20 TEMPO 72 (285) 20–40 © 2018 Cambridge University Press

doi:10.1017/S0040298218000074

RĂ DULESCU: THE OTHER SPECTRALIST

Martin Suckling

Abstract: Compared to the central figures of French spectral music,

Horaţiu Rădulescu has received relatively little critical attention.
Contrasting temperaments, writing styles and surface musical fea-
tures have led to a tendency to place Rădulescu in opposition to
Grisey in particular. In this article I analyse some of Rădulescu’s
theoretical writing and demonstrate important shared values with
the spectral ‘mainstream’. I then examine Das Andere for solo
viola, Op. 49 (1983) in detail and compare it to Grisey’s solo
viola masterpiece, Prologue (1976). In so doing I hope not only to
reveal the inner workings of one of Rădulescu’s most compelling
and approachable pieces, but also to show some common strategies
with Grisey, regardless of their radically different aural results.

Horaţiu Rădulescu (1942–2008) was a composer, violinist, lover of cars,

inventor (perhaps) of ‘the spectral technique of composition’, and poly-
math. His compositions – over 100 works – range from traditional gen-
res such as string quartet and piano sonata (six of each) to near-utopian
one-offs like Byzantine Prayer, Op. 74, for 40 flautists on 72 flutes, or
Dr Kai Hong’s Diamond Mountain, Op. 77, for 61 spectral gongs and
soloists. This is music of astonishing originality, richness and beauty,
vast shimmering pillars of sound in constant motion. Often couched
in terms of meditation or ritual, much of the output is conceived
for extended durations and large, resonant spaces. Performing his
works requires one to adapt to a highly precise and detailed notational
practice that simultaneously demands near continuous improvisation,
an approach described by viola player Vincent Royer as ‘open[ing] a
door on the performer’s creativity’.1 This goes hand in hand with
Rădulescu’s unusual approach to sound production, which, for string
players in particular, requires a complete renewal of one’s relationship
with the instrument. Whatever one’s views on his music, it is hard to
argue with the late Bob Gilmore when he describes him as ‘one of the
most fascinating and individual creative figures of his generation’.2
Despite this, in accounts of the ‘spectral moment’ of late 1970s
Paris, Rădulescu tends to appear as a marginal figure, if at all.
Compared to the central personalities of Murail and Grisey his
music is infrequently performed, let alone written about.3 As a

1
Bob Gilmore, ‘Dübendorf: Radulescu’s “Cinerum”’, TEMPO 59, no. 233 (2005), p. 53.
2
Gilmore, ‘Dübendorf’, p. 53.
3
Ernst Flammer laments this situation in Germany, just as Gilmore had done in the UK.
Ernst Helmuth Flammer, ‘Horaţiu Rădulescu: Klangvisionär Der Comedia Divina’,
Musik & Ästhetik 17, no. 66 (2013), pp. 79–95. It should be noted that thanks to the efforts
of enthusiastic supporters such as Gilmore, Rădulescu’s music has reached a wider

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 RĂ DULESCU: THE OTHER SPECTRALIST 21

consequence, while we know with some clarity the ideas behind the
spectral attitude of Murail, Grisey and others associated with
Ensemble L’Itinéraire, the situation for Rădulescu is considerably
more opaque. Thus, although there are competing definitions for
just what is required to make a piece spectral (or pre- or post-spectral
for that matter), we can with certainty highlight the following charac-
teristics as priorities for Grisey, Murail, et al.:

• thinking in terms of continuous, rather than discrete, categories

(corollary: the understanding that everything is connected);
• a global approach, rather than a sequential or ‘cellular’ one;
• organisational processes of a logarithmic or exponential, rather than
linear, type;
• construction with a functional, not combinatorial, method; and
• keeping in mind the relationship between concept and perception.4

This list is Murail’s but closely related versions of it fully or partially

appear in a wide range of both primary and secondary literature.5
Such clarity and consistency is not apparent in the limited literature
on Rădulescu. While Rădulescu himself regarded his work as being
concerned with the ‘spectral technique of composition’, Bob
Gilmore informs us that ‘the path he followed [was] quite distinct
from the spectrally-based techniques of Grisey or Murail’.6 Surianu
refers to Rădulescu’s ‘neo-Byzantine style’7 (whatever that might
be), while Dougherty describes a ‘sound world constructed firmly
on principles of nature, science and ancient philosophy’,8 though
what these principles are, and in what sense the construction is firm
are not revealed. To a large extent Rădulescu must take the blame:
his predilection for convoluted, jargon-heavy writing, in both per-
forming notes and theoretical texts, and an all-embracing view of
the world that incorporates Jung, Taoism and a mystically flavoured
phenomenology within his technical discussions does not make for
clarity of discourse. In fact, the contrasting rhetoric of Rădulescu
and his French colleagues leads to something of a credibility gap, con-
ditioned as we are to respond more favourably to quasi-scientific lan-
guage than spiritual circumlocutions.
This is not science, however, but music. Murail and Grisey’s
sound-as-it-is-objectively-measured principles are no more or less
metaphorical in their application than Rădulescu’s more flowery
speculations, yet this contrast in language, along with a strikingly dif-
ferent sounding surface has led to a stereotyped opposition emerging,
where Rădulescu and Grisey (in particular) are regarded as antipodes:
seer versus scientist.9 There is an element of truth in this

audience, at least in the academic sphere; my personal thanks are to composers Julian
Anderson and Christian Mason who introduced me to this fascinating and alluring
sound world, as they have for many other composers.
4
Tristan Murail, ‘Target Practice’, Contemporary Music Review 24, no. 2/3 (2005), p. 152.
5
See, for example: Gérard Grisey, ‘Did You Say Spectral?’, trans. Joshua Fineberg,
Contemporary Music Review 19, no. 3 (2000), pp. 1–3; Hugues Dufourt, ‘Musique
Spectrale’, in Musique, Pouvoir, Écriture (Paris: Borgois, 1991), pp. 290–94; Viviana
Moscovich, ‘French Spectral Music: An Introduction’, TEMPO 200 (1997), pp. 21–7.
6
Gilmore, ‘Dübendorf’, p. 53.
7
Horia Surianu, ‘Romanian Spectral Music or Another Expression Freed’, trans. Joshua
Fineberg, Contemporary Music Review 19, no. 2 (2000), p. 30.
8
William Dougherty, ‘On Horatiu Radulescu’s Fifth String Quartet, Before the Universe
Was Born OP. 89’, TEMPO 68, no. 268 (2014), p. 34.
9
Flammer, ‘Horaţiu Rădulescu’; Bob Gilmore, ‘Horatiu Radulescu: Sound Plasma and
Spectral Music’, Tentative Affinities, n.d., http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/stg/Bob_
Gilmore/downloads.html, accessed 14 April 2017.

