For Antoine Tisné, musical creation is an essential ferment of existence and a way of belonging to the world.

Whether he contemplates, explores or questions the world, he puts his feelings, his approaches and his doubts into a musical form through which he communes intimately with the universe.

Can we guess the secret man ?
the abounding work ?

When we discover the work, it enthralls us :

pure durations,
constrating masses,
rhythms,
stresses.

When we penetrate it, we are intrigued or fascinated :

narrative or symbolism ?
epic or meditation ?

Hearing it, in the same way as we listen to the world, we may feel anxious or exhilarated.

From his frequent travels in Greece, Afghanistan, Spain, Kenya and India, Antoine Tisné always brings back some new work which evokes a place but draws its underlying inspiration from myths or from the genius loci.

After a long gestation (from 1972 to 1975), the spiritual mood of Celebration I combines the serenity of the mystic call of Mount Ahtos and the purity of the azure lakes of Band-i-amir.

Its swirling sonorous traceries,
slashed with bells and stridency,
fade into infinity, like prayers.

Elsewhere, the chant consecrates the hours of a long memory ; Sequences pour Ellora, written in 1969, after a visit to India, and Music for Stonehenge (1975) are as disturbing and fascinating as the places which inspired them. The ambiguous voices of the clarinet or the saxophone, both ample (volume, range and polyphony) and fragmented (flutter-tonguing and artificial resonnances) are strangely moving.

The observer ‘s eye is always accompanied by the dreamer’s meditation.

The composer’s method structures the imagination of the intuitive.

From painting,

with its immediate and lasting power, he draws structural devices - spatial balance, constrating masses and a focus of attraction.

In the pieces which it has inspired - Etudes d’après Goya (1966), Les muses inquiètantes (1976) and Cimaises (1967) - it brings the vitality of juxtaposition, mobility of rhythm and internal tension.

From poetry,

with its truth and mysteries, he discovers secret sources of images and symbols. Several poets - including Rilke, Baudelaire and, in this century, Cendrars, Char, Daumal, Reverdy, Masson and Niemann - have given him ideas for musical transpositions or illustrations, such as songs, a lyric poem and chamber music with a speaker.

The modern myth of Bocephal (a poem by David Niemann) made a strong impresssion on him, and he extracted from it the essence of musical symbolism. Figures
symbolising the static, torture or light,
ponctuate and stress this narrative suite, permeated with human agony.

Even in Antoine Tisné’s «pure» music, an underlying drama filters through.

Affectivity, such as a sensation of fear in the cello concerto,
of oppression or melancholy in the viola concerto,
and vivid indications of symphonic movements

enhances genres which at first admit their materiality. Tisné does not however reject the latter, and cultivates the pleasure of the sovereign master of ceremonies in relationships between sounds,

in the play of timbres and virtuosity,
in the balance between order and aleatory.

To assimilate its codes better (en perhaps also to master a natural expressionism) he began by subjecting his language to the austere rules of serialism. He abandoned it a decade ago, confident in the generosity of a melodic inspiration which could have been restricted by systematic censorship.

But the essential question is always that of creation. In music, and in art in general, it is a replica on a human scale of the mysterious working of the universe.

Antoine Tisné’s music is full of swirling momentum, colorful hazes and the radiance of space, particularly the pieces in which he expresses his idea of the cosmos : Cosmogonies (1967), Sidérales (1970), Pulsars éclatés (1971) and Stellae Borealis (1974). They reflect a metaphysical mind fascinated by scientific discoveries, made fertile by meditation and released, with its torments and its beliefs, by musical creation.

Pierrette GERMAIN

1968

1) Sonate pour piano
2) Epigraphe pour une stèle pour piano
Piano : Claude Bonneton
Erato STU. 70464

1969

Concerto pour flûte et orchestre à cordes
Flûte : Jean Pierre Rampal
Orchestre de Chambre de l’O.R.T.F. - dir. : André Girard.
Erato - O.R.T.F. STU 70480

1970

Hommage à Calder
Stabile Mobile
Clavecin : Elisabeth Chojnacka
Philips : Prospectives du XXIe siècle / Gravure Universelle 6526.009

1971

Luminescences pour orgue
Orgue : Jean Guillou
Philips Trésor Classique / Super Artistique 6504-039

1973

Sonate pour violon et piano
Violon : Adèle Auriol
Piano : Bernard Fauchet.
Calumet 3732 / Calumet - Musi cassette 2732

1974

Alliages
Quatuor de saxophones
C.B.S. Sony (Tokyo) / Stéréo 2400

1975

Osiriaques
Harpe celtique : Denise Mégevand
S.F.P. / F.P.9. 1054

1977

Music for Sonehenge, pour saxophone alto et piano
Saxophone : Claude Delangle
Piano : Odile Delangle
R.E.M. 10864

1980 Héraldiques, pour trompette et piano
Trompette : Pierre Thibaud
Piano : Ichiro Nodaïra
Arion C.B. 331
A.R.N. 38606

1983

Espaces irradiés, pour saxophone alto et piano
Saxophone : Claude Héraud
Piano : Roger Muraro
R.E.M. 10894 X 4

1984

1) Héraldiques, pour trompette et piano
Trompette : Hakan Hardenberger
Piano : Roland Pöntiner
D.M.M. (R.F.A.) / L.P. 287 Stéréo

2) Soliloques
Basson : Arthur Grossmann
Crystal Record (U.S.A.) / Recital Series Stéréo S. 342

3) Bocéphal, pour 2 pianos et récitant
Texte de David Niemann
Pianos : Marie-Claude Chevalier et Xavier Givelet
Récitant : Benoît Alemane
Cybélia Cy.671

4) Musique en trio
Violon : Josette Roux Manzoni
Violoncelle : Michel Marchesini
Piano : Marie-Claude Chevalier
Cybelia 671

5) Après...
Clarinette : Gabriel Sauvaire
Harpe : Catherine de Preissac
Cybélia 668

1985

Ombra Veneziana, pour 2 guitares
Guitares : Jean Horreaux et Jean-Marie Tréhard
Calliope Cal. 1663

1986

Soleils Noirs
Piano : Geneviève Ibanez
R.E.M. 11009 XM

1987

1) Espaces irradiés (extraits)
Saxophone alto : Jean-Michel Goury
Piano : Yves Josset

2) Vision des temps immémoriaux
Trio Deslogères
Ondes Martenot : Françoise Deslogères
Piano : Gilles Bérard
Percussion : Michel Gastaud
Calliope Cal. 9875

3) Ragas - Hommage à René Daumal
Trio Deslogères
Ondes Martenot : Françoise Deslogères
Piano : Gilles Bérard
Percussion : Michel Gastaud
Récitante : Pierrette Germain
Calliope Cal. 9875

1988

Episodes New-Yorkais
Flûte : Patrice Bocquillon
Clarinette : Dominique Vidal
Violon : Marie-Christine Millière
Violoncelle : Jacques Wiederker
Piano : Josette Morata
A.M.V.A. - A.V.A. 881