“I propose to everyone the opening of interior hatches, a journey into the depths of things, an invasion of qualities, a revolution or subversion comparable to that of the plow or the shovel, when all of a sudden, for the first time, millions of parcels are uncovered, glitter, roots, worms and little beasts that had previously been buried. Oh infinite resources of the thickness of things.”

— Francis Ponge

It is the effect of sound considered as an activity, an “excited thing,” whose thickness, interior or reverse side “suddenly brought to light” brings out “parcels and glitter,” yes, it is from this event, and the surprise it provokes in me as soon as it appears, that the urgent desire to listen comes, as strong as the promise of an important moment.

The organ concerned by this call is not only that of listening, but immediately associated with it is that of prehension / predation: the ear is equipped with a hand. To hold-retain-reproduce under various exhibitions, pressures and expressions. For what is this “excited thing” that interests me, that mobilizes me in turn?

These questions, among many others that assail me, arise from the strangeness of the acousmatic “system” itself: listening without seeing!

Radio, cinema and the technological arts share this strange appeal: that of provoking, of invading the perceptive flow. And beyond codes and words, to address the “ordinary” viewer or listener directly, to take into account the immediacy of his or her sensations arising in the urgency of an immersion, to integrate and incorporate him or her in a situation of strangeness, a world ofimages without frame or reference point: an “extra ordinary” situation!

Every composer is familiar with this delicious immersion in total sound, the ultimate historical step that overcomes the previous one, that of the chromatic ensemble of the symphonic universe.

In an acousmatic situation, musical invention penetrates (by breaking and entering?) into the interior of things, as Francis Ponge invokes, and enjoys playing with the evocative power of sounds. It maintains a privileged relationship with reality.

It inaugurates a new situation: that of autonomous listening. In the absence of a visual referent, it produces unexpected images in the listener made of sensations, materials, textures and colors.

From then on, all sound can be understood as a sign.

The magic of listening — if we want to use a word to capture it alive — comes in large part from the empathy it sets in motion.

Before hearing, we believe we are (still) ourselves, but if we let ourselves be caught up in the thread of attention, we immedi- ately “become” the author of what we hear, the layout agent, the central character, and all together, the subject and the object, the traveler and the landscape, the lover and his beloved, the adventurer and his adventure.

But special conditions are needed to achieve this phenomenological magic: the characters (to truly live) require from the author the guarantee of a fertile, fanciful and, why not say, delirious imagination of their future…

… and for each of the ten composers on this beautiful album, this is indeed the case!

To those who will hear the musical works gathered here, so diversely colored and all highly inventive, I promise beautiful metamorphoses!

— François Bayle, Former director of the Ina-GRM; Honorary doctorate from the University of Cologne; Honorary President of Musiques & Recherches [iv-23]

Premiered at the 1958 Brussels Universal Exhibition, in the futuristic setting of the Philips Pavilion designed by the architect Le Corbusier and assisted by Iannis Xenakis, Edgard Varèse’s Poème électronique made a lasting impression on visitors. Multimedia before its time, the music was spatialised over 450 loudspeakers and accompanied by light projections, slides and films.

A year later, Maurice Béjart was invited to be in residence at the Théâtre royal de la Monnaie in Brussels having created Symphonie pour un homme seul, in 1955, the first ballet based on musique concrète with music by Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer. The choreographer, founder of the Ballet du XX^e siècle, who went on to create Messe pour le temps présent, founded the Mudra dance school in Brussels in 1970. It attracted dancers worldwide and was the catalyst for the considerable development of contemporary dance in Belgium which was often associated with original musical premieres.

Two years later, the Tour cybernétique was erected along the Meuse in Liège. It was a monumental work by Nicolas Schöffer who pioneered the concept of cybernetic art, enabling a dialogue to be established between the work and its audience.

A precursor of today’s interactive devices, the tower reacted to sound, light and atmospheric conditions. Its “electronic brain,” as it was then called, altered the orientation of mirrors and the intensity of artificial lights, and triggered sound sequences composed by Henri Pousseur.

It is no coincidence that Belgium, a small, open country sharing land and sea borders with five neighbouring countries, and rich with three national cultures, has often been both a crucible and a receptacle for new artistic experiments.

And this post-war effervescence, supported by technological developments, provided fertile ground for experimentation. This led the first generation of Belgian composers of electroacoustic music to set up studios to carry out their research. They incorporated outside influences such as serialism, musique concrète and electronic music.

Henri Pousseur created the Studio de musique électronique APELAC in Brussels in 1957. He was joined by Arsène Souffriau, who in 1959 created the Bureau d’illustrations musicales, électroniques et sonores (BIMES), and Leo Kupper, who in 1967 founded the Studio de recherches et de structurations électroniques auditives. We owe him the conception of sound domes with over 100 loudspeakers the trajectories of which were interpreted live by operators for concerts or they were generated in real time, in interactive installation mode, from the analysis of visitors’ voices, using the Générateur automatique de musique électronique (GAME) that he designed.

