Claude Vivier: revivals at BBC Proms and Ruhr Triennale

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(August 2009)

The rediscovery of the music of Claude Vivier continues to gather pace. Long regarded as a figure of fascination in contemporary music circles, his works are increasingly being programmed in mainstream concerts. A case in point is his cosmically-inspired orchestral work Orion, receiving its UK premiere at the BBC Proms in London on 30 August. The Royal Philharmonic Orchesta is conducted by Charles Dutoit, who was on the podium for the work's first performance in Montreal in 1980, three years before the composer's untimely death at the age of 34.

Orion has increasingly been programmed by major orchestras in recent years, including the Residentie Orkest in 2007 and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester in 2008, with the latter scheduling a further performance on 31 May 2010 at the Philharmonie in Berlin conducted by Ingo Metzmacher.

In its compact 13 minute span, Orion surveys a wide range of expressive territory and traces a journey paralleling the composer's own to the East, or perhaps to the universe beyond the constellation. Vivier's programme note for Orion is highly characteristic in combining a rhapsodic quest for self-discovery with technically acute musical considerations:

A melody on the trumpet, again the trumpet, as in Kopernikus, instrument of death in the Middle Ages (see the film by Bergman and read l'Office des morts)
Inevetably, this melody is cast upon itself without being able (wanting) to smash the wall of solitude.
Blissful destruction-the euphoria of egocentric despair. Beauty, pure Beauty, sad Beauty, cosmetic beauty, lacquered or wild beauty, monstrous and sexual.
Stop!
I begin again.
Orion is the name of a constellation; I have always turned it upside down-have always looked toward the east-stop! too personal. I was just about to speak of my mother.
Third start.
Orion consists of six sections: statement of the melody, first development of the melody unravelling on itself, second development of the melody unravelling on itself, meditation on the melody, remembrance of the melody, and finally the melody in two parts.
Eternal homecoming, as in history with a capital H, which always waits impatiently for the return of its redemtive saints and its dictators. I have the impression that I'm standing around in a plane; I remain in the same place and yet I go from Cairo to Kuala Lumpur.
Go and find out for yourself!
Claude Vivier

Vivier's music is also centre-stage at the Ruhr Triennale in September with a new theatre production built from his works. In Sing für mich, Tod (Sing for me, Death) dramatist Albert Ostermaier has created a monologue based on Vivier's creative journey, and director David Herman has combined this text with Vivier's own music to explore the composer's life, work and death. Performances are in the abandoned machine hall of the former Zweckel colliery in Gladbeck, near Essen, on 5/6/8/11/12/13 September, with musikFabrik conducted by Christoph Poppen.

Visit the Ruhr Triennale website.

The Triennale programme writes: "Claude Vivier remains one of the most enigmatic composers of the twentieth century. Despite his untimely death at the age of 34, Franco-Canadian Vivier left behind a singular and extensive body of work. In its individuality and spirituality, it is like a lone star in an empty sky. Ultimately, Vivier threw himself into this dark night, ending his life in what can be regarded as a final, definitive dramatic performance. Vivier was found stabbed in his Paris hotel room, his body crouched over an unfinished score containing an eerie premonition of his death: Crois-tu en l’immortalité de l’âme? / Do you believe in the immortality of the soul? A man encapsulates his life in music, and in doing so increasingly blurs the line between life and art and ends his work by fusing both."

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