JAPAN TIMES
9 September 1983
Gagaku Program to Feature
French Composer's Composition
Y.Y.

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TOUR COMPANION
in TOKYO
THIS WEEK
No. 549 Vol. 11, No. 39 September 25, 1983
Entertainment, Culture in Tokyo This Week
Premiere of Modern Gagaku
at Kokuritsu
by
Michiko Yoshii

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KOKURITSU GEKIJO
September 30, 1983
(National Theater of Japan)
Tokyo
by
Uenami Wataru

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LE MONDE DE LA MUSIQUE
December 1983, N° 62
Jean-Claude Eloy
Creation of "Approaching the Meditating Flame", in Tokyo
THE ORIENT OF MY MEMORY
by Jean-Claude Eloy
Interviewed by
Jean-Noël von der Weid

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MUSIKHANDEL
April 1986
Discs
Information and Entertainment
New Music on New Discs

*

TÉLÉRAMA
Issue # 1934 - February 4, 1987
RECORDS
TRADITIONS
by
Alain Swietlik
JAPAN
APPROACHING THE MEDITATING FLAME
Jean-Claude Eloy

À L'APPROCHE DU FEU MÉDITANT
Approaching the Meditative Flame
Press (English)
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JAPAN TIMES
9 September 1983
Gagaku Program to Feature
French Composer's Composition

A program offering representative examples of the classic Bugaku court music and dance will be presented at the National Theatre on Sept. 30 from 6:30 p.m. A special feature will be the presentation of an original composition for the ancient Gagaku instruments by French composer Jean-Claude Eloy, commissioned by the National Theatre.
This original composition, titled "A L'approche du feu meditant. . ." in French, utilizes instruments from Japan's ancient "Shomyo" and "reigaku" music, and is in three major parts, the first per-formed by four Shomyo soloists and chorus, three reigaku instruments, three percussion and a single dancer.
The second part will feature nine reigaku musicians. The third will have five dancers with a large ensemble of instruments, soloists and chorus.
The production of this original composition for ancient instruments was commissioned for the purpose of reviving an ancient art in revitalized modern form.
Gagaku music and Bugaku dance were originally introduced to Japan in the 8th century from ancient Asia by way of T'ang. But in Japan, they became formalized rituals, and have been preserved as such, this leading to a "dead end" from the standpoint of creative development.
It is hoped that the new composition will serve to prove that although classic Gagaku may be in a state of stagnancy from the creative angle, the old instruments themselves are still very much alive.
As for the performance of traditional Bugaku in the opening half of the program, the Gagaku music utilized will be "Banshiki Sangun" which was "revived" six years ago from notatlons made in the Heian period. This time the number will be presented as Bugaku with dancers participating.
The dancers depict a "Shishi" lion and a white elephant symbolizing respectively Monju and Fugen, two of Buddha's disciples, followed by a dance representing the presence of Buddha.
For this number, a special Bugaku stage will be set on the main stage, with additional "runway" platforms set up over aisles to both sides of the audience pit. The front portion of the balcony will also be used as part of the performance, making for a "three-dimensional" production.

Tickets are priced at Yen 3,300 and Yen 2,7OO, all seats reserved.

(Y.Y.)
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TOUR COMPANION
in TOKYO
THIS WEEK
No. 549 Vol. 11, No. 39 September 25, 1983
Entertainment, Culture in Tokyo This Week
Premiere of Modern Gagaku
at Kokuritsu

by Michiko Yoshii

A contemporary French composer's work written in the tradition of Gagaku (ancient court music) and Shomyo (Buddhist music) will be given its world premiere on Friday the 30th at Kokuritsu Gekijo's large theater.
"A l'approche du feu meditant …" composed by Jean-Claude Eloy will be played with traditional Japanese musical instruments usually employed in playing Gagaku music, while Japanese monks of the Tendai and Shingon sects will sing its Shomyo part.
"A l'approche du feu meditant …" was commissioned to Eloy by Kokuritsu Gekijo, the National Theatre of japan, as part of its continuing program to revive and preserve in modern music the tradition of Gagaku which is more than 1,500 years old.
In the first part of Friday's concert called "Bugaku Ho-e" (Buddhist mass with Bugaku dances performed to Gagaku music), Bugaku pieces will be performed. The first number symbolizes a lion and an elephant, the second, Shakyamuni or Buddha, and the third is a dance to send off soldiers to the battlefront with prayers for victory.
In the second part, Eloy's new composition will be played by Gagaku musicians who will be seated on projected platforms on both sides of the stage, while the vocal part will be sung by Buddhist monks, some of whom will be in the upstair gallery to produce a stereophonic effect.
Kokuritsu has already premiered seven Gagaku pieces written by modern composers, including distinguished German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.