In Flanders, the Instituut voor Psychoakoestiek en Elektronische Muziek [nstitute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music] (IPEM ) was jointly founded in 1963 by the University of Ghent and Radio télévision belge, with composers Louis De Meester, Karel Goeyvaerts and Lucien Goethals who combined influences from musique concrète, serial and electronic music. In 1970, Henri Pousseur and Pierre Bartholomée founded the Centre de recherches et de formation musicales de Wallonie (CRFMW), since renamed Centre Henri Pousseur (CHP). It focuses mainly on mixed music and instrumental gesture.

The next generation continued along this path. A group of IPEM students, including Godfried-Willem Raes, formed the Logos Ensemble [Logos-Group] in Ghent in 1968, which later became a centre that developed an original electroacoustic approach based on gestural interfaces and musical robots. The Studio voor Experimentele Muziek (SEM), founded in 1973 in Antwerp by Joris De Laet, was dedicated to the creation and dissemination of electroacoustic music with a particular focus on parametric and algorithmic music and an intimate link with video which was often composed simultaneously. Created by Annette Vande Gorne in 1982, Musiques & Recherches focuses on acousmatic music, its teaching, creation, documentation and performance through the development of a large acousmonium.

Over the next decade, Art, recherche, technologie et musique (ARTeM), founded by Todor Todoroff in 1992, developed interactive sound transformation techniques, sensors and gesture-controlled virtual instruments for the studio, concert and dance, while arsis_thesis, founded by Dimitri Coppe in 1998, focused on the spatialisation of sound in concert using a distinctive acousmonium and specific software for live performance and improvisation.

Most of these studios were created outside an institutional framework and they received recognition at a later stage. Classes in electroacoustic composition were gradually opened in most of the country’s conservatoires, each with its own specific features, particularly in Brussels and then in Mons for musique concrète and acousmatic music. Together, they have helped to shape a varied and multifaceted electroacoustic landscape, a landscape that has been enriched by a large number of personal studios, which have gradually become the norm.

The Belgian Federation for Electroacoustic Music (BeFEM) [Fédération belge de musique électroacoustique — Belgische Federatie voor Elektroakoestische Muziek] (FeBeME — BeFEM) has worked to strengthen links among composers from the country’s different regions and communities since it was founded in 1994. It organises concerts in the three regions, reflecting the diversity of technical and aesthetic approaches. These regular exchanges have created favourable conditions for mutual influences and cross-fertilisation. Since 2002, the Forum de la création musicale in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation has brought together composers specializing in notated instrumental music and electroacoustic music in a single organisation, and this double compact disc, together with four others, celebrates its twentieth anniversary.

Many of the composers on this double album have supplemented musique concrète compositional techniques with forays in instrumental or mixed music, contributed to dance or theatre performances, composed for the visual arts and have thus developed their skills through a variety of sources and influences.

All of these elements and their multiple hybridisations make up the extraordinary richness of the contemporary Belgian electroacoustic scene. You will discover a sample of this on this double album, through the works of composers who are members of the Forum de la création musicale.

We have named this edition Metharcana, in reference to the eponymous piece that opens the first compact disc, in homage to Stephan Dunkelman, a composer and friend who passed away much too soon.

— Todor Todoroff, Co-founder and President of Art, recherche, technologie et musique (ARTeM) [Art, Research, Technology, and Music]; Co-founder and President of the Belgian Federation for Electroacoustic Music (BeFEM); Co-founder and Board member of the Forum de la création musicale; Board member of the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music (ICEM) [vi-23]

Depuis 2002, le Forum de la création musicale (FCM) réunit des compositeurs de musique instrumentale écrite et de musique électroacoustique en Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. Une série d’albums vous est proposée à l’occasion du vingtième anniversaire de l’association afin de vous faire découvrir la richesse créative de ses membres.

Ce coffret présente un échantillon de compositeurs et compositrices de la scène électroacoustique belge contemporaine. De par leur pratique incessante de la recherche du fait sonore en utilisant des techniques d’écriture concrète ainsi que par des incursions dans la musique instrumentale ou mixte, dans la danse et le théâtre et l’image, ces artistes ont contribué au développement de la musique contemporaine dans tous ses aspects et transcendé les frontières artistiques et se sont formés autour de multiples sources d’inspiration, créant ainsi une expérience sonore captivante et éclectique.

Le titre Metharcana fait référence à la pièce éponyme qui ouvre cet opus en hommage à Stephan Dunkelman, compositeur et ami regretté.

Découvrez une œuvre exceptionnelle qui célèbre le vingtième anniversaire du FCM, une organisation dédiée à l’innovation musicale et à l’exploration sonore. Ce double CD est bien plus qu’une simple compilation, c’est une invitation à un voyage musical incomparable, où les frontières entre les genres s’effacent pour laisser place à une expérience auditive unique.

— [x-23]