Jean Barraqué
Encyclopedia
Jean-Henri-Alphonse Barraqué (January 17, 1928 – August 17, 1973) was a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and writer on music who developed an individual form of serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...

 which is displayed in a small output of highly complex but passionate works.

Life

Barraqué was born in Puteaux
Puteaux
Puteaux is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located in the heart of the Hauts-de-Seine department from the center of Paris....

, Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine is designated number 92 of the 101 départements in France. It is part of the Île-de-France region, and covers the western inner suburbs of Paris...

. The family moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1931. He studied in Paris with Jean Langlais
Jean Langlais
Jean Langlais was a French composer of modern classical music, organist, and improviser.- Biography :Jean Langlais was born in La Fontenelle , a small village near Mont St Michel, France...

 and Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...

 and, through Messiaen, became interested in serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...

. After completing his Piano Sonata
Piano Sonata (Barraqué)
The Piano Sonata by Jean Barraqué is a significant serial composition from the period of avant-garde composition in France shortly after World War II....

 in 1952, he suppressed or destroyed his earlier works. A book published by the French music critic André Hodeir
André Hodeir
André Hodeir was a French violinist, composer, arranger and musicologist.-Biography:André Hodeir was born in Paris. His initial training was as a classical violinist and composer. He studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he took Olivier Messiaen's analysis class, and won first prizes in...

, titled Since Debussy, created controversy around Barraqué by claiming this work as perhaps the finest piano sonata since Beethoven. As the work had still not been publicly performed, and only two other works by him had at this time, the extravagant claims made for Barraqué in this book were received with some scepticism. Whilst with hindsight it is clear that Hodeir had accurately perceived the exceptional features of Barraqué's music—notably its searing Romantic intensity, which distinguishes it from the contemporaneous works of Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...

 or Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...

.

As Paul Griffiths' recent biography has clarified, Boulez had in fact attempted to get the Barraqué Piano Sonata
Piano sonata
A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement , two movements , five or even more movements...

 performed for some years after it was finished. Barraqué's music was published starting in 1963 by the Florentine businessman Aldo Bruzichelli, who provided much-needed material assistance for the composer, but whose promotion could not perhaps compete with that of the better known Universal Edition in Vienna who published Boulez, Berio, and Stockhausen. In any event, Barraqué did not obtain ready access to the better-known new music festivals and concert series until much later than they.

Barraqué was involved in a car accident in 1964, and his apartment was destroyed by fire in November 1968. He suffered from bad health for much of his life. Nevertheless his death in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in August 1973, at the age of 45, was sudden and unexpected, and he appeared to have resumed serious work on a number of larger compositions from the Death of Virgil cycle.

Music and Reputation

Barraqué stated that he wrote about 30 works before those that he eventually acknowledged; as far as is known they were destroyed by him. They included a Nocturne and Mouvement lent for piano, at least three piano sonata
Piano sonata
A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement , two movements , five or even more movements...

s, a sonata for unaccompanied violin, and a Symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...

 in C sharp minor. The presumably fourth, but un-numbered Piano Sonata
Piano Sonata (Barraqué)
The Piano Sonata by Jean Barraqué is a significant serial composition from the period of avant-garde composition in France shortly after World War II....

, for which he gave the date 1952, was his earliest acknowledged work. Barraqué then produced his only electronic
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...

 piece, the musique concrète
Musique concrète
Musique concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sounds derived from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical"...

 Etude (1954), made at Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist and acoustician of the 20th century. His innovative work in both the sciences —particularly communications and acoustics— and the various arts of music, literature and radio presentation after the end...

's studio. Subsequently he planned a large-scale cycle of pieces, La Mort de Virgile, based on Hermann Broch
Hermann Broch
Hermann Broch was a 20th century Austrian writer, considered one of the major Modernists.-Life:Broch was born in Vienna to a prosperous Jewish family and worked for some time in his family's factory, though he maintained his literary interests privately...

's novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 The Death of Virgil, a book which Barraqué's friend and sometime lover Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...

 recommended to him. This cycle, along with other pieces deriving from it or acting as commentaries upon it, he envisaged as his principal life-long creative project. Following the scheme of the novel, it was to be divided into four sub-cycles: 'Water (The Arrival)', 'Fire (The Descent)', 'Earth (The Expectancy)' and 'Air (The Return)'. Most of Barraqué's creative efforts went into the works which were to take their place in 'Fire (The Descent)', which - to give an idea of the projected scope of the whole design - was to have consisted of thirteen works. Before his death he completed two of the projected parts: Chant aprés chant (1966), and Le temps restitué (1957/68). Fragments of some of the other parts exist.

Barraqué also wrote ... au dela du hasard (1959) for three female voices and ensemble, and a concerto
Concerto
A concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...

 for clarinet, vibraphone and ensemble in 1968, which are related to The Death of Virgil, but not actually part of that cycle. (... au dela du hasard is described as a commentary on Affranchi du hasard, which was to have been the eleventh piece of 'Fire (The Descent)' but was not actually composed.) The only other extant piece by Barraqué is Séquence (1955-56), a setting of Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...

 for soprano and ensemble which is partly a re-working of three songs for soprano and piano from the early fifties.

Barraqué's use of tone row
Tone row
In music, a tone row or note row , also series and set, refers to a non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitch-classes, typically of the twelve notes in musical set theory of the chromatic scale, though both larger and smaller sets are sometimes found.-History and usage:Tone rows are the basis of...

s in his work is quite distinctive. Rather than using a single tone row for an entire piece, as Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...

 did, or using a number of related rows in one work, as Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...

 or Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

 sometimes did, Barraqué starts by using one row, and then subtly alters it to get a second. This second row is then used for a while before being slightly altered again to make a third. This process continues throughout the work. He called this technique "proliferating series".

Harry Halbreich has written that "Barraqué's whole work is marked by terrible despair, lightened by no religious or ideological faith, and entirely dominated by the great shadow of Death". In 1998 the record company CPO issued his entire output on CD, in performances by the Austrian ensemble Klangforum Wien.

The major reference work on his music in English is a biography entitled The Sea on Fire by the British music critic Paul Griffiths (2003). In German, Heribert Henrich's book of 1997 is its complement. His music is now published by the German firm of Bärenreiter.

Writings

Barraqué wrote many articles on other composers (including Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...

, Monteverdi, Mozart and Messiaen) and on theoretical aspects of contemporary music. His major prose work is his book on Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1962). He also made numerous analyses of works in the standard repertoire from J.S. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

 to Honegger
Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les six. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which is interpreted as imitating the sound of a steam locomotive.-Biography:Born...

, some of which he used in his teaching. His few pupils included the British composer Bill Hopkins
Bill Hopkins
G.W. Hopkins was a British composer, pianist and music critic.Hopkins was born in Prestbury, Cheshire and educated at Rossall School, Lancashire; his mother's learning difficulties meant she was unable to look after him, and he was raised by aunts...

.

Completed Works

  • Trois Mélodies for soprano and piano (1950) (texts from The Song of Solomon, Baudelaire and Rimbaud)

  • Séquence for voice, percussion and chamber ensemble (1950-55) (text by Nietzsche; incorporates material from the Trois Mélodies)

  • Piano Sonata
    Piano Sonata (Barraqué)
    The Piano Sonata by Jean Barraqué is a significant serial composition from the period of avant-garde composition in France shortly after World War II....

     (1950-52)

  • Etude for 3-track tape (1952-3)

  • Le Temps Restitué for soprano, chorus and orchestra (1956-68) (text from Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil, in French translation by Albert Kohn)

  • … au delà du hasard (premier Commentaire de 'Affranchi du hasard' et du 'Temps Restitué') for four instrumental groups and one vocal group (1958-9) (text by Barraqué 'around a quotation of Hermann Broch')

  • Concerto for six instrumental groups and two solo instruments (vibraphone and clarinet) (1962-8)

  • Chant après Chant for six percussionists, voice and piano (1965-66) (text by Barraqué and Hermann Broch)

Unfinished Works

  • Sonorité jaune (1957 sketch based on Wassily Kandinsky
    Wassily Kandinsky
    Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...