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 22 TEMPO

compartmentalisation but it rejects the possibility of shared principles

that may enrich our understanding of spectral music. Recent archival
research by Julian Anderson (as yet unpublished) shows that for a time
in the late 70s and early 80s, Rădulescu worked regularly with
Ensemble L’Itineraire, and indeed they commissioned his remarkable
piece for 33 strings, Thirteen Dreams Ago, Op. 26 (1977). Though 25
years later he was describing them as ‘the Mafioso’,10 clearly
Rădulescu was much involved with Murail and Grisey as the spectral
aesthetic was being established.
In this article I analyse some of Rădulescu’s theoretical writing and
demonstrate important shared values with the spectral ‘mainstream’. I
then examine Das Andere for solo viola, Op. 49 (1983) in detail and
compare it to Grisey’s solo viola masterpiece, Prologue (1976). In so
doing I hope not only to reveal the inner workings of one of
Rădulescu’s most compelling and approachable pieces, but also to
show some common strategies with Grisey, regardless of their radic-
ally different aural results.
...
In addition to comments in interviews and CD liner notes, Rădulescu
published three major theoretical works outlining his approach to
composition: Sound Plasma: Music Of The Future Sign (1975),
‘Musique de mes univers’ (1985), and ‘Brain and Sound Resonance
(2003).11 His theoretical standpoint remains remarkably consistent
across these three texts, in spite of their near 30-year span. Sound
Plasma, the most abstract of the three, is primarily concerned with set-
ting out a field of possibilities for composition, and it contains rela-
tively few references to specific music. ‘Musique de mes univers’ is
essentially a highly abridged rewriting of Sound Plasma with the add-
ition of references to relevant works that illustrate each technical
device. ‘Brain and Sound Resonance’, at 42 pages the longest of
these texts by some distance, moves further in this direction, present-
ing mini-analyses of a wide range of pieces in the manner of a gloss-
ary, perhaps inspired by Fineberg’s appendix to the Spectral Music
special issue of Contemporary Music Review (2000).12 Whereas
Fineberg’s intent is to demystify some of the terminology-heavy
discussion in the CMR volume, the proliferation of jargon in
Rădulescu’s article has entirely the opposite effect. Headings such as
‘Complex [ρ] Ring Spectra and Scordatura, Plus Explicit/Compact
Spectrum [ε], with Microagogic Rhythm, Macrorandom Spectra [Π],
and Multiplication of Multiples [μ]’ seem to be items on the
spectral menu from hell, and the subsequent discussions rarely clarify
matters.13 That said, the insights Rădulescu offers into his compos-
itional processes are on the whole not dependent on this terminology,
and often the problematic vocabulary can be set to one side.
Furthermore, this article contains a wealth of Rădulescu’s own analyt-
ical diagrams, generally under-discussed in the text but offering a rich
resource for future investigation.

10
Guy Livingston, ‘Horatiu Radulescu – Interview’, 4 September 2007, http://www.paris-
transatlantic.com/magazine/interviews/radulescu.html, accessed 6 February 2013.
11
Sound Plasma: Music of the Future Sign or My D High Opus 19 ∞ (Munich: Edition Modern,
1975); ‘Musique de mes univers’, Silences 1 (1985), 50–56; ‘Brain and Sound Resonance: the
World of Self-Generating Functions as a Basis of the Spectral Language of Music’, The
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 999 (2003), pp. 322–63.
12
Joshua Fineberg, ‘Guide to the Basic Concepts and Techniques of Spectral Music’.,
Contemporary Music Review 19, no. 2 (2000), pp. 81–113.
13
Rădulescu, ‘Brain and Sound Resonance’, p. 354.

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 RĂ DULESCU: THE OTHER SPECTRALIST 23

None of these three texts is a standard statement of compositional

intent or reflection, and Sound Plasma is perhaps the strangest. A dual-
form work, both concept and prose composition (in which case its
name is My D High opus 19 ∞),14 Rădulescu’s characteristically gnomic
writing is further defamiliarised by ‘STAR-DUST POETRY’ overwrit-
ten across the prose text like graffiti.15 Other orthographic oddities
include the use of short two- to seven-word verses – rather like iso-
lated lines from haiku – in place of page numbers. Thus, instead of
twenty pages numbered from one onward, the book runs from
page ‘intimate hope invasion’ to page ‘and errors’. Each double-sided
sheet explores a single topic, announced as a page heading. The excep-
tion to this is the final sheet, on which Rădulescu draws ten further
pages, each with topic title and page-number-verse but with no con-
tent saving the final page-within-a-page and a single earlier diagram.
Table 1 shows the book’s sequence.16
This arrangement is described as a ‘free galaxy’, and we are invited
to approach the structure non-linearly: ‘The reading should start from
any planet and follow a spiral design’.17
In both text and structure (and alternative musical interpretation),
this book is problematic. The 10 imaginary extra pages written
into the final sheet are probably an indication that the book is
incomplete.18 The suggestion to traverse the structure ‘spirally’
seems gimmicky – though because of the dense cross-referencing it
would be possible to re-order any of the completed sections after
‘ENTER THE SOUND’ without loss of coherence. The idea that a
book can be both concept and prose composition may seem weak –
although Rădulescu asks that the concept proposed in the book be
used as the basis for an improvisation based on a single pitch, not
to perform the text as music – and at first glance the list of headings
and page-number-verses seems, frankly, bonkers. Nevertheless, there
is a great deal of interesting speculative compositional thought con-
tained in the book. In fact in many ways this is a work of genuine
‘speculative music theory’ in the Pythagorean tradition.19 In other
words, far from being an isolated piece of outsider art in music theory
form, this is actually a contribution to a long occult bibliography that
until relatively recently was highly respected, fascinating such figures
as Newton, Fourier, Debussy and Hindemith, among many others.20

14
I have very much enjoyed the occasions on which I’ve played this with my students,
though I cannot vouch for them meditating on the words of the title for seven days as
Rădulescu requests, or whether anyone felt ‘UTOPIA surging and tending to overcome
REALITY’: Rădulescu, Sound Plasma, Explanations & Directions.
15
The second page of this overlaid stardust poetry may serve as an example: CREDO / snow
bound calm, / sublime. / towards / loves and birches / our barbaric stars!: Rădulescu,
Sound Plasma, p. ‘intimate hope invasion’ verso.
16
Those familiar with Rădulescu’s output will spot a couple of work titles (yet to be com-
posed when this text was written) amongst the page-number-verses, which suggests that
these verses had more than passing significance for Rădulescu.
17
Rădulescu, Sound Plasma, p. 2.
18
Apparently, Rădulescu intended at one stage to submit a different version as a doctorate.
Gilmore, ‘Horatiu Radulescu’.
19
The text begins by stating that Pythagoras knew all this already, and this is far from an
isolated reference in Rădulescu’s output. A fondness for Fibonacci series and Trinitarian
numerology in his music, hidden messages such as the title Thirteen Dreams Ago embedded
into the α and γ musics of the eponymous piece (pp. 29–30), the use of ‘magic’ shapes (e.g.
the square of Capricorn’s Nostalgic Crickets) and symbols, and a recurrence of ‘cosmic’ ter-
minology all serve to link Rădulescu to the speculative music tradition.
20
See for example, Joscelyn Godwin, Music and the Occult: French Musical Philosophies,
1750–1950 (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1995); Jamie James, The Music Of
The Spheres: Music, Science and the Natural Order of the Universe, New Edition (London:
Abacus, 1995).

