During the year 1952, the French composer Olivier Messiaen – one of the leading composers of the 20th century – wrote his one and only electro-acoustic work. He wrote Timbres-Dureés in cooperation with Pierre Henry, who was by then a pupil of both Messiaen and musique-concrete pioneer Pierre Schaeffer. Messiaen used concrete sounds from daily life, especially water flowing from the tap. Although Messiaen himself was dissatisfied with the end result and withdrew the work officially from his catalog, there’s enough reason to perform it: Timbres-Durées was and is far ahead of its time. It appears, at the time of epic collage (which is very prominent in this year’s Rewire edition), to be a precursor for today’s movement. The piece will be performed prior to Ash Koosha, Total Freedom and Amnesia Scanner. The venue will be darkened, as they used to do back when Timbre-Durées was composed.

Copyright by Ina GRM