NEW MUSIC

Kokuritsu has being making efforts to create new music in the tradition of gagaku in the belief that the best way to introduce ancient gagaku music abroad is through modern music written by contemporary composers in the Gagaku tradition.
Gagaku concerts performed abroad have shown that, altough both Gagaku and Shomyo are refined performing arts, they fail arouse enthusiastic response among foreign audiences, primarily because they are music of the past. Modern compositions, such as those by Tohru Takemitsu and Toshi Ichiyanagi, were received better by European audiences who apparently found it much easier to appreciate modern Gagaku music.
Friday's program is arranged to show the ancient classical Gagaku and Bugaku pieces first and then a modern creation in order to convey a better understanding of the background of contemporary Gagaku music.The concert will begin at 6:30 p.m. Admission is Yen 3,300 and Yen 2,700. Tickets may be ob-tained by calling Kokuritsu's ticket office at (03) 265-7411.
Kokuritsu Gekijo is several minutes' walk from Hanzomon Station on the Hanzomon-sen subway line and about 10 minutes' walk from either Nagatacho or Kojimachi Statiou on the Yurakucho-sen subway line.
There is a bus originating from nishiguchi (west exit side) of Shinjuku Station and bound for "Harumi futo (pier)" which stops in front of Kokuritsu Gekijo. This #71 bus also stops at the Kojimachi-guchi entrance to JNR Yotsuya Station. Get off at "Miyake-zaka Kokuritsu Gekijo-mae" bus stop. Fare is Yen l40 to be paid as you board the bus.

MICHIKO YOSHII
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KOKURITSU GEKIJO
September 30, 1983
(National Theater of Japan)
Tokyo

by Uenami Wataru

Eloy – Court Music (Gagaku)Jean-Claude Eloy is a French composer born in 1938. He was a student of Darius Milhaud's at the Paris Conservatory. He attended the summer classes of Darmstadt, and was Pierre Boulez' student in Basel. Later, he met Karlheinz Stockhausen. He was able to grow by drawing his inspiration from Stockhausen and Boulez; two representatives of the vanguard movement during that era. The success of "Equivalences" made him famous throughout Europe and raised him to the circles of contemporary music.
His career is definitely that of a composer who proved active in every major field of contemporary music. This formula does not apply to all composer. In addition, he taught in the United States.
What came later does not make sense (there would be no point explaining his career further). One cannot help speculating over the reasons why Eloy paid an interest to the Gagaku. I wonder in what circumstances Eloy listened to a Gagaku or in what circumstances he came up with the desire to compose with a Gagaku.
This visit to Japan is perhaps his seventh one. However, he claims to have been interested in the East and in Japan for a long time. He probably had a first encounter through a recording that his older sister brought back from Japan. Later in Paris, he gained some early knowledge thanks to the recording he had managed to have. He then nursed a feeling of admiration for Japan and its culture. Then "Shânti" was presented for the first time in Japan during the Pan-Music Festival of Tokyo. After that, he spent three years producing the large-scale work "Gaku no michi" in the electronic music studio of NHK.
To Eloy, that period probably covered his first concrete works on the Gagaku.
It was the same thing for Stockhausen during that period. However, that Gagaku sound came from recorded material. The resonance of that Gagaku was modified by the use of electronic instruments and during this work – which transformed the resonance of the Gagaku through the use of electronic instruments producing physically pure music – these two foreign composers fed an interest in producing pieces for the Gagaku. It seems that the same applied to Maki Ishii.Today while the spirit (awakening) of young composers among members performing that kind of music is being discovered, it seems that, until the past few years, only one recording model putting the Gagaku in touch with vanguard composers had existed.
That phenomenon drew my attention. All in all, the Gagaku appears as a block of abstract sounds.
Even though it is not wrong to say that the Gagaku was transmitted from the continent (1) and adapted to Japan, the original color and flavor of the Gagaku have clearly not been lost. Then it was swept away by the wave of history with the accumulation of so-called Japanese culture, and it became a purely abstract resonance. Wouldn't it represent (for composers) a physically pure acoustic space? It sounds like the approach of the Gagaku followed by composers lies within the physical acoustic manipulation of a recorded work.
It even sounds like Eloy's work incorporates Shômyôs (Buddhist chants) this time. I think one could go as far as saying that those Shômyôs provide aspects similar to that of the Gagaku. The Gagaku, as well as the Shômyôs, have modified the atmosphere without completely altering the genre (2). It does bear the presence of the sound. Eloy somehow created a new Shômyô by gathering phonemes including a meaning as a language.
The Gagaku – which could be considered as resting for a long time without evolving inside the small container called Japan – has started to grow to the point of moving out of the container. To do so, new enzymes must be incorporated. This is done through continuity by the National Theater: new Gagaku style compositions are commissioned (a task entrusted to composers), and old instruments are even going through a renaissance.
Because that which has lost the creative force can only destroy the accomplished beauty. That creative continuation is the beginning of this adventure adding a new force and a new charm. It announces – despite potential errors – a promising future.