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 24 TEMPO

Table 1:
Structure of Rădulescu’s Sound Plasma: Music of the Future Sign or My D High Opus 19 ∞

(Heading) (Page-number-verse)
EXPLANATIONS & DIRECTIONS
ENTER THE SOUND intimate hope invasion
CARDINAL POINTS OF THE SOUND COMPASS crushing the crumbled skies
GLOBAL SOURCES vague lament and wave
THE NARROW FREQUENCY BAND again an ash sun weeping
SPECTRUM PULSE thirteen dreams ago
MACRO & MICRO SOUND PLASMA oddly enough
CONCEAL CAUSE & EFFECT, i.e. SOURCES & SOUND these occult oceans where melancholy
PARAMETERS
EVO-INVOLUTION pre-existing soul of THEN
[10 pages nested on this sheet] sceptical cloud
MONISM ↔ DUALISM ↔ is music drunk on death?
↔ DUALITY ↔ TRINITY ↔ white shadows for a recluse, for
credence
↔ TRINITY ↔ QUADRITY ↔ dizzy divinity I
INFINITY try other infinities
FURTHER MICRO & MACRO i.e. NUCLEI & SPHERES’ MUSIC between none and nirvana
SIGN SENSE SIGNIFICANCE through thought fumes
PARACONSCIOUSNESS & SOUND PLASMA icons caress your breathing
↘ TIME ↗(GO IN, THROUGH & OUT OF TIME) when creeping towards a bloody star
MUSIC IS RITUAL OF ALL SENSES & OF THE BEYOND SENSES translate world into love
MAGIC STATE and errors

Sound Plasma is therefore not merely theorising in a purely musical

realm. The convention of the music of the spheres underlying this
work demands that the music will have a tangible impact – on us
and, presumably, on the cosmos as well. Or, more modestly and
more feasibly, that it might bring us as performers and listeners
into a new understanding of our relationship with the world. It is per-
haps for this reason that Rădulescu incorporates Jungian psychological
types into his theory, for this reason that he wishes to integrate all pos-
sible ‘global sources’ of sound, for this reason that he is so concerned
(in his later work) with making audible the resonances that are theor-
etically present in the brain. And so he can claim of music made in
response to his guidelines:
you can get an inkling of the BEAUTY ENERGY being released in the process
of the global sources’ fusion, of the micro and macroplasma evo-involution, the
gravity – imponderability of the sound plasma gliding into the psyche space,
extending senses into beyond senses.
...

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 RĂ DULESCU: THE OTHER SPECTRALIST 25

the music CREATES . . . A MAGIC STATE OF THE SOUL. This is its single
aim and reason to exist.21

Or more prosaically, the music will ask you to listen in a new way:
such is the poetic conclusion to the book. The opening section, on
the other hand, (‘ENTER THE SOUND’) is concerned with the
description and justification of a new approach to music that might
generate such an effect, and it is within this surprisingly simple pro-
posal that I believe significant parallels can be drawn to the ‘main-
stream’ spectral group.
Rădulescu begins by declaring that ‘sound in itself is an endless
ocean of vibrations’, both continuous and ever-changing. He notes,
however, that music has generally been built up from combinations
of discontinuous, static elements: the discrete units of scale steps
and rhythms, ‘sound as points and lines’. This disconnection between
‘sound in itself’ and sound as it is used is magnified by traditional
musical rhetoric, described by Rădulescu as ‘ACTION and
PANTOMIME with sounds’, the continued use of which is merely
‘hypertrophying’. A particular note of disappointment is reserved
for electronic music’s adherence to these old modes of thought des-
pite opening up new vistas of timbral possibilities and furthering
our understanding of sound through its decomposition and recompos-
ition. Against this unsatisfactory state of affairs he proposes the idea of
‘special state music’, a music founded on continuity that rejects the old
rhetoric and reflects the properties of sound itself on to the musical
structure: ‘As if the ABSTRACT sound vibrations had obliged a
more CONCRETE sound activity and mimeticism in relation to
reality’.22
To summarise: Rădulescu believes that a consideration of the
internal structure of sound can form the basis for a new type of
music in which traditional rhetorical and structural categories are
bypassed in favour of continuity and constant transformation. This
is very close to what Hugues Dufourt proposes in his famous 1979
article ‘Musique spectrale’, though Dufourt explores these ideas in
considerably greater detail and highlights serial music as the extreme
manifestation of music based on the concatenation of discrete ele-
ments. Like Rădulescu, Dufourt seizes on the importance of electron-
ics for allowing an investigation into sound itself; indeed, for Dufourt
technology is the prime mover for the new approach to composition,
which he eventually names spectral music. The analytical possibilities
opened up by new technologies, in particular the ability to ‘zoom in’,
observe (and alter) the microstructure of sound, change our concep-
tion of sound itself. No longer a sequence of discrete tones, sound
becomes instead a dynamic field of forces that cannot be separated
out into individual elements.23 This in turn requires a fundamental
change in compositional thought. Musical material should likewise
eschew discontinuous units in favour of a new conception as a
dynamic field of volumes, densities, directions and clouds. It is the
composer’s role to plot the paths that will govern the transformations
of these forces.24 These are the same issues that motivated Rădulescu:
a music of continuity that takes as its model sound’s endless ocean of
vibrations.

21
Rădulescu, Sound Plasma, p. ‘and errors’.
22
Rădulescu, Sound Plasma, p. ‘intimate hope invasion’, recto.
23
Dufourt, ‘Musique Spectrale’, pp. 290–91.
24
Dufourt, ‘Musique Spectrale’, p. 291.

