I was away on a much deserved vacation. I never take vacations, but
when I do, I don't check phone messages and I don't check email.
Vacation time is the time that I unplug everything. So, when I got
back, I had to emails from something called "Résonances
Contemporaines". If you work in New Music, all you have to do is read
these two words and you know exactly what this is about. These are the
"pur et dur" of the New Music field: the faithful, who still know how
to count from zero to eleven. They had written me because they were
doing a radio show on Antoine's music. They needed someone to
interview. And so they had sent me an email.
I
received the email on Sunday evening and the radio show was to be
recorded the following Wednesday. I immediately wrote back saying that I
would be delighted to participate. Then on Monday, I called. I talked
to a gentleman who said, essentially, that the position had been
filled. They already had someone to talk about Tisné and didn't need
another person. I said that I had something about this music that I to
say, that only I knew about and needed to tell. I told them that I had a
letter from Antoine saying that I was the one he wanted to talk about
his music; And I told them about all of the work we had done together
The gentleman then said "well, yes, we also knew Antoine quite well. We
knew him from Bordeaux..." and then he waited. I didn't know what to
say and went on with my spiel. He told me that this was all about the
CDMC presentation in November. He asked me if I was part of that. I
said that this was the first time that I had heard of it. He told me
that they were doing this to tie into the CDMC presentation. I asked
him who was organizind this and he gave me the name of the directress of
the CDMC.
The CDMC or "Centre de Documentation de
La Musique Contemporaine" (Contemporary Music Documentation Center) has
always been a great mystery to me. I have never figured what it does
or why it exists. It serves as a sort of
Quartier Générale for
people who work in New Music, for composers and for arts
administrators. I first heard about this when I was a featured soloist
at the Donne in Musica festival in Italy in 1997. This was the year in
which I was in conflict with the aging pioneer of women's music who ran a
recording operation in Eastern Europe, mainly because she hadn't paid
my fee. She had proceeded to tell anyone who would listen that I was a
dangerous menace to women everywhere because I was a sex maniac and a
serial rapist (she seemed to have missed a few chapters, somehow). So, I
was a HUGE hit at this women's music festival.
When
I met the directress of the CDMC there, it was love at first sight "Ah,
so YOU'RE the sex maniac! I've always wanted to met one of those". We
sat together at one of the presentations. She asked me what composers I
liked. I answered that I was very eclectic and as an example, I had
projects going with both Jean Françaix and Antoine Tisné. "Ah", she
replied, "the two composers whose music I hate the most!" When she saw
my reaction, she said "You won't say anything, will you?" And I
haven't...until now. But I must admit that I laughed when the CDMC was
forced to organize a Françaix exposition after his death. Françaix
would have liked that. I did however ask her what she liked. And she
replied "well, there was about a minute of piece by X that I heard a few
weeks ago that I thought was okay..." Immediately, a musician can tell
which camp somebody else is in. There are those of us who LOVE music
and wallow in the act of writing, performing and listening to it. And
there are those who hate everything that isn't perfectly suited to their
World view. I am in the former camp. She was in the latter. A
misdealt hand. Oh, well, you can't win them all.
And
later, when we started publishing music, Antoine had me take several
scores down to the CDMC to deposit them there. I took them to the very
nice clerk who said "We can't take these: they don't fit our
criteria....However, we would like to encourage you to submit other
scores". I didn't quite know what to say and managed to blurt out that
Antoine was a Prix de Rome, after all....to which she replied "Second
Grand Prix".....as they all do. And then she said, "well, we can't just
take anything. We have standards, you know....but we would like to
encourage you to come back with other works which may fit our
standards". So, I stood there and looked at her for a moment. And then I
said "Okay, let me get this straight: I am supposed to produce scores
for you for free and then I am supposed to bring them down here for you
to pass judgment on them?". And she said "yes, that's how we work".
And I said "fine, let's just forget that I ever came here". And I
walked out. And I never went back there again. For any reason.
So,
the CDMC was organizing an Antoine Tisné seminar. It just didn't
compute. I went to their site and the directress was no longer the
woman I had met long ago. So, I figured that maybe things were
different now; And so I went to my papers, found the letter and scanned
it. I wrote to the woman in charge and said that I had a message to
pass on , something that Antoine had wanted me to say. I had a
responsibility to say something that only I knew. And then, a few days
later I called them.