UENAMI WATARU
(Professor a the University of the Arts of Osaka)

Translator's note:
(1) Gagaku music originated from China (as well as from Korea) where it was used as court music. It was later adapted to Japanese specificities.
(2) Likewise, the Shômyô (like Buddhism) arrived in Japan from China, after soaring in Northern India and following a long transformation across Tibet (for the path called "big vehicle" – the other path, or "small vehicle", crosses the South; Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia…).
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LE MONDE DE LA MUSIQUE
December 1983, N° 62
Jean-Claude Eloy
Creation of "Approaching the Meditating Flame", in Tokyo

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Jean-Claude Eloy is in a category of his own in what has been called "learned" contemporary music. A puzzling case too. By now, he should have been settling into the electro-acoustic studio necessary for his work. For a few more months, this will not be the case (see inset). And so the French Stockhausen inevitably remains a traveler, a nomad, composing works "Japanese style" that have been commissioned by the Japanese. Not an easy situation, he assures us.

GRANTS BUT NO STUDIO

Contrary to what official declarations seemed to suggest, Jean-Claude Eloy still does not have access to the creative tool announced by Jack Lang and Maurice Fleuret in February 1982.
In fact, the plan to set up this studio at La Défense was abandoned in December of the same year.
Since then, discussions have been underway with Rueil-Malmaison to construct a special building next door to the Regional National Conservatory with plans to begin construction in the near future.
The CIAMI Association (Centre d'Informatique Appliquée à la Musique et à l'Image, Center for Computer Applications to Music and Images ) was created in May 1983 and has already received a working grant from the Direction of Music and Dance.
In addition, and more importantly, a convention was signed at the end of October 1983 between the Ile-de-France region and the Ministry of Culture to build the studio in Rueil, the two partners sharing the construction costs (5 million francs) and the state covering technical equipment (4 million francs) and the matching funds necessary for its functioning.
The opening is planned for autumn 1985. This creative structure will also be available to young French and foreign composers.

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THE ORIENT OF MY MEMORY
by Jean-Claude Eloy
Interviewed by Jean-Noël von der Weid

