Do you notice a mistake?
Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life”
When Philippe Manoury began composing in the early 1970s, the prevailing debate revolved around a division between the challenging legacy of serialism and a new approach to sound, illustrated in France by the emergence of spectral music. One cannot emphasize enough the central role played by Olivier Messiaen, whose tolerant and open-minded approach placed him at the heart of this debate, much as he had been twenty years earlier during the rise of serialism. What had previously been a question of syntax now seemed to shift toward the very essence of sound, viewed as the result of perceiving the infinitely small within a whole — sometimes caricatured, notably in certain pieces of Messiaen’s Livre d’orgue (Organ Book, 1951). This contrasted with earlier explorations of the infinitely large. Composers now called for a crystallization of musical writing, achieved through layered harmonic frameworks based on multiple resonances derived from a reinterpreted cantus firmus (Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, among others).
Framing this opposition between initial conception and resulting sound as absolute would be overly simplistic, especially since this relationship was often inverted, sometimes significantly altering the compositional syntax during the creative process. Should we symmetrically oppose deductive thought — ironically linking Pierre Boulez and spectralism through a sequential approach — and inductive thought — of which Karlheinz Stockhausen provided early convincing examples in his Klavierstücke (Pieces for Piano, 1952-1953), later echoed by György Ligeti’s complex textures in the “satellites” of Continuum?
It seems that French musical thought often thrives on extremes, with Messiaen’s teachings occupying a reconciling, and thus comfortably central, position.
One notable aspect of Manoury’s development was his decision during the 1970s to put aside Messiaen’s teachings, thereby gaining freedom to make his own artistic choices. While composers are often defined in relation to their predecessors, Manoury’s trajectory is harder to pinpoint — and consequently more nuanced. Stockhausen (with his temporal structuring of works), Boulez (with his focus on material evolution), and Iannis Xenakis (with his management of sound masses) form the initial constellation of references.
We have previously traced Manoury’s artistic journey up until the late 1980s.1 Here we will briefly summarize the general phases to set the stage for the forthcoming discussion.
• 1972-1980: Manoury’s early exploration of perception in music emerged at the intersection of two approaches — one where composition shapes perception through predetermined material, and another where perception dictates control over shifting sound masses. Between Cryptophonos (1974) and Numéro Cinq (Number Five, 1976), he shifted toward probability-based methods for structuring works while juxtaposing these two perspectives. This approach reached a more refined level of formalization with Numéro Huit (1980, Number Eight).
• 1982-1987: This period marked the beginning of large-scale compositions, starting with Zeitlauf (Passage of Time, 1982) and continuing with Aleph (1985-1987). A new focus on memory took shape, particularly influenced by the poetics of Jorge Luis Borges. Writing a work that spans an entire evening required a fundamental reconsideration of form and a new engagement with electronic technology. This era also saw the development of multiple versions of Instantanés (1986), which would indirectly influence later works.
• 1987-1991: While many of Manoury’s compositions after Aleph built upon previous pieces, his increasing integration of interactive electronics was based on a shared musical language and conceptual framework. The Sonus ex machina cycle, beginning with Jupiter (1987, revised in 1992), drew more from mythology than astronomy and explored memory through the interplay of live instruments and real-time electronic processing. Pluton (Pluto, 1988) and Neptune further developed his focus on active perception. La Partition du ciel et de l’enfer (The Division of Heaven and Hell, 1989) brought together elements from Jupiter (flute) and Pluton (piano) in a larger ensemble for twenty-six instruments.
• From 1991 onward: Manoury expanded into opera, though his first attempt was ultimately abandoned. However, that project informed 60ème parallèle (60th Parallel, 1996), a collaboration with Michel Deutsch and Pierre Strosser, which became the focal point of a constellation of related works, including Chronophonies (1994), Prelude and Wait (large orchestra, 1995), and Douze Moments (Twelve Moments, 1998), which contains the last trace of the abandoned opera. Manoury’s operatic interests continued with K… (2001) and La Frontière (The Border, 2003).
• He produced chamber works such as Gestes (Gestures, 1992), Ultima (1996), and Last (1997). He also experimented with spatialized ensembles without electronics, as in Fragments pour un portrait (Fragments for a Portrait, 1998) and Terra ignota (2007).
• Manoury deepened his work in real-time electronic processing, particularly in relation to live performance. He explored microscopic sound structures in works like Partita I (for viola, 2006), Tensio (his second of four string quartets, 2010/2012), Partita II (for violin, 2012), and Echo-daimónon (a concerto for piano, electronics, and orchestra, 2011-2012).