After the usual adminstrative
game of telephone tag, I finally got a person. She explained to me
that a flute player named Christel Rayneau had produced a recording of
Tisné pieces for flute. This seminar was organized to promote the
recording. She gave me Christel Rayneau's email. And since I was in
the middle of organizing an orchestral recording for Thérèse Brenet, I
needed to find a flute soloist. I figured that if Christel Rayneau
liked Tisné that I didn't need to convince her to record Brenet. I
called her and gave her a meeting at my usual café, "Le Père Tranquil"
at Les Halles.
And so I met Christel and we
started talking about Antoine and his music. I started talking about
the last phase of his life and the simplification of Antoine's style at
the end. I told her about the Five Modal Preludes...and she replied
"I'm not interested in teaching pieces". And then I told her about
Antoine's love of film music and wanting to break out of his "serious
music" box to write what he really felt. The response was immediate and
without hesitation "I don't think so". And so I said, "Okay, well read
this. " And I gave her a copy of the letter. Which she read. And
then she said "you need to participate in the seminar. I will call the
person organizing it. But you must be there."
So I
wrote to this woman, who was part of something called "L'Observatoire de
la Musique Française" attached to the Sorbonne. . . I still don't know
what they observe or why this organism exists. I don't think that
French Music really needs to be observed in any way, only appreciated.
But soon, I and Jean-Thierry had an appointment at the CDMC to discuss
how we could become part of this project. Everything had already been
planned....or rather it had been put on paper, because I started getting
calls from people who were trying to prepare their presentations.
There were no sources and they were looking for information. These
people were only interested in one thing: that I give them everything I
knew about their subject in a fifteen minute phone conversation. I
told them what I could, but I also told them that there was no way that I
could ever explain any of this in fifteen minutes. However, there was
one position available: They had asked Claude Samuel, the former head
of Radio France to be the moderator of this event...and, probably
because Antoine's words were still ringing in his ears from the "Le
Chant des Yeux" he had the good sense and elegance to refuse the
invitation. Would we moderate? We agreed to meet with the directress of
the CDMC, this woman and other people to discuss this;
I
put the letter, the Prix de Rome Medal and the manuscript into my
briefcase. Jean-Thierry printed out the biography that he written for
Antoine, that Antoine loved. So we took another elevator up to the
offices of the CDMC. We were ushered into a conference room with a
white plastic table and plastic chairs. There was the small,
nondescript woman from the mysterious "Observatoire de la Musique
Française", the directress of the CDMC who had known Antoine from her
days at the French Cultural Ministry and who I believe actually liked
him. And then there was some sort of archivist or a librarian who was
clearly extremely, profoundly and totally bored, even before the meeting
started. You can't imagine anyone more bored than this woman; She did
not want to be there. She had no interest in Antoine Tisné or anything
that I had to say. I don't know what she wanted in life, but it sure
as hell wasn't this!
There was discussion about
Tisné's papers, which had all apparently destroyed, including the six
volumes of his diary and all of the correspondence. This made no sense
to me, as Jean-Thierry and I had always joked about "Antoine had added
another document to his papers to be sent to the Bibliothèque Nationale"
each time he sent me a card or a letter. It was clear that he was
writing to me, but also for posterity. What could have happened? I
didn't get it.
So, I got my medal, my manuscript
and my letter out of my briefcase. And I started telling this story.
And clearly, it wasn't of interest. The directress seemed quite
sympathetic, but the woman organizing this seemed quite hostile. What I
had to say did not go with what she had planned. The librarian said
"it's all been planned. We have no time". And finally the directress
said "you remember the last time, with the seminar about X....you
remember all of those people who were angry, who were upset We can't
have that again, can we?". And I said "I can't promise that I won't be
emotional about this, because I've lived this in my bones. This is part
of who I am now and I can't be objective about this".
And
the Observatoire woman said "yes,...well, you know, we need to give as
much time as we can to the professionals who are trained musicologists.
People like you are interesting, but they can't really give us the
objective view we need to analysis this music. You must understand
that....But we certainly want you to come and be in the audience". I
told her that there was no way that I was going to sit in the audience
all day to listen to people tell me things that I already knew or which I
knew were wrong. And I said that it would be much better for them if I
wasn't there, since if things were said that I didn't agree with, I was
not going to remain silent. And everyone stopped talking and looked at
each other. So, I put my medal, my letter and my manuscript back into
my briefcase and shut my mouth.
So, here we were,
being ushered back to the elevator. And it was something like 16h30 or
something like that. And here I am with this smug little woman in front
of me who has just cut me out of her existence and who thought that she
had had the last word. And here I was, at yet anothe elevator. And I
turned to her and was suddenly gripped with a rage unlike any other I
have ever felt.
