On Claude Vivier's 'Lonely Child'

Gilmore, Bob (2007) On Claude Vivier's 'Lonely Child'. Tempo, 239. pp. 2-17. ISSN 0040-2982

Abstract / Summary

This article is the first published extended analysis in English of any of the works of the French-Canadian composer Claude Vivier (1948-83). It is also the first article that Gilmore has published as a result of his extensive research conducted in preparation for writing Vivier’s biography. The latter is a much larger research project which is still about a year away from completion. Research for both this article and the book was supported by a British Academy Small Travel Grant in 2003.

Despite his death at the age of 34, Vivier is increasingly acknowledged to be the leading Canadian composer of his generation. His work has so far received little scholarly study. This article was an attempt to explore in detail the main technical innovation in his later music, the use of “l’addition des fréquences” as a means of generating new types of spectral harmony. This technique had hitherto never been discussed in detail in published sources, and Gilmore’s article attempts to illuminate the similarities and differences between Vivier’s compositional techniques and those of the so-called “spectral music” that arose in Paris in the 1970s. The biography on which he is currently working will be the first on Vivier in any language, and has been made possible by access granted to Vivier’s papers by Madame Thérèse Desjardins, his heir. As a result of his work on Vivier, Gilmore was asked to curate a concert of his works (and was invited to write the programme booklet) for the Vivier portrait concert at the Holland Festival in Amsterdam in June 2005.

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