• His operatic output continued with La Nuit de Gutenberg (The Night of Gutenberg, 2010-2011) and Kein Licht (No Light, 2017), culminating in the large-scale Trilogie Köln (In situ [2013], Ring [2016], and Lab.Oratorium [2019]), which brought together his longstanding concerns with large forms and audience perception.
This study highlights the coherence of Manoury’s compositional trajectory by exploring key issues in a way that is less chronological and more thematic. It focuses on a composer who has consistently asserted a strong artistic identity in service of a singular idea — an idea that has become increasingly clear through the development of new digital techniques and the refinement of compositional processes.
For Manoury, composing means solving problems related to perception, with the notion of writing emerging only later in the process. In works like Aleph and Zeitlauf, the overall form is determined in broad strokes before the detailed writing begins. In contrast, pieces like Pluton and Neptune take shape progressively, with the form emerging as the writing unfolds. This approach — treating composition as a means of realizing a pre-imagined result — echoes Ligeti’s work from the 1960s to 1972, Xenakis’s use of probability to shape musical discourse, and Stockhausen’s procedural notations. While these composers have distinctly different artistic voices, Manoury himself acknowledges their influence, particularly that of Xenakis and Stockhausen, alongside Boulez.
This intersection of seemingly disparate influences creates another paradox, with Stockhausen acting as an unintentional mediator. Serialism, or more precisely its various phases as identified by François Nicolas,2 has long been contrasted with a more holistic approach to sound — whether through Xenakis’s work following his essay “The Crisis of Serial Music” or through certain electroacoustic practices that prioritize immediacy. It seems that contemporary music history will continue to revolve around this artificial dichotomy for some time. Like the opposition constructed between serialism and spectralism in the early 1970s, these classifications function more as individual points of reference than as genuinely constructive distinctions, given that they are often framed in opposition rather than on their own terms.
The real value of such divisions lies in the moments of confrontation they generate. Perhaps not enough attention has been given to the contributions of young composers in the early 1970s. The issues outlined below not only demonstrate the internal coherence of Manoury’s approach, but also are useful for examining the broader criteria for reevaluating this post-1968 period.
Manoury belongs to a generation that has managed to distance itself from these conflicting debates — if only because he engaged with and mastered serialist techniques early on, following his Sonata for Two Pianos (1972), which was influenced by Boulez’s Second Sonata (1947) and Jean Barraqué’s Sonata for Piano (1950). Unlike his predecessors who took years to critically reassess serialism, Manoury drew rapid conclusions from this legacy. To paraphrase Claude Debussy: “I move beyond serialism only because I understand it.”
When Claude Helffer, the dedicatee and first performer of Cryptophonos, describes the work as an attempt to “bring forth a hidden world from within the piano”3 — by having the performer directly manipulate the soundboard — he supports Manoury’s intent of focusing on perception rather than an underlying logic. The serialist legacy endures not so much in the choice of materials but in the pre-composition stage. The originality of Manoury’s composition lies in how this starting material is used to create a multifaceted and varied perception. The most striking aspect of Cryptophonos is its shifting relationship between subject and object — between the composer and his material.
Although Manoury’s concept of “internal logic” refers to consistent relationships that run throughout a piece, his compositional process transitions from a discourse focused on “revealing the nature of details (with violent contrasts and oppositions)” to one that is “purely global, where large sound masses contrast with silence or contemplative resonance.”4 This shift not only describes the evolution of the piece but also signals one of Manoury’s most defining artistic gestures — a change in perspective that treats musical material from multiple angles, echoing certain ideas in art history dealing with space and time (Étienne Souriau).
Moreover, Edgar Morin’s methodological insights help distinguish degrees of causality and consequence through “geocentric” and “heliocentric” viewpoints: depending on whether composition forms the core of the creative process or perception is considered primary, in Manoury’s case, there is a gradual movement from one to the other, similar to zooming in and out. This approach is particularly evident in Cryptophonos, which serves as a crucial early example of this technique. It also explains why Manoury sees serialism as a technique rather than a style.
Both Cryptophonos and the String Quartet achieve this transition between states, if more abstractly in the Quartet, whose form is built from a statistically distributed combination of intervals. By offering a reworking of the piece’s opening through new statistical analysis, the central section of the Quartet functions as a reinterpretation of the same material from this shifted perspective. This synthesis between pointillist and global musical structures — developed in Puzzle — reaches its fullest realization in Numéro Cinq, where the traces of serialism are deliberately erased in favor of a probabilistic approach that governs both form and transformation.