Antoine and I had gotten out. We
had found the one exit, the one that lead to freedom. We had done this
together. And here was this smug little woman, this musical
grave-digger who was using her petty authority to cut the one moment of
truth out of this whole action. They were forcibly stuffing Antoine back
into his suit, back into his office at the cultural ministry. The wild
magic that we had tried to evoke together was worthless in the face of
this administrative bureaucracy. All of our dreams. All of our vision.
The whole meaning of the story, completely lost. Even Antoine's letter
was useless.
So, as the elevator doors opened, I
looked at this woman with rage, with the whole of my being in pain And
then, as they had so many years ago, the elevator doors closed. And
that was all.
And here, finally is the message that I needed to give to the World. You can take this or leave it, but here it is.
Antoine
Tisné died a free man. He found his way out of this intellectually
sterile world of calculating music through counting and equations and
found his way to a World of pure sound and gestures. He got back to the
origins of music, but because he had put himself through this extreme
discipline of complete objective, calculated sound, he found his way
into that rare, completely illuminated space where Sound is inhibited by
Joy. Where there is only the pure pleasure of making beautiful
sounds. And when he got there, he was able to leave this Earth with his
head up, having done his life's work.
There is
no greater compliment that one can give to a musician. And even if I am
the only person who understands this, I know this to be true.
They
gave this seminar. It's on the web. You can listen to it if you
want. I won't, ever. They did read Jean-Thierry's biographical sketch
of Antoine. He wonders why. I think that it's probably because they
knew what they had done and were guilty about it. I don't care, because
I have given the message. You have it now.
There
is a postscript to this story. A very strange postscript. One which I
did not expect, but which, as everything that concerns Antoine,
revealed itself without warning. After having gone through this whole
business of reliving Antoine's life and death though this experience,
there was a period of a couple of weeks where I could not sleep. There
was something that I needed to understand that I wasn't seeing. I knew
that it was there if I could see it But I didn't see it. Maybe I
didn't want to see it.
And then one day, I did a websearch on Antoine. And I came across this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug6omJMZZh8
There was Nicole Proop....And there was Antoine. And then there was
this thing about "Les Pélérins" D'Arès". So, one websearch and then it
all clicked into place. There was "Les Voiles de La Nuit", "Ombres de
Feu", "Psalmodies", there were the "biblical landscapes". There were
both the cave painters of Altamira and the post-apocalyptic landscape
ravaged by nuclear warfare.
Antoine was part of a
religious sect, a very stupid religious sect called "Les Pélérins"
D'Arès". There was this guy, a former physicist, who lived in this
village in the Arcachon region of France, just above Bordeaux. During
the 1970s, he had 40 days of visits by Jesus and then a few years later,
5 days of visits by God the Father. This man created a kind of a
religious cocktail, as if you took Jewish, Christian and Muslim belief
and shook them all together to make one big thing.
One
day, Antoine had shown me a very mysterious photo of a place near a
pond where he had gone years before....and this also explained why such a
large number of strange musicians came from the area of Bordeaux. It
was the kind of thing that Antoine would fall into, hook, line and
sinker And finally, I think that he probably understood that he was
being played for a fool. He probably had been asked to contribute more
or something llike that. Or maybe he thought that these people could
heal him....and they couldn't. So, here he was, with his entire life's
work based on this lie....and he couldn't do anything about that. So,
he cleaned it up the best he could.
When I first
understood what all of this meant, I was angry. I mean, here I had been
thinking that I was doing all of these sacred music concerts and
finally, it was all about this sect that was maybe sincere... but this
is not what I had signed up to do. I thought of leading all of those
people through Erfurt, thinking I was doing one thing, and actually
doing something else.
And then I thought "He
might have told me". I mean, composers are a strange lot most of the
time. I'm used to people who believe in all sorts of things. And I
don't mind at all. I mean, there is the late French composer that we
all know about who was a Raelian. This doesn't make his music any
better or worse. With Antoine, I could have understood. It didn't need
to be such a big deal.
And yet, here is the mystery.
I think that I knew Antoine Tisné better than anyone, except perhaps
David Niemann. I lead him to his death and am here to tell his story
now. And yet, I never really knew him. He will always remain a
complete mystery to me But perhaps the greatest clue was given to me by
Thérèse Brenet, in the poem by Edgar Alan Poe that she used for her
guitar concerto. "A Dream Within A Dream".
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
My tale is done. I have given this message to the World. I thank you all for reading this.