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 26 TEMPO

This sequence is echoed by Murail:

New analytic tools . . . allow us to journey to the interior of sounds, to observe
their internal structures. In this way, we immediately discover that a sound is
not a stable and self-identical entity, as traditional notation might have us
believe. . . . [This] allows us to develop a compositional approach based on
the analysis of sounds, and to make of their internal forces a starting point
for the composer’s task.25

Again: 1) examine sound, 2) discover continuity and variety – noting

that this does not correspond to what music history has taught you –
then 3) make new music on this basis. As Grisey said: ‘We are musi-
cians and our model is sound not literature, sound not mathematics,
sound not theatre, visual arts, quantum physics, geology, astrology or
acupuncture’.26 Or as Rădulescu says, ‘ENTER THE SOUND, PLAY
THERE AND FROM THERE’.27
At heart, then, Rădulescu shares his basic approach with these
other spectral composers and so shares some of the consequences
of that approach. A logical extension of taking sound as the model
when composing music made of sound is that you can end up in infin-
ite regress: sound as the model for sound as the model for sound as
the model for . . . While such extremes are bypassed, the idea of
small and large scales being to some extent self-similar was clearly
very attractive to all these composers. Rădulescu liked to talk about
the close relationship between micro and macro; Grisey expressed a
desire for a ‘more “organic” approach to form by self-generation of
sounds;’28 Murail referred to ‘a new musical logic . . . an ideal compos-
itional method in which structures of sounds would correspond to
musical forms’.29 Dufourt notes that this impulse is also a feature of
serial music: the overall form and individual moment are unified
through the series – though in general this relationship cannot be
heard. Spectral music, he argues, shares this ‘genetic conception’
with serial music, but in contrast its structural relationships are
designed to be audible. It is worth noting that what Dufourt labels
a ‘genetic conception’ and Rădulescu characterises as ‘micro and
macro evo-involution’, is in effect the old Pythagorean favourite, ‘as
above, so below’. The move from science to mysticism is nothing
more than a change of vocabulary.
If all these composers are describing the same problem and the
same solution, why does Rădulescu’s music seem to exist at such
a remove from the others? While their art-music heritage is equiva-
lent – Messiaen as guiding figure, Scelsi and Ligeti as important pre-
decessors, serial orthodoxy as a norm to be rejected – Rădulescu is
set apart from other spectral composers by his love of Romanian
folk music, heightened perhaps as an expatriate, which is an important
component of his style. Perhaps more fundamental, however, are the
different means by which these composers approached their project. If
‘sound itself’ is to be the model for a new approach to composition,
the way in which that sound is itself modelled and interrogated will
have significant consequences. The use of sonograms and other
such visualisations as a way of understanding both pitch and temporal

25
Tristan Murail, ‘The Revolution of Complex Sounds’, trans. Joshua Cody, Contemporary
Music Review 24, no. 2/3 (2005), p. 122.
26
Joshua Fineberg, Classical Music, Why Bother?: Hearing the World of Contemporary Culture
Through a Composer’s Ears, 1 edition (New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 105.
27
Rădulescu, Sound Plasma, p. ‘intimate hope invasion’, verso.
28
Grisey, ‘Did You Say Spectral?’, p. 3.
29
Murail, ‘The Revolution of Complex Sounds’, p. 132.

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 RĂ DULESCU: THE OTHER SPECTRALIST 27

aspects of complex sounds is a well-documented feature of the work

of Murail and Grisey; Dufourt also makes reference to such techni-
ques in his ‘Musique Spectrale’ article. Rădulescu, on the other
hand, does not discuss the tools by which he explores the sounds
that are to be the model for his special state music and, in the absence
of evidence to the contrary, I suggest that Rădulescu’s observations
derive from his experience as a violinist and were achieved through
a process of intense aural analysis.
Anyone who has drawn a bow across a string will be aware of the
fragile balance between order and chaos this represents, of the
constant fluctuations in timbre and pitch, of the ease with which
tone can become noise, of the possibility for a single sound to frag-
ment into its upper partials through variations in bow speed, pressure
and position, of the chance of unexpected squeaks and distortions, and
of the need to supress all this in order to make a ‘good’ sound. The
violin can become a variable filter/resonator to perform a type of
spectral analysis: a single note – as in a single length of vibrating
string – can through the action of the bow be made to split into a
vast array of component sounds. Even on a well-executed stroke
designed to produce a consistent pure tone, close listening will reveal
a dizzying inner life of micro-variations. I would suggest that this type
of listening – in many respects part of a violinist’s everyday practice
routine – will have contributed to Rădulescu forming the idea of
‘sound plasma’.30
Plasma, often referred to as the fourth state of matter, is a gas that
has been so highly energised that electrons are stripped away from
their atoms or molecules and the medium becomes ionised. It is per-
haps not obvious how one can construct a sonic analogy from this –
though one can easily match the high energy aspect to the frantic
activity heard within our violinist’s note. If, however, one considers
that our sun is a vast ball of plasma and imagines how the swirling,
churning activity of its surface, bounded yet constantly mutating,31
might apply in the aural domain, the attraction for Rădulescu becomes
clear. Here is a metaphor that captures the ‘wild ocean’ of that hypo-
thetical violin tone, that can help make it audible, and can serve as a
model for mimicking this super-energetic state in other aspects of the
composition. Sound plasma can thus apply on the small scale (‘micro-
plasma’) or large scale (‘macroplasma’) and become for Rădulescu the
basic attribute of musical texture: ‘There are no longer steps, intervals,
jumps, chords etc., but discreetly gliding and trembling narrow fre-
quency bands, vibrating (living) sound plasma’.32
Traditional spectral analysis can reveal the complexity within
sound, but usually the visualisation process simplifies and fixes it –
a sonogram is in one sense merely a chord – with the advantage
that it becomes an object that can be manipulated at will.33
Rădulescu, in contrast, took as his model something more intangible

30
It is also worth highlighting in the context of violin-as-inspiration that combination tones
are very clearly audible for the performer on a great many violin double stops. One could
imagine that Rădulescu’s fascination with harmonies built from combination tones (what
he called ‘self-generating functions’) had its source at least in part in this very tangible
aspect of violin performance.
31
See for example NASA’s wonderful collection of videos from their Solar Dynamics
Observatory, e.g. www.youtube.com/user/SDOmission2009/videos (accessed 1 April
2018).
32
Rădulescu, Sound Plasma, p. ‘intimate hope invasion’, verso.
33
Ana Maria Avram notes that the French approach is ‘combinatorial and actually structur-
alist’, a view I would temper by saying that the ‘French style’ does not reject such a pos-
sibility, in spite of its stated avoidance of the discontinuous music that was regarded as so