Manoury’s works from the 1980s, despite their differences, revisit and extend this initial approach. In Aleph, he explicitly seeks to present a musical image from multiple perspectives, though never fully revealing it in its entirety. His reference to Borges’s labyrinths — particularly The Garden of Forking Paths and The Circular Ruins — finds a musical equivalent in the division of the orchestra into four groups, each paired with a singer. These four forces embody different aspects of a latent foundational element, each associated with a distinct musical time:
The curve thus formed, like a loop defining the totality by successively and individually examining its potentialities, serves as both a counterpart to Mallarmé’s — and Boulez’s — image of “l’unanime blanc conflit” (“the unanimous white conflict”), which “floats more than it buries,” and an echo of Stockhausen’s concept of “momentary forms.” According to Stockhausen, these forms result from a compositional intent to create “states and processes in which each moment constitutes a self-contained entity, centered on itself, capable of sustaining itself, yet still referring to both its specific context and the totality of the work.”6 Similarly, Zeitlauf, in which each of the thirteen sections functions alternately as a center and a pathway, extends the idea that the role of each part depends on how the accompanying text — written specifically for the work by Georg Webern — is interpreted. Manoury explains:
Either the music molds itself to the text, or it is suggested by the text, as in Und starrt nicht, sondern lasst den Blick wander (“And do not stare, but let your gaze wander”), which inspired me to create a form where I do not direct the discourse in a fixed direction but instead allow the ear to choose among unfolding events. Finally, the music can also be entirely free from the text’s influence.6
This notion of circularity can be traced further in Manoury’s use of technological means to spatialize sound, particularly in the Sonus ex machina cycle, which is based on interactivity — from Jupiter to Neptune. In these works, the musical discourse is doubled and multiplied, with the original material and its transformations fueling a dynamic interplay between different sonic realities. Whether through MIDI (Pluton, Neptune) or acoustic detection via microphone (Jupiter, En écho), each composition explores a shifting relationship between the primary musical material and its parallel, evolving counterpart.
Three key observations emerge from this evolution of the notion of displacement. First, by taking on the ambitious challenge of considering a musical material — whether explicit or not — while multiplying its levels of intelligibility, the very concept of the cycle appears as a direct extension of this displacement. However, rather than occurring within a single work, displacement now takes place between the different works that make up the cycle.
Second, the sections designed to facilitate the transition from one state to another and thus create a reversal belong to a tradition of transition techniques that Manoury so greatly admires in Wagner. La Partition du ciel et de l’enfer, written after Manoury attended a performance of Götterdämmerung, is one of the most representative examples. Featuring a solo flute and two pianos, La Partition — a play on words, meaning both a musical score, and a partition, as in the partition between heaven (Jupiter) and hell (Pluto) — explores the interpenetration of these two worlds by, as Manoury says, “examining zones of influence and formal ambiguity through the loss of identity and the continual metamorphosis of fundamental elements.”
Finally, both the concept of the cycle and the individualization of each section — whether in Zeitlauf, which owes much to Stockhausen’s Momente, or in Aleph, often compared to Inori — demonstrate, if there were still any doubt, just how deeply Manoury remains influenced by Stockhausen’s ideas, even as he employs different generative principles.7
Connected to the four works that make up the Sonus ex machina cycle is En écho (1993-1994), which extends the same exploration by combining voice and real-time electronics. The seven melodies, set to an erotically charged text by Emmanuel Hocquard, are deeply interwoven “both musically and textually,” Manoury explains. “Each melody is centered on a specific place, object, or idea, as indicated by its title. Additionally, each one is linked to a sonic element (usually a concrete sound), which serves as both a poetic and musical reference point.”
As another consequence of this shift in listening, musical time and transformation processes are closely intertwined. Zeitlauf — literally “the course of time” — is, in fact, the central thread most capable of capturing the evolution of Manoury’s work. From the directional time of Cryptophonos to the circular time of Aleph and the works exploring interactivity, the composer’s approach has been to consider the transformative capacities of both material and perception. Transformation, as a core concept, operates on multiple levels:
First,
Becoming aware of a discovery made by someone else and making it one’s own — I mean transforming it until it becomes fully personal — is something found in all composers who do more than merely imitate.8
Second, in the actual shaping of sound material, Manoury defines composition as the practice of bringing together “all techniques of sound transformation,” ranging from traditional combinatorial writing to interactivity as a multiplication technique, and ultimately to the management of synthesis parameters.
On one hand, transformation includes the notion of predictability, which was explored in depth by the spectralist generation. Manoury drew inspiration from this idea but did not adopt it directly, as the level of predictability envisioned by Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail in the 1970s was too high, resulting in continuity and a contemplative mode of listening. This is a crucial distinction since, for Manoury, composition should encourage unexpected detours, ensuring that the transformation processes are not perceptible in themselves — otherwise, they lose their interest. For example, the introduction of divergent elements within Markov chain-based sequences in Pluton produces an effective distortion, especially since the process only holds local significance.
