‘Spectralist’ has become easy shorthand for categorising French composers active since the 1970s, but Brice Pauset (born 1965) is a generation younger than Murail, Grisey et al, and the label is a poor fit for him. As a composer, Pauset has been more marked by early music than by his immediate French forebears and he is professionally active as a harpsichordist, though again this might prompt assumptions which are not true. His music does not rely on borrowing from baroque music, whether ironically or not, and it most certainly is not pastiche. Until now, little of his music has been available through commercial recordings; these two recent double CDs on the Wergo and Aeon labels fill a gap in the catalogue.
The Wergo double CD, focusing on Pauset's Canons, bears witness to how early music has had an impact on him as a composer. His obsession with canonic form spans more than 20 years of his composing life: the Trois Canons (1989) are student works, and the Cinq Canons (1990–2002) show Pauset's fascination with Ockeghem's Missa prolationum, which appears as a ‘hidden but almost continuous quotation’. Sept Canons, composed in 2010, marks the end of Pauset's cycle, though the CD is not organised chronologically, as it concludes with Neuf Canons (2004–10), the most transcendentally virtuosic of the set. Nicolas Hodges is the authoritative and fearless soloist both for the canons and for the piano and live electronics work on the second Wergo CD.
In his programme note, Pauset states that his canonic approach is distinct because ‘it asks questions about the music itself, acting in a more subterranean and much more radical way’ than a canon that reveals its organisation in a straightforward manner. It might be supposed that Conlon Nancarrow would be an influence on a contemporary composer so concerned with canons, though the piano double CD is in fact a world away from Nancarrow's mad crazy player piano pieces. Pauset wants to retain some ‘secrecy, or at least a non-unveiling’ in his canonic structures, quite the opposite of Nancarrow's form writ large. Rather, the searching, mobile textures, and anxious ornaments connect Pauset with an earlier generation of composers: the music often sounds like a stripped-back version of early Boulez or even Webern. Textures are often fragmentary and widely-spaced, dynamics are generally quiet, and Pauset's descending arabesque lines sometimes evoke a certain faun.
The second CD in the Wergo set (more like a half CD as it is only 23 minutes long) features a piano piece with electronics, Perspectivae Sintagma I (‘A work of perspective’, 1997) which reveals another facet of Pauset's fascination with the canon. The electronic element denatures piano sonorities, as if Hodges’ instrument is doubled with an extended prepared piano. Its timbral fascination and introspective mood connects it to the first work on the Aeon CD, Der Geograph, which is a concerto in all but name.
The Aeon issue provides a welcome broader perspective on Pauset's work, featuring works in varied genres composed from 2002 to 2012. But its advocacy of the composer is not helped by the seriously flawed translation from French into English of the cover and booklet text; it's best not to spend too much time puzzling what ‘the untiring lamination of evocations’ might mean. What might be considered a French trait in Pauset's music is his interest in extra-musical sources (texts, ideas and characters) which comes across strongly in this second recording. Der Geograph (Symphonie IV) (2007) for orchestra with piano is based on the concept of looking at the world via ‘a map of the world which is riddled with holes’, hence its fragmentary nature and sudden outbursts like moments of clarity against a backdrop of mysterious brushes and breathiness. It is the first of a triptych of works relating to the notion of impossibility; the piece emerges very gradually from nothing and there's a parallel progressive return to silence at the end. Hodges and the WDR Sinfonieorchester, conducted by Emilio Pomàrico, are superb champions for a work whose evanescent sounds mean it surely works better in recording than it would as a live performance.
This first CD of the AECD set features three works which are each around 20 minutes long, the second being Les voix humaines (2006) for clarinet, piano and string trio. Les voix humaines, performed here by five members of ensemble recherche, has a similar enigmatic, searching quality to the other pieces on the two CDs: the human voice of the title is here a metaphor, and the difficulty of truly connecting with another is the overarching concept. Each instrument occasionally raises its voice from a very quiet backdrop, and all five build up to a more continuous, rhythmically incisive central section which the composer refers to as a ‘gigue’. In Concerto I (Birwa) (2002) for harpsichord and seven instruments (ensemble recherche), the composer is the soloist. Its title refers to the birthplace of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish (whose work is also used in Saariaho's recent True Fire); Pauset states that exile is the overarching theme, though he does not suggest that the poet's biography has any connection to the musical work. The ensemble is necessarily a fragile surround to the harpsichord and is frequently underpinned by rumbling percussion. The seven members of ensemble recherche create and sustain tension within a limited dynamic range, perfectly judging their sonorities which never overwhelm the delicate harpsichord.
The second CD of the AECD issue is, oddly, also more like a half CD as it features a single 25-minute work, Dornröschen (Sleeping Beauty; 2012) for string quartet (the Arditti Quartet, bringing their magisterial precision and glassy clarity), two choral groups and large orchestra conducted by Matthias Pintscher. Pauset describes this piece as a ‘critical exegesis’ of Sleeping Beauty in nine scenes, and each is titled with a fragment from the Grimms’ fairy tale. Once more, the texture is compelling and extremely mobile, and the musical language is situated somewhere between Boulez and Lachenmann. There is precise work from the choir (the excellent WDR Rundfunk Chor Köln), though the verbal narrative is an enigma: the booklet is again unhelpful as no sung texts are provided in any language, not even translations of the titles of each section for readers with no German.
The last section of Dornröschen is by far the longest, and Pauset's programme note suggests a Satie-esque literal and black-humoured twist to the fairy tale that made me laugh out loud (here in my own translation): ‘Logically, the princess's face would be covered with a thick layer of dust that would hinder the crucial kiss. Therefore, the king's son would need somehow to rid the lovely face of its thick dusty layer, but (this isn't in the story, but is perfectly plausible) the unfortunate suitor is severely asthmatic, and the necessary dusting triggers a fatal attack. End of story’. There is nothing obvious in the music that reflects this startling dénouement, but the story hints that Pauset has an unsuspected side to him. The CDs reveal a mature and distinctive musical style, and his programme note for Dornröschen raises intriguing questions. Will future Pauset pieces express more overtly his sense of humour, and will he branch out into the writing of witty tales?