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 28 TEMPO

and experiential: an awareness of the possibilities within a single

sound, possibilities that remain in a state of constant flux. The two
models are acquired by different tools: the sonogram is machine-
generated, but sound plasma can be discovered by merely changing
the perspective of one’s listening. This should not be characterised
as a technology gap, however. Rădulescu certainly encountered the
high-tech solutions: indeed, he worked at IRCAM for a time and
was computer-literate. But the concretisation of a transcribed sono-
gram would not have appealed to Rădulescu, representing a return
to the rejected ‘stone-like’ sounds of the past. ‘We have to break
and penetrate this “stone”’, he urges, ‘magnify its inner ocean and
make it reach a living plasma, a natural state’.34
Despite the divergence in choice of underlying sonic metaphor –
crudely, sound plasma versus sonogram – there are still several points
of contact beyond the opening gambit of a new music based on the
analysis of sound. The desire to incorporate noise and complex sounds
as part of a continuum with ‘pure tone’, and to create formal struc-
tures through movement along this continuum is shared by Grisey
and Murail and is also very important to Rădulescu. In Sound
Plasma Rădulescu proposed a ‘sound compass’ as a way of visualising
this timbral space: with cardinal points Noise, Sound, Width, and
Element, any sound can be plotted, from a sine wave in the bottom
right corner to white noise in the top left (see Example 1). The struc-
ture of Grisey’s Partiels, for example, has been shown by Peter Niklas
Wilson to follow a respiratory design alternating between peaks of
noise and pure harmonic spectra, and could be represented as a fairly
direct line alternating between the N and S poles of the sound
compass.35 Alternatively, plotting Noise Sound against time, the jour-
ney becomes a sine wave, that basic sonic category. Rădulescu, in con-
trast, prefers less direct routes, with an erratic though ultimately
directed path that closely models on a ‘macro’ level the shape of
the ‘narrow frequency band’ (Rădulescu’s note-alternative) on the
‘micro’ level (see Example 2).

Example 1:
The ‘sound compass’. Rădulescu,
Sound Plasma, p. ‘crushing the
crumbled skies’, recto. Reproduced
by permission of G Ricordi & Co.,
Berlin.

Example 2:
An erratic path from ‘Width’ to
‘Element’. Rădulescu, Sound Plasma,
p. ‘oddly enough’, recto.
Reproduced by permission of
G Ricordi & Co., Berlin.

There are further parallels: the idea of ‘harmony-timbre’ is closely

related to that lying behind Rădulescu’s ‘spectrum pulse’, in that
both play with the fusion and decomposition of spectral components.

problematic. Philip Clark, ‘Unstable Molecule: Interview with Dumitrescu and Avram’,
The Wire, October 2009, p. 34, www.thewire.co.uk/issues/308 (accessed 1 April 2018).
34
Rădulescu, Sound Plasma, p. ‘crushing the crumbled skies’, verso.
35
Peter Niklas Wilson, ‘Vers une “ecologie des sons”: Partiels de Gérard Grisey et
l’esthétique du groupe de l’itinéraire’, trans. Martin Kaltenecker, Entretemps, no. 8
(1989), pp. 57–8.

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 RĂ DULESCU: THE OTHER SPECTRALIST 29

One could also compare Rădulescu’s fondness for combination-tone

derived harmonies to the use of ring modulation techniques in
Murail’s music (in Désintégrations, for example), though for Rădulescu
it is the acoustic model – the additional sounds readily apparent under
the ear of the violinist playing high intensity double stops – that is
important, whereas for Murail it is the electronic synthesis technique.36
One further point of near-connection draws together this theoretical
background. Rădulescu’s approach could be summarised as an attempt
to ‘make audible’ the hidden life of sounds. This loosely phenomeno-
logical imperative results in him remaining very close to his plasmatic
sonic model and, with very few exceptions, writing music that is entirely
based on one or more harmonic series. Grisey and Murail are likewise
deeply concerned with perception, but they approach it from the
opposite direction, composing structures that they hope will be ‘made
audible’ to the listener simply through the performance of their
music. They are therefore much less tied to the initial sonic model
and can compose – if they wish to – in a rather more traditional way.
But again, there is a higher level at which a shared purpose is evi-
dent, as for Rădulescu and Grisey in particular the key is that sounds
should be alive:
living objects, with a birth, lifetime and death (Grisey)37
the sound INTO which you feel YOU HAVE ENTERED – living, breathing
(Rădulescu)38

...
Das Andere, Op. 49 for solo viola (1984): 18 minutes of unbroken
sound plasma charting a gradual, if erratic, descent from a G
three-and-a-half octaves above middle C to the bottom note of the
instrument.39 As well as being a beautifully strange piece of music
in its own right, Das Andere displays many of the features noted earlier
and is also a useful compendium of some of Rădulescu’s favourite
string techniques. He describes the music as being ‘at the border
between score and sound phenomenon, trying to create a state of
trance’,40 and while this hints at a lack of development – the piece’s
two materials are fundamentally unaltered from start to finish – it
should not blind us to the fact that this is a guided meditation.
Though the surface impression may be of improvisatory freedom
and dynamic stasis, the music is in fact tightly controlled and highly
teleological. On the one hand nothing at all happens, on the other
our understanding of the unchanging basic materials is transformed
across the piece by subtle manipulations of duration (both structural
and local), harmonic context, overall energy and register.
The score is a form of tablature, with a four-line stave representing
the four strings of the viola (see Example 3). Dotted lines cross the
staves every two seconds, with a solid line at 10-second intervals;
each page lasts 60 seconds. The performer is directed to orient herself
or himself through the use of a two-colour metronome set to 30MM,
with a red light corresponding to the solid lines and a green light

36
Confusingly, Rădulescu calls these ‘self-generating functions’. Understanding that he uses
the word ‘function’ instead of ‘partial’ clarifies things somewhat and indicates that for him
the magic of the harmony is that it creates itself from the interaction of the source pitches.
37
David Bündler, ‘Interview with Gerard Grisey’, March 1996, available at www.angelfire.
com/music2/davidbundler/grisey.html (accessed 13 April 2012).
38
Rădulescu, Sound Plasma, p. ‘again an ash sun weeping’, recto.
39
Rădulescu permits Das Andere to be performed on any string instrument tuned in fifths.
40
Horatiu Rădulescu, Das Andere, Op. 49 (Montreux: Lucero Print, 1984).

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 30 TEMPO

marking the dotted lines. Dynamics and rhythm at the smallest scale
are left to the discretion of the performer, but all events marked on
the score are to occur at their precise time-location; likewise, dynam-
ics are occasionally indicated at important points to show the
large-scale shaping. Only two materials are used in the piece, labelled
A (alpha) and Σ (sigma). In addition, there are two further techniques
that are particularly associated with the A material, what Rădulescu
calls ‘little devils’ and ‘u du ‘u du’.41 All of these features are present
in the score extract in example 3.

Example 3:
Tabulature notation in Das Andere.
Copyright Lucero Print Switzerland.
Reprinted by permission.

The opening material of the piece is Σ. This is variously described

by Rădulescu as ‘two part polyphony of quasi “neo-byzantine” spec-
tral melodies’, ‘like 2 “shepherds” with small flutes’, and ‘very irregu-
lar melodies resembling high Alp-horns’.42 The composer and
longstanding aficionado of Romanian folk music Julian Anderson
has helpfully pointed out that the alphorns with which Rădulescu
would have been familiar are not the Swiss ones of Alpine picture
postcards. There are a number of different alphorn instruments
used in the various shepherding communities of the Carpathian
mountains, each with a distinctive sound and repertoire. One matches
the sound of Rădulescu’s Σ material strikingly well: the trembita, an
instrument of much narrower bore and altogether more raucous
tone than the Swiss alphorn, played on the extreme high harmonics.
Once made of wood, today many instruments are made of wound
metal, and one can get a good sense of their sound through (for
example) this video of a shepherd playing next to his flock in
Repedea, in the Romanian part of Maramures: https://youtu.be/
aG365akIXdo. The viola reimagining of this music is likewise played
on extremely high natural harmonics, with the added extension that

41
An onomatopoeic name invented by cellist Rohan de Saram.
42
These indications are all found in different sections of the published score: respectively, in
the score itself and the programme note; in the score, p.1; and in the performing notes
(p.2).