On the other hand, if, as Manoury states, “writing conditions the idea,” then Cryptophonos was fundamentally an exploration of perceptional transformation using the same material. To illustrate this, Manoury recalls the shift in perception when looking at a subway poster — from an up-close view that highlights individual dots at the expense of the overall image, to a more distant perspective where the details blur into a unified whole. As mentioned earlier, Cryptophonos conveys a form of directional time — or more precisely, twisted time — where the progression from an initial pointillistic writing style to an expansive accumulation-driven final state is coupled with the transformation of the piano’s traditional sonority, before everything ultimately dissolves into the harmonics of an E, presented from the very beginning.
Throughout this journey — distinct from the highly artisanal approach of Ligeti — Manoury initiates an interplay between memory and premonition within a polyphony akin to a mirror canon, a technique that becomes increasingly pronounced and refined in his later works. The emphasis on form through an organization that combines multiple temporal layers finds an even more radical application in Numéro Huit, where seven thematic structures are precisely defined and accrue, building to an extreme. At this peak, the polyphony becomes so dense that it ruptures — much like how Pollock’s paintings transition from structured forms to more informal, chaotic arrangements. The resulting dissolution of thematic material is then reconstituted from chaotic elements, ultimately converging toward a final unity. It is precisely this idea of defined structures that are reintroduced multiple times in filtered forms — often as fragmented or defective presentations — that Manoury further develops in Zeitlauf. Here, a single musical object is perceived at different moments, with varying degrees of transformation. The differences at play engage memory through interference processes, such as a vocal sequence altered by electroacoustic manipulation or the reintroduction of a familiar event at a slower tempo, subtly shifting its perception.
Moreover, this first encounter between electronics and instrumental elements, following Manoury’s experiment with Tempérament variable (Variable Temperament, 1978, since withdrawn from his catalog), allows for a greater diversification of polyphony, adding an additional layer to the already existing temporal relationships. Here, Manoury borrows from Borges’s Funes the Memorious, where the metaphor of insomnia — “the intolerable lucidity of insomnia” — corresponds to a form of time “structured like a language,” an idea developed further in Aleph. Previously, we described the four-stage journey within a musical time itself divided into successive functions, although the score itself does not clearly indicate directionality when shifting from one perceptual state to another. At the same time, Aleph shows a more distinctly “melodic” orientation, engaging not only in the debate over thematic issues in the 1980s but also addressing the need to support memory references in increasingly ambitious works. Jupiter will further emphasize this dimension, with the computer producing real-time interactions between past and future.
Moving from a single instrument interacting with the computer (monodic in Jupiter, polyphonic in Pluton) to an ensemble (percussion in Neptune) and finally to an orchestra (flute and MIDI pianos in La Partition du ciel et de l’enfer), Manoury explores the different temporalities arising from these instrumental confrontations, forming a genuine cycle in which each work draws upon preceding compositions. Opera, by reintegrating text alone, will force a complete reconsideration of temporal questions, this time starting from semantic material.
The measurement of time (Zeitmasse) is largely dependent on the thinking of Stockhausen, to whom Manoury has remained closely attached. A purely auditory analysis fails in Stockhausen’s work because it cannot divide a piece like Gruppen into parts, as a result of the polyphonic design between the three orchestras. The same challenge arises in Stockhausen’s Momente, in the relationship among the individual forms composed into the entirety of the score. These are precisely the points of reference that Manoury favors. Stockhausen’s Klavierstücke IX and X, based on oppositions (such as periodicity–aperiodicity and stasis–dynamism), had an effect on Manoury’s first works oscillating between recognizable harmonic individualities and undifferentiated sound masses. Similarly, in Kontakte (1960, Contacts) and Hymnen (1967, Hymns), Manoury may have seen an interest in experimentation as a driving force for invention, which helped construct his own concept of simulation. Moreover, the fact that successive visions of the same image are not only different but can progressively integrate previous visions, is yet another characteristic of this lineage. Finally, and consequently, the idea of retrospective understanding, as implemented in Kontakte, could justify certain of Manoury’s approaches, particularly in Neptune or La Partition du ciel et de l’enfer, where numerous levels of listening feed a memory that is constantly kept awake.
