La Mystère Tisné III

So finally our CD came out.  i think that Antoine thought that it would win a Grand Prix de Disque.  I kind of thought that it might (being the eternal optimist that all Yanks are....), but no dice   I don't remember who won that year, but it wasn't us.   The CD did absolutely nothing.  Yes, we got reviewed in "Le Monde de la Musique".  I think that we got seven stars. out of ten.  Or maybe it was three stars out of five.  They said that they liked the performance by L'Itinéraire....which was interesting because they weren't on the recording.  Guilaubez had included another piece already recorded by the Atélier Musicale de la Ville D'Avray, directed by Jean-Louis Pétit, his "artistic advisor".   In any case, what I didn't know is that the recording wasn't really intended to be sold.  It was intended to be used to collect the various funds available...but neither sales nor promotion were really part of the picture.  The recording company no longer exists and, as far as I know, no one controls the catalog.  Even if they did, they have no contract with me, so they do not control my performances.  The recording only exists because I allow its existence, which is why I've simply put my performances up on Youtube.  

So, dear reader, you must be asking yourself by now exactly what the problem is here.  Because there is obviously a problem.  We're doing all of the right things and this is all going nowhere.  What's going on?

Well, part of the problem was me.  I was, quite simply, not prepared for the work that was on my path.  Yes, I was a very good saxophonist (I would like to think, in spite of what remains of my time at the Paris Conservatory, that I demonstrate that I have a personality and that I do something unique with these works....at least, I hope so.)  But here I was, suddenly projected into the role of an executive producer, negotiating the contracts with the orchestra, music publisher, since I provided the materials for "Ombres de Feu", one of the first projects I did on Finale and also negotiating the various  grants from the Arts agencies in France.  I wasn't equipped to do this, but I suppose I must have figured it out.  This is not to say that I didn't completely screw up other projects along the way;  It's surprising that I didn't run into problems because I went way out on a limb several times.


Most of this was because of what Jean-Thierry calls the "gentil petit Paul".  I was quite simply, too nice.  Especially to any women.  You could simply wrap me around your finger.  i didn't ask the right questions.  I let people get away with things because I didn't think that I had the right to challenge them.  I'm glad that I now have the courage to say "fuck you" when it's merited.  Because sometimes that's the only thing to say.   And finally, it's the only way to put things right.  I'm sorry, but I tried the other way and "fuck you" is sometimes the only thing to say.

The other problem was...Antoine, himself.  And in many ways, we were a mirror image of each other.  Antoine was born in Lourdes, as in "The Song of Bernadette".  And he was ashamed of that, for many reasons.  He didn't have a father.  He lived with his mother, his aunt and his cousin in what always seemed to be pretty desperate circumstances.  He managed to get out through the help of a "rich benefactor" who helped him get to the Conservatory of Tarbes, which he always said was his home.   Through the regional government, he managed to get help to go to Paris, but there was a sword above his head:  he had to win a "Prize de Rome".  So, he worked towards this.....and he did win a "Second Grand Prize de Rome".....when I told the blind man who directed the famous concert series in Paris "Le Triptych" that Antoine was a Grand Prix de Rome, he added the "Second" almost by reflex.  For the purposes of the people funding Antoine's education, it seemed enough.  However, during his studies, he somehow contracted tuberculosis and had to spend several years in a sanitarium, interrupting his studies.   I know nothing of why this happened, nor even if he knew why it happened, but the fact is that it marked him forever. 

So, here was Antoine in his brown or gray suit  You never saw Antoine outside of his suit and certainly NEVER without a tie.  It was his second skin.  It was only when he was really sick much later that I first saw him without a tie.   He was, like me, completely outside of the Parisian musical establishment.  And even if he went to dinner with the Messiaen's or with Madeleine Milhaud, he was still outside of that World.  It didn't matter how many commissions he got or who did his works, he was still Antoine Tisné from...."Tarbes"  And in a way, he was proud of that   He had a kind of "spiritual mission".   He dated this from one work, which was a pivot in his career, a work called "Célébration I" for orchestra which Michael Tilson Thomas directed around 1978 or so.  I have a cassette of this work.  Until this period, Tisné's work had been exclusively serial:  he had used this system to express a certain distance from his material.  I think that he needed this distance, because he couldn't face certain facts about his life.  I know this because I have had to come to grips with certain facets of my own life.  With Serial music, one does not have to claim an emotional response.  So, this pivot point with Célébration I was an important turning point in Tisné's life and works.  Before this point, his works had no direction.  After this, they suddenly had a purpose.

Antoine had a very close relationship with a poet, who he himself named "David Niemann"  (David No one, not the actual name of the person concerned), which dated to around this same time.  He had another name, but he was an orphan.  He became Antoine's adopted son. Many people have pretended that something else was going on, but I can state quite categorically that there was nothing other that a strict filial relationship.  Since Tisné wrote pieces which were based on text, the fact that Niemann was a poet was a point in which they could collaborate directly.  Indeed, I think that almost all of the music that Antoine wrote had Niemann's poetry as a basis.  It is only justice that Niemann is Tisné's heir, because without his poetry, the majority of Tisné's works would not exist.  I would also like to state quite strongly that there was nothing else in Antoine's life.  As far as I know, he had no mistress, he didn't have lovers.  His only love was Music.  There was nothing else, except in working with performers.  And in a way, this was a kind of love:  The performers were the vessels through which his music flowed.  And for me, this was a strong love: a paternal love....but a love none the less.  The work of a collaborative performer with a composer is an act of Love:  you become the composer during the moment of conception of the work.  It is another kind of Love, but it is an act of love. 

The problem with Antoine at the time I met him was that there is a time in the French system when a Prix  de Rome receives commissions and concerts....and then there is a time the Prix de Rome is expected to have established himself....usually around the age of 40 or so.  But Antoine had rebelled against this.  His exist from the Ministry of Culture was, by all reports, quite colorful, with no hope of returning.  I can still remember him saying "I am strongly independent".  And since that was my own device, we completely understood each other here.  We were both outside of the French musical system, but we were inside because of who we were and who we knew  So, we could work together.  And even if we didn't do what we set out to do, it meant that we could produce work.  And we did.  Our next project was to become "Music for Sacred Spaces", which Antoine told me was the culmination of his career.