Francois Bayle, "L'Oiseau-Chanteur" (2nd Version)

Continued Notes From Candide CE 31025:

L'Oiseau-Chanteur (The Songbird) is the third part of Portraits de I'Oiseau-Qui-N'existe-Pas (Portraits of the Bird-That-Does-Not-Exist), music realized (in 1963) for the images of the painter and film director Robert Lapoujade.

The technique employed uses and generalizes the notion of the musical instrument, the traditional writing taking into account the possibilities of the microphone and thereby becoming "experimental," while the concrete material, by its essence beyond the notation, assumes a voluntary quality.

The "chants" form brief phrases for the French horn, the oboe and the harpsichord, prolonged by tone clusters of concrete and electronic origin.

The imitation is of pure fantasy, having no recourse to any real melodic or rhythmic premise.

Francois Bayle (b. Tamatave, Madagascar, 1932), largely self-trained in music, received advice from Messiaen and Pousseur, and attended Stockhausen's composition courses while completing his technical training in experimental music under Pierre Schaeffer. Currently he is an executive director with Groupe de Recherches Musicales. He has composed several works for instruments as well as for magnetic tape, i.e., Archipel, Pluriel, Vapour, Espaces inhabitables, Ereignis.