    , Der gelbe Klang)

  • Discours (c. 1961): sketch for a work for voices and orchestra, text from Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil, in French translation by Albert Kohn)

  • Lysanias (c. 1966-9; 1972-3): sketch for three solo voices and orchestra (text by Barraqué and Hermann Broch)

  • Portiques du Feu (c. 1968; 1972-3): sketch for 18 solo voices (text by Barraqué and Hermann Broch)

  • Hymnes à Plotia for string quartet (1972-3)

Sources

  • Goye, Jean-Philippe, and Patrick Ozzard-Low. 1987. "Barraqué – Broch – Heidegger". Entretemps 5:43-58
  • Griffiths, Paul. 2001. “Barraqué, Jean.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
  • Griffiths, Paul. 2003. The Sea on Fire: Jean Barraqué. Eastman Studies in Music 1071-9989. Rochester, NY: Rochester University Press. ISBN 1580461417
  • Halbreich, Harry, 'Jean Barraqué: Complete Works', essay (1987) translated by Elizabeth Buzzard and first published in programme-book of 1989 Almeida Festival.
  • Henrich, Heribert. 1997. Das Werk Jean Barraqués. Genese un Faktur. Bärenreiter. ISBN 3-7618-1386-4
  • Hodeir, André. 1961. La musique depuis Debussy. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. English edition, as Since Debussy: A View of Contemporary Music. Translated by Noel Burch. Evergreen original, E-260. New York: Grove Press, Inc.; London: Secker and Warburg, 1961.
  • Hopkins, G.W. 1966. “Jean Barraqué” Musical Times 107, no. 1485: 952–54.
  • Hopkins, Bill. 1972. “Barraqué’s Piano Sonata”. The Listener (27 Jan 1972)
  • Hopkins, Bill. 1978–79. “Barraqué and the Serial Idea”. Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 105:13–24.
  • Hopkins, Bill. 1993. “Portrait of a Sonata”. Tempo new series, no. 186 (September): 13-14.
  • Jack, Adrian. 1972–73. “Jean Barraqué”. Music and Musicians 21, no. 4:6–7.
  • Jack, Adrian. 1973–74. “‘A Contract with Death”’. Music and Musicians 22, no. 2:6–7.
  • Janzen, Rose-Marie. 1989. “A Biographical Chronology of Jean Barraqué”, translated by Adrian Jack. Perspectives of New Music 27, no. 1 (Winter): 234–45.
  • Lyon, Raymond. 1969. "Propos impromptu". Courrier Musical de France no. 26:25–80. Reprinted in Jean Barraqué: Écrits, edited by Laurent Feneyrou and Raymond Lyon, 177–84. Paris: Université de Paris I [Panthéon-Sorbonne], 2001.
  • Lyon, Raymond. (ed.). 1973. "Portrait de Jean Barraqué”. Courrier Musical de France no. 44:130–32.
  • Ozzard-Low, Patrick. 1989. “Barraqué – Broch – Heidegger: A Philosophical Introduction to the Music of Jean Barraqué”. Cahiers d’Etudes Germaniques no. 16:93–106.
  • Poirier, Alain. 1988. "L’histoire 'toujours recommencée' …: introduction à la pensée analytique de Jean Barraqué". Analyse musicale no. 12 (July): 9–13.
  • Riehn, Rainer, and Heinz-Klaus Metzger (eds.). 1993. Jean Barraqué. Musik-Konzepte no. 82. Munich: Edition Text+Kritik.
  • Riotte, André. 1987. "Les séries proliférantes selon Barraqué: Approche formelle". Entretemps 5: 65–74.
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