Paul Méfano


Paul Méfano, is a French composer and conductor.

Biography

Paul Méfano pursued musical studies at the École Normale de Musique de Paris, and then later at the Paris Conservatory, where he was a student of Andrée Vaurabourg-Honegger, Darius Milhaud, and Georges Dandelot. He completed his studies in Basel at the courses taught by Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Henri Pousseur.
He regularly attended the concerts of the Domaine Musical, as well as the seminars at Darmstadt, and enrolled in Olivier Messiaen’s class at the CNSMP. Messiaen described Méfano as "restless, intense, and always in search of radical solutions".
In 1965 his music was performed publicly for the first time, at the Domaine Musical under the baton of Bruno Maderna.
From 1966 to 1968 he lived in the United States, and then in 1969 he moved to Berlin at the invitation of the German Academy of Cultural Exchange.
In 1970 he returned to France, signed a contract with Salabert, and devoted himself to composition, to conducting, and to musical life in general. In 1972 he founded the Ensemble 2e2m, a group which he regularly conducts, and with which he has premièred more than five hundred works by young composers and with which he has made more than forty recordings. Amongst those younger composers are Stéphane de Gérando, Laurent Mettraux, Thierry Blondeau, Marc André, Michael Finnissy, James Dillon, Bruce Mather, and Claude Lefèvre, but he has also championed older composers such as Jean Barraqué, Brian Ferneyhough, Franco Donatoni, Luigi Nono, Aldo Clementi, Philippe Boesmans, Morton Feldman, Edison Denisov, and John Cage, as well as participating in the rediscovery of Charles Valentin Alkan and the Czech composers who were interred at Terezienstadt in 1940. He is the founder of the Editions du Mordant for the publication of contemporary music, and of the Editions Musicales Européennes, and he has produced a number of notable radio series.
In 1972 he was appointed director of the Conservatory of Champigny-sur-Marne, a duty which he performed until 1988. He also was professor of composition and orchestration at the Paris Conservatory until 2002. One of his conducting students was the Canadian composer Claude Vivier.
From 1996 until 2005 he directed the Conservatory of Versailles.
The most important works of Paul Méfano are published and accessible at Babelscores.
In 2007, Paul Méfano became the director of the CLSI ensemble with various musicians and composers like Gerard Pape, Jacqueline Méfano, Olga Krashenko, Lissa Meridan, Michael Kinney, Martin Phelps, Rodolphe Bourotte, Stefan Tiedje, Jean-Baptiste Favory.

Musical style

Méfano’s compositional style has evolved considerably from his early serial work Incidences down to recent compositions which make extensive use of microtones, such as Speed. His early serial style is clearly under the influence of Boulez, but the ardour of his employment of these traits “confounds the crystalline, the mirror-like and with it all suggestion of musical geometry”. He has an essentially poetic conception of music, reflected in a lifelong interest in poets and poetry. This is manifested especially in his treatment of instrumental color and in his vocal writing. He also has a special feeling for drama, as manifested in La cérémonie. At the beginning of the 1970s he experimented with electronics, and with its real-time combination with instruments. Though he has shown interest in the music of the spectralist composers, his own compositions are not at all similar, and today he is regarded as a "post-spectralist" composer.
Many of his works explore and develop contemporary techniques for the flute, such as in Captive, Eventails, Gradiva, Traits suspendus, or Ensevelie.
His earliest works maintain links with tonality, to which he returned in Micromégas. Since this work he has remained faithful to serial technique.

Awards

He has been awarded the following prizes and honors:
YearTitleType of workDuration
1956 Evocations à l'usage des jeunes filles, for pianosolo 03:00
1957Croquis pour un adolescent. 6 pieces for pianosolo 00:15
1958Involutive, for clarinetsolo 06:00
1958Trois Chants crépusculaires , for dramatic soprano and pianovocal 15:00
1959Estampes japonaises, for soprano and 10 instruments opera
1980Traits suspendus, contrabass flute or bass flutesolo 06:00
1980A Bruno Maderna, for solo cello, 11 strings, and magnetic tapechamber music20:00
1983-87Micromégas, "action lyrique" in 7 tableaux opera80:00
1984Scène 3, extract from the opera Micromégas opera15:00
1984Douce saveur, for bass, cor anglais, and tubavocal 05:00
1986Tige, for saxophonesolo 04:00
1986Ensevelie, for flute and synthesizer-controlled samplersolo 10:00
1989Voyager, interlude for the opera Micromégas, for instrumental ensemble chamber music15:00
1990Scintillante, for basson and electronics chamber music07:00
1990Orchestration of Erwartung, orchestration by Paul Méfano and Michel Decoust, for soprano and 15 instrumentsorchestra30:00
1991Mémoire de la Porte Blanche, for pianosolo 06:00
1992Asahi, for oboe and electronicssolo 06:00
1992Matrice des vents, for sho and electronicssolo 35:00
1993Dragonbass, for bass, 2 saxophones, synthesizer and tapevocal 15:00
1995-96Mon ami Emile, une interprétation des Valses de Waldteufel , for flute, clarinet, piano, and string quartetchamber music25:00
1995Deux mélodies, for sop., mezzo-sop., sax., bass cl., violavocal 08:00
1997Trois chants 1958, for sop., 3 sax., 3 perc., and 3 cellosvocal 10:00
1998Cinq pièces for 2 violinschamber music12:00
1998Mon ami Emile, une interprétation des Valses de Waldteufel , for fl., cl., piano, harmonium, and string quartetchamber music35:00
1998Hélios, for alto flute and string triochamber music20:00
1999Alone, for violonsolo 12:00
2001Tronoën, for cello alonesolo 12:00
2003Jades, for flute, clarinet, guitar and 2 celloschamber music10:00
Etrange/arrêtée/seule froissée, for 2 fl., vl., vlc., & perc.chamber music09:00
...s'égrainent comme le vent, for voice, 2 fl., vl., vlc., & perc. vocal 09:00
Périple à 2, for 2 saxophoneschamber music05:00
Périple à 4 for 4 saxophoneschamber music06:00
Chanson pour les petits de 6 à 9 ansvocal03:00
Batro, for violin and cellochamber music08:00
Petit Batro for violin and cellochamber music16:00

Discography

This article draws on material from the Spanish and French Wikipedias