title refers to horror movies and sci-fi B-films;
other titles in the cycle do so as well. This subject matter is clearly
recognizable in the saturated guitar sound and the frequent, hysterical
use of the tremolo arm.
Anthony Fiumara
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