Manoury has often, and rightly, emphasized the theatrical dimension that arose from his experimentation with real-time audio transformation and synthesis technology applied to instrumental music. He describes this as sound staging, with “this duality of perception of actions in which the physical person is engaged inside a system whose mechanisms are hidden to accentuate its imaginary nature.”9 Theatricalization arises through the distance between the seen and the heard, the imaginary theater of the concert that results from acoustic illusions, the “deceptive ear.” One example is the desynchronization between what the pianist plays in Pluton and what is heard. This concept has permeated the works of theater embodied in his operas, where he controls the trajectories sounds will take as they travel through space. For instance, in K..., he conceals real sources and their transitions, manipulating sound trajectories to create the illusion of a sound source coming “from a place where there is no speaker.”10
Working with multiple, isolated times in each part of Aleph or designing the reappearance of elements in such a way that they are transformed, “so that their morphology is irrigated, marked, deformed by the music that has unfolded in the interval,”11 involves working within time and duration. In the spirit of the lack of development in Debussy’s Jeux, which deeply influenced him, Manoury based 60ème parallèle on a continuous musical structure, though it is presented only in fragments: “I expose a beginning, then move to something else, then another fragment of the structure emerges to disappear in turn, and so on. You perceive these fragments, but they are only what emerges from a continuity you haven’t heard.”12
From Zeitlauf to Pluton, Manoury’s works literally stage this discursive dramaturgy that will naturally be implemented in the operas. For example, the prelude of La Nuit du sortilège (1992) is rewritten to form the substrate of 60ème parallèle, in which
it never stops: if it seems to disappear, it’s to come back later, as if it had unfolded elsewhere. This Prelude is a form that can emerge at any moment, as if to remind us that the situation at the beginning has no end.13
Time is ruptured but its continuity is assured by this prelude that disappears and resurges, always the same but never identical (Manoury would notably quote Plutarch — “You cannot step into the same river twice” — in one of the fragments of On-Iron, 2006).
The same phenomenon, though reversed, is reproduced in Manoury’s third opera, La Frontière, where, introduced in the prologue, a song that seems disconnected and given in fragments, borrowing from different languages, will become the guiding thread of the work, gradually enriched through its multiple and constantly evolving occurrences. The song gains intelligibility until the epilogue when it finally appears in its fullness, closing this drama of identity within a war-torn country.
If the static, closed room of 60ème parallèle can imply continuity, that of K… aims to embrace the fragmentary nature of Kafka’s work. Manoury deliberately avoids transitions between scenes and thereby accentuates the absurdity of the situation. While dramatic intent shapes the presentation, the notion of transformation remains central to his compositional approach.
Transformation and evolution of material define various aspects of the formal journey, especially in the three piano sonatas. La Ville (…First Sonata…) contains a labyrinthine journey of the same and the different that Manoury associates with his nocturnal wanderings through the streets of Prague, which are so similar yet distinct, where the traveler loses their way. Manoury makes distant reference to Liszt’s Sonata as a monument of the repertoire, and alludes to mirror forms and the “deferred forms” from Berg’s Lulu:
monodic elements (slow and meditative), harmonic resonances, descending sound scales, ‘toccatas’, ‘fugues’ interweave with each other in a directed form symmetrically distributed around a center. This symmetry makes a return backward, as if the work had to return to its starting point. But it is a false symmetry (the overall journey is not inversely identical), disturbed by real symmetries.14
Veränderungen (…Second Sonata…) (2008), performed by Jean-François Heisser, as was the First Sonata, nods to Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. It establishes themes that will undergo variations (veränderungen — the original title of Beethoven’s collection) through thirty-three sections. These sections explore gestures while avoiding, like the First Sonata, any form of quotation.15 Each of the sonatas establishes a dialogue with famous antecedents in the repertoire16 through an updated interpretation of the issues that guided their creation, filtered through the concerns of today’s composer. Das Wohlpräparierte Klavier (…Third Sonata…) (2021) responds to Bach’s Wohltemperierte Klavier, establishing links between discussions of temperament in Bach’s day and ours, three centuries later. Written for Daniel Barenboim, the sonata explores the transformation of instrumental sound through electronics, which take over the “prepared” piano and
set up computing processes that collect data on the musical performance and use them as composition parameters. The computer takes what the musician plays, performs analyses, and uses them to generate musical structures. The real-time electronic music will be calculated based on these performance data.17
Electronics also create a sense of spatialization, allowing the simulation of a sound source as in the cathedral scene (scene 11) in K…. Here, the acoustics are created through amplification. Sixteen speakers arranged around the room generate the electronic echoes of the winds in the pit or synthesized choirs. More inventively, the electronics in 60ème parallèle work as a second, “virtual” orchestra superimposed onto the live pit orchestra. In general, electronics have a lesser role in such large-scale works than in solo pieces where the individual performer dialogues with the computer. Manoury’s use of generation techniques evolved from Markov chains (in Pluton to Le Temps, mode d’emploi, 2014) to the “harmonic spinning tops” that rotate both on themselves and in the space of the room in K…, various models of sound synthesis in the second string quartet Tensio (2010), and the notion of “generative musical grammars,” which define rules for linking figures in the construction of large forms. Examples are in the string quartets Tensio and Melencolia (2012) and in the Trilogie Köln.18
The ancestor Ts’ui Pen from Borges’s The Garden of Forking Paths “did not believe in a uniform, absolute time. He believed in infinite series of times, in a growing and dizzying network of divergent, convergent, and parallel times.” The intertwining of the original parts from Jupiter and Pluton in La Partition du ciel et de l’enfer, as well as the role of the prelude in 60ème parallèle, respond to this intention of working within time, even within long durations in the case of the operas. In this context, one cannot overlook Manoury’s references to cinema — from Kubrick to Hitchcock, or from Welles to Bergman — in order to better grasp his awareness of time perception within the span of a narrative.