Yes, I am fascinated by the music of the Orient. But just what is Oriental music ? And why should it be differentiated from Occidental music ? What Orient ? What Occident ? I find this distinction more and more improper. It would be more appropriate to speak of exchanges between " musical civilizations ".
It would also be worth understanding the difference between functional music and music which is listened to just for itself. I think the reason why India and Japan are sources of intense interest of reflection and of influence is very simply because a very important classical music tradition thrives there. A music that is, of course, linked to rituals and religion, but a music without a defined function, that can be listened to just for itself. Whereas in Africa, for example, music is necessarily linked to a precise custom in society (the hunt, the transmission of a message through the forest) and integrated into the social fabric of village activities. In India, classical music has become a courtly art ("The music salon"). Similarly, it is the case in Japan for the Gagaku, (the word means " elegant music " in Japanese). This is the sort of music, more learned and more abstract, that composers such as myself are attracted to.
One could certainly wonder how I, as a European, commissioned by the National Theater of Tokyo (see Le Monde de la Musique n° 59 p. 13), could compose "Japanese" music that would please a Japanese audience ! I must say that I very much like traditional Japanese music, that I have been listening to it for many years: I have thus drunk from the source. And yet, at the concert, my work, Approaching a Meditating Fire, (lasting two hours and forty minutes) met with general surprise. The few Europeans in the audience all said to me: "But this is impossible, how did you do this ? You must have taken original bits of traditional music and fiddled with them." I responded: "No, I’m the one who did the composing !". They found this hard to believe because, auditorily, the work sounded as if it dated from ten centuries prior, and at the same time, like something that was eminently personal. If there had been more musicians in the audience, they would have noticed a double canon, in contrary motion, which in no way resembles traditional Japanese music...
So why this affinity with Japan ? In fact, I don’t know. What fascinates me in Gagaku music is its slowness. I am weary of the fast pace of the Occident, its vain and hypocritical speed. Weary also of the post-serial frenzy, of its quantities of notes to the second, of this pathological Occidental restlessness, often so gratuitous. In the Gagaku, I find a stretching of sound into time, another way to experience sound in its slowness and development. I’ve always enjoyed slow music : contemplative Debussy, some pages of Messiaen as well as Indonesian and Korean music.
What also attracts me to Japanese and other non-European music is the acoustics of the sound-object. These are the ornaments of sound, the gliding sound, the sound between two sounds. In Gagaku, the hichiriki (something like a double-reeded bamboo oboe) seems to flow from one note to the other. In India, ornamentation circles around the sound. The same goes for the Middle East with its fabulous vocal micro-ornamentations that fade into another sound field, a sound that surrounds a frequency, more or less declared, more or less ornamented, more or less fixed. We are far from the "degrees" found in Occidental music. And if one studies these sounds using sonograms, one notes that frequency is not a jump from a fixed point to another, but rather a musical thought that focuses on the relationship between notes, that is at first developed on the basis of an interval, then on the relationship among intervals. The composer thinks and composes in terms of relationships among sounds, as if he were traveling from one frequency to another. Thus, monody and heterophony remain fundamental in non-Occidental music because the sound in itself commands interest. Occidental polyphony needs a "neutral" sound in order to progress.
But Oriental works composed by Occidentals – and conversely, Occidental works composed by Orientals – are they hybrid products ? This is the issue. At the end of my concert in Tokyo, the audience was enthusiastic, and the composer Toru Takemitsu came up to congratulate me, asking me jokingly if I would give him courses in Japanese music ! An Occidental had made a major step towards the Orient.
The next day, however, I was member of a jury deciding on a scholarship for a young Japanese composer to go to Paris to pursue his studies. For this, I listened to numerous taped recordings. And surprise ! If I hadn’t seen that these composers had Japanese names, I could have thought that they were called Müller, Schmitt or Dupont. Their pieces were absolute copies of the quartets of Bartok or Berg.
The world has turned upside down ! Here I am bringing to the Japanese a work where I’ve endeavored to conceive a composition suited to traditional instruments. Simultaneously, young Japanese are bringing "Occidental style" chamber music to me with sonatas for flute and piano. Is this an ongoing phenomenon in this civilization ? It is true that Japan from the Meiji era turned towards the Occident for inspiration, assimilating it and integrating it very well into modern times. But in the domain of music and art in general, it appears that learning about and imitating the West is much more validating for Oriental composers than assimilating their own traditions to help them develop.
Receptivity to another culture has always been part of my experience because of a natural inclination. But our century also offers important references: Debussy, Ravel, Messiaen, Boulez, Stockhausen and Varèse did not hide their interest for other cultures: people from the Occident have always known how to swallow up outside influences as soon as they were exposed. Tapes and records served to accelerate this fact: this is how I was able to literally soak up non-European music. Although I am not directly inspired by this background, it has become a part of me and now inhabits my musical memory.
Can an Occidental composer be credible in the Orient when he composes "Japanese style" ?
I played some large extracts of my last work for some Korean student-composers. They were completely disoriented. They asked me if I were crazy, if I were trying to make modern electronic music or folklore : for them, my work was folklore ! Educated and shaped by European music, they conceive Occidental values as predominant. Towards their own traditions and the traditions of their neighbors, they have a colonialist attitude.
Obviously, there are exceptions: Takemitsu, Ichiyanagi, for example, even if they, themselves, grew up in a world wherein it was unthinkable that a serious composer could derive inspiration from ancient Japan. Witnessing the reflection of their traditional cultures on Occidentals has brought them a new awareness.
These are the sources that I went back to for inspiration, but there are other reasons: I had no barriers preventing my interest in them. The director of NHK (Japanese radio) said to me : " Only a European with his freedom of thought could go so far in the use of traditional material and achieve such a timeless work as "Approaching the Meditating Flame". I responded that I had done so innocently, like a child. That made him laugh uproariously. Such innocence for the Japanese is a form of audacity !

