Répons (1984) for 6 soloists, ensemble and live electronics
The first work composed by Pierre Boulez at IRCAM was Répons (1980–84). In this forty-minute work an instrumental ensemble is placed in the middle of the hall, while six soloists encircle the audience: two pianos, harp, cimbalom, vibraphone and glockenspiel/xylophone. It is their music, which is transformed electronically and projected through the space.
Pierre Boulez started his experiences with a spatial distribution of musicians and recorded tape in 1958 with his work Poésie pour pouvoir. However he was unsatisfied with the relation between the real instruments and the recorded sounds; and it was only when digital systems were capable of processing sounds in real-time and combining instrumental and electronic sounds, through the 4X system developed by the engineer Giuseppe di Giugno that he came back to electronic composition.
This system provided three main functions in sound processing: memorising performed fragments of sound in order to reproduce them in a different moment; amplifying the sound and instruments; transforming the spectral behaviour of the instruments; Répons is indeed the most important work of Pierre Boulez during the eighties.
The musical ensemble is constituted by 24 musicians in the centre of the hall organized in three groups. The audience is placed around this central scene and finally six soloists are placed around the audience and their sound is processed in real time. A series of loudspeakers are placed between the soloists and sound may be fixed in space or moving among the loudspeakers with different predefined trajectories. The work is organised as an alternation between the central group and the performance of the soloists, establishing dialogues between the group, the soloists and the electronics. The listener is in the centre of the listening space, which is open to all directions.
Répons is probably one of the most achieved works by Boulez and shows his mastery of instrumental writing and his desire to open new trends for the orchestra in its relation to technology. Répons presents to the listener a new musical territory, achieving a scale and energy unmatched in Boulez’s music. The work demands a complex and difficult to install device, mainly a specific concert hall big enough to stage the performers, audience and technology; this is why the work is rarely performed. However in 1985 the French Robert Cahen, made a beautiful film entitled Répons (from which we show and exert) that brings the listener to the charming world of sounds proposed by the work.
Two diagrams show first; how Boulez draw the first sketches of the spatial distribution and secondly how the performers and public are placed in the concert hall.