Although transformation is integral to Manoury’s compositional approach, it rarely appears at the basic level of notation encountered by performers. Indeed, extended playing techniques are seldom used, except in Cryptophonos.
In fact, Manoury’s instrumental writing generally follows traditional conventions, and he enriches it with electroacoustic transformations, remaining aware of the limitations in this area; when notation falls short, he sees it as a language problem. Starting with Jupiter and Pluton, un-notated micro-intervals appear, resulting from the compression or expansion of ambitus by the real-time station that replaced the 4X system.
Similarly, interpretation of form, never predetermined, only applies to specific sequences. For instance, in Pluton, the pianist can influence the trajectory, causing local deviations in the form through interactive dialogue with the computer. However, this approach remains distant from the conceptual “open works” of the 1960s.
The limits of using playing techniques and interactivity are defined by the gap between the seductive range of technical possibilities and the composer’s expressive intent. Manoury’s commitment to the idea of simulation provides the necessary safeguard to ensure that technology does not overpower the intention. His goal is not to “describe truths but to simulate them within the timeframe of a composition.”
Consequently, the material he uses is initially neutral and abstract, a condensed version of what might be expanded later. Manoury focuses on exploring potential extrapolations, without predetermining their future development or presentation.
The concept of the “virtual score,” as developed throughout the four pieces in his Sonus ex machina cycle, refers to a score “whose transformations are known in advance, but whose exact values remain undefined.”19 Put another way, “a written score cannot capture the full sonic content of a piece of music.”20 This idea is central to La Nuit de Gutenberg, where the main character acknowledges that “reality is not limited to what is visible” (scene 4).
The near-constant interaction between the instrumental performer and technology — enabled in particular by the “score follower” developed by Miller Puckette — brought new conditions for performance. Pre-recorded instrumental parts are controlled by the computer, which intervenes according to pre-coded signals in the live performance. This interactivity evolved from Jupiter, where the machine adapted to flutist’s flexible tempo to create interpolations, to Pluton, where density and dynamics were integrated, and finally to Neptune, where a dialogue emerges between what the instrumentalists play and what is heard, establishing a new kind of reciprocal listening. This listening engages the audience’s memory and active participation during the concert.
In Neptune, thematic perception reaches its highest level of clarity in this final score within the cycle. This development was later even more fully realized in Das Wohlpräparierte Klavier.
Importantly, the possibility of working on the smallest sonic details gives Manoury the opportunity to deepen his concept of expression through what he calls “original gestures,” explored in his chamber music repertoire, electronic compositions, and operas of the 1990s (Gestes, Ultima, and Last). As he explained in the preface to the score of Gestes,
By this term [original gestures], I mean all specific ways of producing sound, no matter how minimal. A particular bow movement, a certain type of phrasing, a characteristic articulation — any fundamental element capable of generating musical expression constitutes, for me, an original gesture.
Examining interpretation in minute detail remains one of Manoury’s core concerns, alongside his operatic work. This is especially evident in his works for strings and real-time electronics, starting with Partitas I and II.
In music, real-time processing differs from deferred-time processing in that “the computation occurs at a speed beyond the threshold of human auditory perception.”21 Partita II for violin and electronics, dedicated to Hae-Sun Kang, explores pressure, speed, and positioning, extending ideas from Tensio, in which the real quartet interacts with synthesized sounds from a virtual quartet (Éric Lindemann, Matthias Demoucron, Puckette).22 Advances in score-following technology — significantly more sophisticated than in Sonus ex machina — now include tempo tracking, making it possible to predict tempo changes (“The real-time electronic component continuously adapts to the current tempo, following any variations introduced by the performer”).23
The layering of multiple tempos in Partita II, between the violin and the electronics, bears the influence of traditional Japanese music, which deeply impacted Manoury.24 Sound and Fury, for example, contains a reference to gagaku mouth organs, transposing their harmonic bass into the upper register.