JEAN-CLAUDE ELOY
(Interviewed by JEAN-NOËL VON DER WEID)
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MUSIKHANDEL
April 1986
Discs
Information and Entertainment
New Music on New Discs

Of Foreign Countries

Music history owes some of its decisive evolutions to foreign cultures. It is the case of far-Eastern influences on the art of those called impressionists as well as Messiaen's rhythmics and the more recent research on meditation practices in Hindu and Japanese cultures. A young German composer, Dieter Mack, born in 1954 in Speyer, undertook study tours in India, Bali and Japan. Another one, French composer Jean-Claude Eloy (born in 1938) studied the forms of traditional Buddhist chants and court music in Japan. Today, testimonies of their research on foreign idioms exist for them both.
In Jean-Claude Eloy's work entitled A l’Approche du Feu Méditant (Approaching the Meditating Flame), a two-hour ceremony produced for the Japanese National Theater in Tokyo, it is a little difficult to distinguish what is innate to the author from what is inspired. It is nevertheless mesmerizing to see the composer take up the most ancient instrumental and vocal techniques: the chant in the various resonant chambers, transitions gliding from one pitch to the next, the deployment of new melodic ties, the heterophonic juxtaposition of traditional instruments. Besides, he intensifies the means in an impressive way. The recording was completed during a public performance and integrates disruptive noises, which minimizes the effect produced by a few sounds heard during the ceremony. The detailed comment by the composer is nonetheless remarkable.

Jean-Claude Eloy: A l’Approche du Feu Méditant (Approaching the Meditating Flame)
Harmonia Mundi France HMC 5 155.56. 2 LP's. Double album.
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TÉLÉRAMA
Issue # 1934 - February 4, 1987
RECORDS
TRADITIONS

by Alain Swietlik

JAPAN
APPROACHING THE MEDITATING FLAME
Jean-Claude Eloy. Double album HMC. 5155/56
"Musique française d'aujourd'hui"
(Today's French Music) (Harmonia Mundi)

-- fff --

Composers who still think that they can trust their inspiration to chance or to machines are fewer than those who draw on the vanguards' discoveries of traditional music. The elsewhere and the otherwise are the Orpheus of the 20th century and the future of our music. Even Jean-Michel Jarre, in Zoolook, although he was not able to put it into use, understood it.
After Messiaen's Gagaku (Seven Haï-Kaï) and the French Gagaku (mathematically recomposed) by Pierre Barbaud, Jean-Claude Eloy has gone much further. It is no longer about finding a recipe, about reheating and imitating, but about directly recreating on Japanese ground with the Japanese! Exoticism no longer exists.
EIoy, as deeply steeped in Japan as Messiaen is in birds, composes for the Gagaku orchestra of the Imperial Court – no less –, using the Shomyo chant of the two sects, Shingon and Tendaï. His assimilation is perfect, and his composition goes beyond the original tradition, both Japanese-style and à la Eloy (polyphony, ritual recreation, recomposition, writing).
Eloy's triumph in Japan is infinitely more symptomatic of the opening of the West than the triumph, in our small cultural forts, of Mehta, Ozawa or Te Kanawa. It is the moon that Eloy is pointing too, and too bad for those who can only see the finger! (Duration: 2 hrs).

ALAIN SWIETLIK