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 RĂ DULESCU: THE OTHER SPECTRALIST 31

two sets are to be played simultaneously.43 Rather than printing the

sounding pitches, Rădulescu indicates the range of harmonic partials
to be played on each string. As an appendix to the score, Rădulescu
provides a standard staff-notation for the desired pitches: there are
five ‘models of biphonies’ reproduced on each pair of strings (see
Example 4). These models suggest that some pitches are to be regarded
as more important than others and thus emphasised in the improvised
melodies created in performing the Σ material. Furthermore, periodic
rhythm or glissandi are prohibited. The marks across the stave in
Example 3 that look like a headless quaver are ‘micro climaxes’ on
the specified partials, creating combination tones if played at sufficiently
high intensity. Thus, although the performance of this material is
improvised, it is an improvisation within very tight boundaries.

Example 4:
Σ material in Das Andere. Copyright
Lucero Print Switzerland. Reprinted
by permission.

The effect of this writing under the ear of the performer is nothing
short of extraordinary. It is not a straightforward task to maintain con-
tact on both strings at this extreme register (as some recordings will
testify), but when it is achieved, the combination tones produced
are genuinely startling in their intensity. The Σ modules require a

43
This video, taken from the area of Maramures that is in Ukraine, features a large number
of trembitas playing against a held note, an effect that is near-identical to the opening of
Das Andere: https://youtu.be/Cu_vleOPvwE.

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 32 TEMPO

great deal of energy to perform, and while they tend towards the rau-
cous exhilaration of the Romanian alphorn, they are at the same time
highly fragile and prone to unexpected breakages of sound.
The contrasting A material is a surprisingly neo-Baroque string-
crossing arpeggio figuration that brings to mind some of the Bach
solo suites. The freedom permitted in the execution of this material
is rather different to that of Σ. With A the pitches are fixed and
unchanging, and the points of string crossings are marked in the
score; Rădulescu instructs that these should be strictly adhered to.
The bow contact position, however, is required to be constantly in
motion, between ‘moltissimo sul tasto’ – so far over the fingerboard
you are bowing next to your left hand – and ‘verso pont’ – very
close to (but not on) the bridge. This creates a kind of spectral filtering
effect, the changing bow contact bringing out an ever-changing series
of formants.
During the A modules, the gaps between the indications to play a
string crossing are to be filled with a kind of drone on what Rădulescu
calls the ‘obsessive voice’ (marked with a → on the score). Two tech-
niques are used to energise this drone: first, ‘little devils’, extremely
high harmonics very close to the nut of the string (or the stopped fin-
ger for a non-open string note). These are highly unstable and there-
fore very intermittent, often breaking down to the stopped or open
string pitch. Rădulescu writes ‘the whole technique resembles a
cloudy phenomenon with very high register erruptions [sic] like
sparklings’.44 Secondly, ‘u du ‘u du’, or ‘phase-shifting arco’, where,
with a stiffly locked right arm, the bow is made to rebound between
two imaginary walls, the bow contact position changing between
strokes but never during a stroke. The effect is similar to the spectral
filtering described above, and in addition Rădulescu highlights that a
‘breathing noise’ of the bow hair against the string should be audible.
As with Σ, performance of the A material involves relearning one’s
playing habits alongside an awareness that the new technique is
extremely idiomatic. The chords of A in general lie under the fingers
without any grotesque stretches, and the crossing string bowing is a
standard technique with a long history. Likewise, when one has
adjusted to the hand position required by the extreme register of Σ,
these high harmonic melodies are a great deal of fun to play and,
of course, what could be more ‘natural’ than natural harmonics?
There is a combination of foreignness and familiarity in both the
means to make these sounds and the referents of the sounds them-
selves (alphorns and Baroque style). The viola has never sounded
like this before, yet the music seems (and feels to play) strongly viola-
like. Such dualities are, as the title suggests, part and parcel of Das
Andere.
The constantly varying timbral qualities of A and Σ materials –
the rough, unpredictable, fluctuating sound quality created through
the use of extreme register (Σ) and constantly varying contact point
(A) – make them clear examples of sound plasma. The plasmatic
approach is not restricted to timbre, however, and is apparent across
multiple parameters and structural levels. A convenient visual
representation of such activity in the realm of dynamics is what
Rădulescu refers to as an ‘electro cardiogram’,45 or occasionally

44
Score, Performing notes, p. 2.
45
Rădulescu, Sound Plasma, p. ‘again an ash sun weeping’, recto; Horatiu Rădulescu,
‘Musique de mes univers’.

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 RĂ DULESCU: THE OTHER SPECTRALIST 33

‘encephalograms of sound’46 (note the life metaphor again). He

describes this motion as characteristic of ‘evo-involution’47 – in
essence a highly erratic movement created by the sum of many differ-
ent directional impulses – which he states is ‘the life of the sound
plasma’.48 In many pieces he notates this explicitly, but in Das
Andere he uses a shorthand where the Σ accents represent a peak in
the irregularly fluctuating cardiogram (see Example 5).

Example 5:
Rădulescu’s diagram of shifting
intensities in a Σ module. Copyright
Lucero Print Switzerland. Reprinted
by permission.

This ‘electro cardiogram’ plot is useful for highlighting the plas-

matic approach in other domains. If Rădulescu’s ‘graphic simulation’
of a Σ melody as given in the performing notes is turned into a con-
tinuous line, one can immediately see that this is another version of
the characteristic electro cardiogram shape (see Example 6). Thus
the intention for the local pitch trajectories within Σ is evidently
that they should be plasmatic.

Example 6:
Rădulescu’s graphic simulation of a
Σ melody, a) as printed in
performing notes and b) with
additional line to highlight electro
cardiogram shape. Copyright Lucero
Print Switzerland. Reprinted by
permission.

A similar analysis relating activity to time can be made in the A

modules. By taking each two-second unit as a window and counting
the number of strings crossed, a crude measure of overall energy
across the duration of the material is obtained. Example 7 demon-
strates that the erratically fluctuating electro cardiogram is again in
evidence, as it is if one plots a graph of the duration of each module
against module number across the entire piece (see Example 8). In this
way the microplasma of ‘the sound itself’, the unstable but highly
characteristic timbres of the Σ and A materials, is reflected in the
melodic content, dynamics, energy level, and macroform of the entire
piece. ‘As above, so below’.