Manoury’s fascination with “composed violence” — the gradual accumulation of tensions leading to explosive climaxes — shapes many of his structures. It is particularly evident in Sound and Fury, where sound is set against fury, the latter evoking the idea of organizing chaos through intense orchestral surges. In Strange Ritual, the intrusion of foreign elements drives the musical discourse toward a form of anarchy. Similarly, in Abgrund for orchestra (2007), the harmonic pillars that open the piece gradually collapse into an unstable final descent.
Parallel to exploration of time, space is another theme in his work. It is evident in his dramaturgical approach — such as in the use of reverberation for the final scene of K…, the concepts of distance and remoteness in On-Iron, and interplay with a second piano placed offstage in Passacaille pour Tokyo (Passacaglia for Tokyo, 1994). It is also apparent in his orchestration, such as when the piano functions as a resonator for the orchestra or when four virtual pianos are projected around the audience in the concerto Echo-Daimónon.
The physical arrangement of the players is another recurring concern, especially in his concertante works. In Terra ignota (2007) — an expression that historically referred to uncharted lands — the solo pianist (and celesta player) is put at the center of four instrumental groups symbolically placed at the four cardinal points, the pianist acting as “a kind of explorer at the center of four continents.” Earlier, Fragments pour un portrait (1998) divided its thirty musicians into three groups on separate platforms — a group consisting of woodwinds, strings, and brass on either side, and in the center, strings, woodwinds, percussion, harp, piano, and celesta. Then, Identités remarquables (Remarkable Identities, 2005) featured twenty-three musicians symmetrically arranged in decreasing group sizes: on the left and right, two wind quintets (mixed woodwinds and brass), two string quartets, then a harp and piano duo at the center, and a percussion trio at the back. Similarly, Strange Ritual (2005), for twenty-two instruments, used two trios positioned at the left and right of the stage — flute (including piccolo), two oboes (including English horn), and three clarinets (including E-flat clarinet) — in a setup similar to the ripieno in a Baroque concerto grosso.
Manoury’s orchestral scores also employ unique spatial arrangements, particularly two of his most striking works: Sound and Fury (1999), which features an orchestra of strings and brass on each side, with woodwinds and percussion at the front;25 and Noon (2003), a large-scale work for solo voice (and recorded spoken voice) based on poems by Emily Dickinson. In Noon, the woodwinds and brass are at the center, flanked by two string orchestras, with a choir distributed within the orchestras. The dramaturgy of this expansive composition also involves electronics echoing the voice through six sound sources placed around the audience. Noon stands as one of the composer’s most ambitious works.
This concern has taken on a new dimension in concert halls, where symphony orchestras have traditionally and almost exclusively been front-facing. However, the modern architecture of many new concert halls distributes the audience around the orchestra, making it possible to reconsider a setup that has been fixed for two centuries. Reimagining musician placement within a hall is central to the Trilogie Köln, whose three works were premiered by François-Xavier Roth at the Cologne Philharmonie. Ring arranges eight groups of instruments from different families around a “Mozartian” onstage orchestra. In situ positions an ensemble of soloists and a string orchestra in the center, while the full orchestra is dispersed around the audience,26 providing the listener with a homogeneous sound at the center and a heterogeneous one throughout the hall. The third part, Lab.Oratorium, represents the most developed form, composed for two actors, soprano, contralto, chamber choir, large amateur choir, real-time electronics, and a spatialized full orchestra.
Beyond the major Trilogie Köln, the same concerns about musician distribution are found in works such as Mouvements (2020, Movements), which is for piano and twelve instruments divided into four trios: three of the trios are homogeneous (three strings, three woodwinds, three brass), and the last is percussion, harp, and double bass.
In collaboration with director Nicolas Stemann and based on texts by Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek, Manoury composed Kein Licht, drawing on his concept of the Thinkspiel, which “refers primarily to ‘play’ understood as the association and combined action of experimental research, conceptual thought, and artistic language.”27 The project’s organic form, where spoken and sung parts coexist, rests on
the confrontation between theatrical and musical forces. Thus, the musical score is presented in separate modules (sometimes open to flexible temporalities) that must be integrated into the theatrical fabric. At other times, the theater is required to adapt to the musical timing.28
The key concepts of real-time electronics, spatialization techniques, and new forms of blending theater and music were themes in the seminar Manoury delivered at the Collège de France in 2016 to 2017.29
Between the conception of material envisioned and structured in multiple ways, the notions of shared time between memory and premonition, multiplicity of temporalities, and careful attention to interpretation, Manoury’s music exhibits a remarkable continuity. Emerging from serialism — where he retained more its abolition of hierarchy between sounds than its combinatorial processes — he has succeeded, particularly through his mastery of electronics and his concern for shaping the listening experience, in combining forms proliferating over time (from the Sonus ex machina cycle to the Trilogie Köln) with the grand formal arcs of operatic frescoes. His personal journey achieves a loop — where the form ultimately mirrors the curvature of the composer’s own path.
