The Norwegian label LAWO Classics and Berlin’s bastille musique release two different records of pieces by Gérard Grisey.

Coincidentally or not –and almost coinciding with the release of the biography of Gérard Grisey by the American journalist Jeffrey Arlo Brown, The Life and Music of Gérard Grisey–, just a few weeks ago there were two separate releases of works by Grisey. On the one hand, the Norwegian label LAWO Classics released the first ever recording of Mégalithes in May, and on the other, the Berlin-based label Bastille Musique released Gérard Grisey: Dérives in June, which includes three of Grisey’s compositions: the title piece, L’icône paradoxale and Mégalithes. The latter disc features recordings by the WDR Sinfonieorchester conducted by Sylvain Cambreling (in the case of Dérives and L’icône paradoxale, two key works by Grisey, the former composed between 1973 and 1974 and the latter between 1992 and 1994) and Emilio Pomàrico (Mégalithes) and a 64-page trilingual booklet (in English, French and German) with articles by Jeffrey Arlo Brown and an interview with Sylvain Cambreling. The LAWO disc, on the other hand, focuses exclusively on Mégalithes, a youthful work by Gérard Grisey, composed in 1969, when Grisey was 23 years old. When he wrote this piece for horns, trumpets, trombones and tuba, it did not yet obey the spectralist patterns (a term which, by the way, did not satisfy the composer either). What is apparent in Mégalithes is the influence of Xenakis, and that Grisey was already obsessed with the inner life of sound and anxious to explore how its properties could affect the audience, especially the weight, density and texture of a robust brass ensemble such as the one here.

Mégalithes is a work that lasts around ten minutes, but its modular score – nine musical sequences that can be performed in any of its nine positions – means that two different versions (3 and 7) are offered here, both by Norwegian conductor Halldis Rønning leading the five members of the NyNorsk Messingkvintett and ten other accomplished guest musicians. Interspersed between these two versions is Untitled Echoes For Adjacent Rooms by Norwegian electroacoustic composer Anders Tveit, a work commissioned for the Only Connect festival in 2018, subtitled Listening To Gérard Grisey.