46
Rădulescu, Sound Plasma, p. ‘pre-existing soul of THEN’, verso.
47
Horatiu Rădulescu, Thirteen Dreams Ago (Paris: Editions Jobert, 1978).
48
Rădulescu, Sound Plasma, p. ‘pre-existing soul of THEN’, recto.

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 34 TEMPO

Example 7:
Energy across an A module. a) Score
extract. Copyright Lucero Print
Switzerland. Reprinted by
permission. b) Corresponding graph
of energy against time.

In one respect, this is unremarkable: any random distribution

would produce such graphs. Perhaps this use of the electro cardio-
gram indicates nothing more than Rădulescu’s commitment to avoid-
ing standard, stable, ‘stone-like’ structures across all parameters.
However, the trend line superimposed on Example 8 reveals a clear
trajectory behind the surface fluctuations. This ‘acceleration’ contri-
butes to the generation of a teleological structure that, it will be
shown, is in certain respects surprisingly traditional.
Example 8 indicates that, overall, the durations of modules decrease
towards the final segment and thus momentum increases. Example 9,
which displays structural, material and harmonic outlines across the
whole piece, demonstrates that this increase in momentum is

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 RĂ DULESCU: THE OTHER SPECTRALIST 35

Example 8:
Duration of modules in Das Andere
across entire piece.

reinforced by the increasingly frequent changes in material-type. The

sequence of seven ‘regions’ in this diagram are those highlighted in
Rădulescu’s ‘macroform’ summary of Das Andere, which he includes
in ‘Brain and Sound Resonance’.49 Again their durations contract lead-
ing to the final, extended region.50

Example 9:
Structural diagram of Das Andere.

Alongside this duration scheme, there is a large scale harmonic plan

based on a carefully chosen sequence of ‘virtual’ fundamentals. Every
module in Das Andere has a virtual fundamental: the hypothetical bass
note that would include all the pitches of the module as part of its har-
monic series. This is straightforward to calculate for the Σ modules as
they are all already natural harmonics. One therefore need only find
the fundamental that includes as partials the two open strings on

49
The vast majority of the information contained in this document is already easily accessible
from the score – the only extra analytical layer presented are the indications for the seven
regions. However, there are a few somewhat enigmatic additions. Module 14 is labelled
‘VERDI’ for reasons I have not been able to discern. Similarly, the open D in module
23 is highlighted as being ‘BABUSHKA-voice’.
50
For the most part, Rădulescu’s regions advance at clear textural/harmonic shifts. The one
that is slightly surprising at first glance is where region 7 begins. Why here? Why not with
the multiphonic in the subsequent module, which seems to be marked as a more signifi-
cant event? The answer, I believe, is that module 38 begins an important middleground
chromatic/microtonal descent across the A modules, as will be discussed later in the
article.

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 36 TEMPO

which these harmonics are played. This is, of course, simply the same
pitch-class as the lower of the two strings. Things are somewhat more
complex for the A modules, whose harmonies are created through
Rădulescu’s favourite technique of ‘self generating functions:’ a
single pair of notes project their sum and difference tones to make
a four-part chord.51 If one knows the partial numbers for the source
pair, the resultant notes are a simple arithmetic sum and subtraction,
and the fundamental is likewise easily calculated. Conveniently,
Rădulescu indicates both fundamental and theoretical partial numbers
in the score. Although I have described them as ‘virtual’, Rădulescu
ensures that they are anything but. The ‘obsessive voice’ in the A
modules is invariably the same pitch class as the local fundamental,
and thus the ‘root’ of each chord is not only present in the texture,
but is actually emphasised.
The interaction of these fundamentals and the seven regions and
two material types suggests an almost ‘Classical’ scheme (see
Example 9). An initial static region on D is followed by a less stable
one which nevertheless concludes with a clear ‘cadence’ on A. The
third region passes through a series of different fundamentals before
arriving at G at the start of the fourth region, which is maintained
until it falls to C in the sixth region, an area that is reinforced and
extended in the seventh. In other words, the standard move from sta-
bility to instability and back again, including an articulation point
around a third of the way through and a prominent ‘dominant’ area
before the final arrival.
This tonal journey is not merely a figment of the visual imagination
getting carried away with Rădulescu’s annotations – quite the con-
trary. The major arrival points are rhetorically marked: the ‘cadence’
on A at module 15 is generated through a sudden reduction in activity,
the absence of any literal presentation of either A or Σ material, and
focus on a simple ‘root position’ spectrum – a technique reused
over a more extended period for the final module. The moves to G
and C (modules 23 and 35) are marked to be played ‘fff’ – the only
points in the piece that dynamics are indicated before the detailed spe-
cifications in the final module. Furthermore, the internal activity of
module 22, although still corresponding to the ‘electro cardiogram’
model, creates an overall curve of rising energy, pushing the music
forward to the arrival on G that follows (see Example 10).
As previously noted, the A material emphasises the current virtual
fundamental by virtue of its position as the ‘obsessive voice’. This has
a further consequence in terms of the ‘voicing’ of the A harmonies.
Until the final region, the obsessive voice is always in the middle of
the texture, and as such the harmonies have a mobile quality akin
to a first or second inversion common triad. With the C fundamental,
however, the obsessive voice is in the bass, so the final sequence of A
harmonies have a grounded-ness none of the other A modules are per-
mitted. The material remains unchanged for the whole piece, but the
new voicing marks out the passage on C as a tangible arrival.
While the A material is presented in more or less the same register
throughout the piece, the Σ modules create a large-scale descent.
There are five different versions of the Σ material used in Das
Andere, each with a distinctive profile (see Example 4). These modules
can be played at three pitch levels corresponding to the three different

51
For more detail on this technique, see Bob Gilmore, ‘Spectral Techniques in Horatiu
Radulescu’s Second Piano Sonata’, TEMPO 62, no. 252 (2010), pp. 66–78.

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 RĂ DULESCU: THE OTHER SPECTRALIST 37

Example 10:
Das Andere, module 22, energy
profile.

pairs of adjacent open strings (D and A, G and D, C and G); 15 mod-

ules in total, therefore, each of which appears only once in the course
of the piece. Rather than mixing up the permutations, Rădulescu
chooses to use all the top string modules, then all the middle string
ones, then all the bottom string ones; as such the Σ material falls
by a fifth twice, the distinctiveness of the different versions highlight-
ing that these are transpositions of something we have heard before
rather than yet another variant of the Σ model. The three sets of
five Σ modules are presented in three different orderings, with
Rădulescu arranging the final set from highest to lowest – ε, γ, β,
α, δ, λ (see Example 4) – further strengthening the directionality in
the final regions of the piece. This teleological intensification is mir-
rored in final sequence of A modules, with region 7 consisting of a
micro-chromatic descent across three voices over a C pedal in the
bass, compressing the harmonic space onto the final perfect fifth
(see Example 11).

