“La voix comme radicale altérité”? Spectral Music for the Voice

Abstract In his writings, Gérard Grisey calls for a reestablishment of sound as the central domain of music: “We are musicians, and our model is sound.” He is skeptical about the use of reference models that do not correspond to what he sees as the origins of music: mathematics, literature, theater, etc. From the dawn of spectralism, however, the question arose if it is possible to strictly separate sound and meaning from one another. This question gains additional relevance in regard to vocal music. Grisey’s extensive vocal works of the 1990s like Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil (1996–98) show the considerable change that spectralism underwent within a decade. Reflections on musical narrativity and rhetoric are (also) part of Grisey’s late aesthetics. Furthermore, in those years, the genre of opera was rediscovered: Kaija Saariaho, Michaël Levinas, and Fausto Romitelli devoted themselves intensely to music theater. This chapter discusses the wide range of their concepts from almost conventional large-scale dramaturgy to experiments that ultimately break down the genre’s limitations.