Exposition

Heterotopia of the Practice Room: Casting and Breaking the Illusion of Tristan Murail’s Tellur for Solo Guitar (2023)

Maarten Stragier
open exposition

About this exposition

A combination of highly unusual extended playing techniques with open intabulated notation makes the solo guitar work Tellur altogether unique in Tristan Murail’s catalogue. When placed in the broader discursive context of Murail’s compositional philosophy, this unique configuration of elements causes a quandary. The composer aims to integrate “the totality of sonic phenomena” into his compositional language, and within this context he maintains a traditional view of musical authorship. However, how does a performer reconcile this perspective with a score of which the combination of unconventional techniques and open notation leaves so much of the sonic material to their individual discretion and know-how? This exposition offers the first performance-led study of this conundrum in Murail’s music and writings. Using Lydia Goehr’s historical study of the work-concept as a point of orientation, I explore the functioning of Werktreue in Tellur. I show that the processual structures that should make up its “ideal” score are correlative with the composer’s abstraction of the guitar, which is in its turn correlative with the guitarist’s unconventioned heuristics. I argue that confronting traditional musical authorship with this system of correlation creates a discursive aporia, but not a practical impossibility. Rather the discursive aporia brings to light what I call the “heterotopia of the practice room.” In this heterotopia, I as a performer navigate a musical reality that simultaneously reflects and contests a tradition of classical music performance built around the regulative work-concept.
typeresearch exposition
keywordsTellur, Tristan Murail, Guitar, Lydia Goehr, Werktreue, musical authorship, heterotopia, extended techniques
date24/10/2023
published24/10/2023
last modified24/10/2023
statuspublished
share statusprivate
affiliationRoyal Conservatory of Brussels; Vrije Universiteit Brussel
copyrightMaarten Stragier
licenseCC BY-NC-ND
languageEnglish
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1354542/2100355
doihttps://doi.org/10.22501/jar.1354542
published inJournal for Artistic Research
portal issue30. 30


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id name copyright license
1355066 Tellur raw Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1357266 Tellur grap Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1357746 Tellur graph light Maarten Stragier CC BY-NC-ND
1358699 IOP diagram Maarten Stragier CC BY-NC-ND
1360332 correlation drawing Maarten Stragier CC BY-NC-ND
1361341 venn diagram Schaeffer Maarten Stragier CC BY-NC-ND
1363432 Tellur example 1 Maarten Stragier CC BY-NC-ND
1363455 Tellur example 1,high q Maarten Stragier CC BY-NC-ND
1363468 Tellur example 1 good sound Maarten Stragier, copyright score samples: Éditions Musicales Transatlantiques All rights reserved
1363510 Tellur example 2 good sound Maarten Stragier, copyright score samples: Éditions Musicales Transatlantiques CC BY-NC-ND
1363523 Tellur example 4 good sound Maarten Stragier, copyright score samples: Éditions Musicales Transatlantiques CC BY-NC-ND
1363525 Tellur example 3 good sound Maarten Stragier, copyright score samples: Éditions Musicales Transatlantiques CC BY-NC-ND
1363531 Tellur example 4 good sound Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1371729 Tellur 2013 A+B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1371731 Tellur 2019 A+B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1371733 Tellur 2021 A+B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1373759 correlation illustration Maarten Stragier CC BY-NC-ND
1374464 Tellur IOP cropped Maarten Stragier CC BY-NC-ND
1374465 Tellur correlation illustration Maarten Stragier CC BY-NC-ND
1374468 Tellur correlation illustration true Maarten Stragier CC BY-NC-ND
1374634 Tellur IOP cropped Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1950116 Slide1 Maarten Stragier CC BY-NC-ND
1952336 Tellur 2019 studio recording Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1952370 Analysis ex, 2.2 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1952429 Analysis ex. 1 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1952566 Analysis ex.3 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1952589 Analysis ex. 4 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1952619 Analysis ex. 5 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1952621 Analysis ex. 6 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1952659 Analysis ex. 7 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1952668 Analysis ex. 8 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1952686 Analysis ex. 9 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1952711 Analysis ex. 10 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1952775 Tellur 2019 (official) Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1952782 Tellur 2019 A+B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1952792 Part 3 ex. 9.1 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954491 Part 3 ex. 1 Tristan Murail All rights reserved
1954577 Part 3 ex. 2 Tristan Murail All rights reserved
1954578 Part 3 ex. 3 Tristan Murail All rights reserved
1954579 Part 3 ex. 4 Tristan Murail All rights reserved
1954582 Part 3 ex. 6 Tristan Murail All rights reserved
1954605 Part 3 ex. 7 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954653 Part 3 ex. 5 Tristan Murail All rights reserved
1954700 Tellur A+B official Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954713 Part 3 ex. 9.1 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954720 Part 3 ex. 9.2 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954726 Part 3 ex. 10.1 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954774 Part 3 ex. 10.1 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954777 Part 3 ex. 10.2 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954779 Part 3 ex. 10.3 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954821 Part 3 ex. 11.1 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954823 Part 3 ex. 11.2 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954824 Part 3 ex. 11.2 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954826 Part 3 ex. 11.3 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954849 Part 3 ex. 12.1 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954854 Part 3 ex. 12.2 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954856 Part 3 ex. 12.3 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954934 Part 3 ex. 13 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954939 Part 3 ex. 14 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954941 Part 3 ex. 15 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1954966 Part 3 ex. 18 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1956385 Part 3 ex. 17.1 Maarten Stragier CC BY-NC-ND
1956387 Part 3 ex. 17.2 Maarten Stragier CC BY-NC-ND
1956389 Part 3 ex. 17.2 Maarten Stragier CC BY-NC-ND
1958345 Part 3 ex. 16 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1959428 Analysis ex. 4 + sound Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
1975818 Tellur_2019 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2252416 Analysis ex. 10 (corr.) Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2282709 part2 Maarten Tragier All rights reserved
2282711 part2 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2282723 part1 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2282752 part3 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2285241 part1B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2300562 image1 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2300563 part1C Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2300592 correlation illustration B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2301553 p2v1B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2301569 p2v2B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2302458 p2v1B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2302758 p3v2B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2302809 p2v1C Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2302812 p2v1C Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2302814 p2v1C Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2302817 p2v3B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2302819 p2v4B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2302822 p2v5B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2302827 p2v6B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2302832 p2v7B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2302834 p2v8B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2302836 p2v9B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2302839 p3v1B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2302849 p3v3B Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2310232 Screenshot 2023-09-25 at 11.22.28 Maarten Stragier All rights reserved
2349704 p2v9img Maarten Stagier All rights reserved

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