Example 11:
Harmonic sequence of region 7
showing descent over C pedal. Bar
numbers refer to module numbers.

It is clear, therefore, that despite the chaotic surface of the electro

cardiogram model of evo-involution, the final module – essentially a
variety of filters on the bottom C – is the target of all that has gone
before. In his macroform diagram, Rădulescu labels this moment
‘CATHEDRAL SOUND’, and this image certainly gives an indication
of the capacious resonance he hopes to project and may also suggest
connotations of sanctuary and sacred space. Along with the cadence in
module 15, this is the most straightforwardly ‘spectral’ moment in the
whole piece: a held fundamental with various portions of the overtone
series above it emphasised through bow speed, contact point, dynam-
ics, pressure, and the use of ‘little devils’ on the twelfth above,

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 38 TEMPO

eventually all fused into the single bare compound fifth. As well as
providing a long passage of stability and harmonic resolution, this
arrival also suggests itself as the source for both the A and the Σ
material. Such a proposal might take a leap of faith, but in a sense
the whole piece has been constructed to make this leap of faith pos-
sible. It has already been shown how the final A modules converge
on the concluding C–G dyad, but what has not been highlighted is
the increasingly prominent role of the ‘little devils’ within the obses-
sive voice of the A material. These very high harmonics effectively
embed the Σ material within A, and the increasingly rapid alternations
of material type, leading to their explicit combination in the penulti-
mate segment – Σ appearing within A like a ‘little devil’ – serves to
dissolve the opposition between the Σ and A musics, turning contrast
into coexistence. The final module’s exploration of a harmonic spec-
trum could be regarded as a fusion of A and Σ: A by virtue of the
voice-leading progression that compresses the four-part harmony
into a single ‘obsessive voice’, and Σ by the harmonics melodies gen-
erated by the ‘little devils’ on the third partial. This plasmatic activity
is then further fused into the final stable dyad, where the electro car-
diogram is subsumed back into the inner life of the sound. We are
watching a star go supernova, in reverse.
Most remarkably of all, Rădulescu achieves this through an essen-
tially non-interventionist approach to composition. Das Andere has no
development, no transformation, no stretching or squeezing of the
basic forms: just two different ways of playing on a spectrum. At
the same time, Rădulescu constructs a strongly teleological journey
that invites us to hear these materials as two aspects of a single note.52
One rarely travels so far whilst standing still.
...
There is no need to cover Grisey’s Prologue in such depth, but there
are some interesting parallels to Das Andere that are worth highlight-
ing. Trivially, they share a duration (around 18 minutes), a first per-
former in Gérard Caussé, and a notational approach that allows the
performer a degree of quasi-improvisatory freedom within a strictly
controlled environment. More significantly, both pieces have a
curve that is played out on several levels of structure, and for
Grisey this is a simple undulating wave shape, the model for which

Example 12:
Opening pitch contour of Prologue.

52
This ‘purely musical’ journey in combination with the title and programme note, invites
speculation as to a psychological parallel. ‘Das Andere’, the other, is the shadow, which in
Jungian psychology should be confronted and integrated on the path to self-individuation.
A and Σ materials appear in this opposing relationship, and without undergoing any
internal changes they are eventually integrated within the ‘cathedral’ sound’ of the final
page of the piece.

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Table 2:
Wave gestures across various parameters in Prologue

Grisey, Prologue Section 1 Section 2 Section 3 Section 4 Section 5 Overall curve Sections 1–5
Tempo 70 ↗ 90 100 ↗ 140 160 ↗ 260 190 ↘ 130 190 ↗ 300

Dynamics ppp – p pp – mp mp – f p – mf mf – ff

No. of notes in gesture 5 7 11 9 13

RĂ DULESCU: THE OTHER SPECTRALIST

No. of sets of gestures in section 9+* 5 8 3 2

* The first gesture is repeated ad lib.

39
 40 TEMPO

is the opening pitch contour of Prologue (see Example 12). In his ana-
lysis of Prologue, Hennessy notes that this wave shape also models the
durational scheme within each of the opening sections.53 He stops
here, but could have gone further, as the relative tempi, dynamics,
number of notes in gesture and number of sets of gestures follow
the same curve across the first five sections (Table 2). In this way,
the occult principle of ‘as above, so below’ is just as significantly pre-
sent in Grisey’s Prologue as it is in Rădulescu’s Das Andere.
Both composers also restrict themselves to two contrasting and
seemingly incompatible materials. For Grisey these are the ‘respira-
tory’ and ‘cardiac’ gestures of Prologue’s opening statement.54 Just as
Das Andere results in a fusion of the A and Σ materials, so Prologue
reaches a point where the respiratory and cardiac gestures have
melded together. However, whereas Rădulescu leaves his materials
unaltered from start to finish, Grisey proceeds by actively working
his gestures, stretching them, distorting them, making echoes and
cross-syntheses, and eventually pulverising them into a band of
noise. The journey is the same, but the means are different, and
the implication is different too. Rădulescu encourages us to hear
anew, so both the A and Σ materials can be understood as stemming
from the final basic sonority. With Prologue, it is not so much a case of
‘learning to hear differently’ as being taken step by step through a pro-
cess of transformation. In Das Andere our perspective, but not the
material, has changed; in Prologue the material itself is mutated, recom-
bined, resynthesised. Their target points, however, are equivalent: the
open string as plasma source (in which one can find anything), versus
an evocation of pure white noise (in which one can find anything).
Both composers manipulate our sense of the foreign and the famil-
iar. Grisey begins with music that is, microtones notwithstanding,
straightforward and motivic: clear, memorable, bounded. Through
intense motivic working, he transforms the opening material into its
opposite: a continuously moving band of noise, taking us to a foreign
place by successive alterations of the familiar. Rădulescu’s approach
heads in the opposite direction. His opening is ostentatiously strange,
but the place the music finally comes to rest is as straightforwardly
familiar as it could possibly be. The backbone of both these pieces
is the dramatic projection of these journeys.
...
When these two composers are placed side by side, it becomes clear
that theirs is not a relationship of simple incompatibility, but rather
one in which principles common to both sides are realised and
expressed in highly idiosyncratic ways. If Grisey and his colleagues
present the familiar face and sound of spectral music, then
Rădulescu is the shadow, das Andere, and we would be wise to
embrace his music and his words as part of the same spectral phenom-
enon. There is a little bit of Rădulescu lurking in Murail and Grisey, I
think, and vice versa; bringing them together allows for a richer
understanding of spectral music as a whole.

53
Jeffrey J Hennessey, ‘Beneath the Skin of Time: Alternative Temporalities in Grisey’s
Prologue for Solo Viola’, Perspectives of New Music, 47, no. 2 (2009), pp. 45–8.
54
Labelling as in Hennessey, ‘Beneath the Skin of Time’.

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