1. “Le même et le différent: éléments pour un portrait de Philippe Manoury,” Inharmoniques, no. 7 (1991). Séguier - Ircam - Centre G. Pompidou. ↩
2. “Traversée du sérialisme,” Conférences du Perroquet, no. 16 (April 1988). Also, “Utopie du sérialisme?,” Les Cahiers de l’Ircam, no. 4 (1993). Ircam - Centre Pompidou. ↩
3. “La musique pour piano depuis 1945,” Cahiers du CIREM, no. 10-11 (1989): 109. ↩
4. Text accompanying the recording of Cryptophonos by Claude Helffer. MFA-Harmonia Mundi. ↩
5. “Momentform,” in Texte zur elektronischen und instrumentalen Musik, vol. 1 (Cologne, 1963), 189. French translation in Contrechamps, no. 9 (Lausanne, 1988). ↩
6. Philippe Manoury, “La flèche du temps,” Cahiers du Festival de La Rochelle (1983). Revised and republished in La Note et le Son: Écrits et entretiens 1981-1998, L’Harmattan, 1998, 15-21. ↩
7. “Stockhausen au-delà…” (December 2007). Tribute text dedicated to Stockhausen, along with the composition Terra ignota (in memoriam Karlheinz Stockhausen). ↩
8. “Le même et le différent: éléments pour un portrait de Philippe Manoury,” in Musiques en création (Festival d’Automne-Contrechamps, 1989), 37. Republished in La Note et le Son: Écrits et entretiens 1981-1998, op. cit. (note 6), 259-274. ↩
9. “À propos d’un opéra inachevé,” in La Note et le Son: Écrits et entretiens 1981-1998, op. cit. (note 6), 193. ↩
10. Va-et-vient: Entretiens avec Daniela Langer. Musica falsa, 2001, 121. ↩
11. Ibid., 49. ↩
12. Ibid., 59. ↩
13. “À n’importe quel moment” (1996). Republished in La Note et le Son: Écrits et entretiens 1981-1998, op. cit. (note 6), 211. ↩
14. “La Ville, première sonate.” Accessed at http://www.philippemanoury.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/la-ville-premiere-sonate1.pdf. ↩
15. Comparison of Beethoven’s Veränderungen and episodes of Manoury’s Deuxième Sonate, available at http://www.philippemanoury.com/?p=769. ↩
16. Reference to Dialogue avec 33 variations de Ludwig van Beethoven sur une valse de Diabelli by Michel Butor (1978). ↩
17. Detailed technical analysis by the composer, available at http://www.philippemanoury.com/?p=6842. ↩
18. These techniques are explained and illustrated in Manoury’s seminar at the Collège de France (2016-2017). ↩
19. “La note et le son: un carnet de bord,” in Contrechamps, no. 11 (Paris, 1990). Republished in La Note et le Son: Écrits et entretiens 1981-1998, op. cit. (note 6), 43-57. ↩
20. La musique du temps réel: Entretiens avec Omer Corlaix et Jean Guillaume Lebrun. Musica falsa, 2012, 47. ↩
21. From Manoury’s seminar at the Collège de France, “Temps et musique IV,” 16 June 2027, Amphithéâtre Marguerite de Navarre, Site Marcelin Berthelot. Accessed at https://www.college-de-france.fr/fr/agenda/cours/musiques-sons-et-signes/temps-et-musique-iv-la-composition-en-temps-reel-et-en-temps-differe. ↩
22. “Les procédés de composition utilisés dans Tensio (2012).” Available at http://www.philippemanoury.com/?p=4828#fn-4828-2. ↩
23. La musique du temps réel, op. cit. (note 20), 56. ↩
24. See especially chap. 6, “Le Japon, si loin, si proche,” in La musique du temps réel, op. cit. (note 20). ↩
25. “Comment j’ai composé Sound and Fury.” Available at http://www.philippemanoury.com/?p=2575. ↩
26. A video excerpt of In situ conducted by François-Xavier Roth is available in Manoury’s seminar at the Collège de France, “Repenser les formes II: les formes spatiales.” Accessed at https://www.college-de-france.fr/site/philippe-manoury/course-2017-02-10-14h00.htm. ↩
27. “Sur le Thinkspiel.” Available at http://www.philippemanoury.com/?p=6091. ↩
28. Ibid. See also http://www.philippemanoury.com/?p=7284. ↩
29. Access the full site at https://www.philippemanoury.com/?page_id=6069. ↩
Alain Poirier, 2008, texte révisé en 2022.
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