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?
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