Vingt Chansons
pour Jean Cocteau
(Twenty Songs for Jean Cocteau)
Music for solo piano
by Maurice Methot
CONR Music
Compact Disc
Reviewed by Chris Cobb
ccobbsf@hotmail.com
Maurice Methots twenty quiet songs
are full of ephemeral references to Erik
Satie, Claude Debussey, and other French
or "impressionistic" sounding piano works.
Methots trick, however, is that this
sweet and meditative CD was derived and
shaped all on a computer, not on a piano.
The liner notes barely mention the music,
however. Instead they concentrate on the
MIDI interface, the computer and the technical
way it was created. But dont let me
give the wrong impression here the
songs, despite being made from samples of
a real piano, are soft and a little moody
which I like. But the audience for
this seems unclear. Is it for other so-called
digital composers who like to experiment
with new software? Is it for those who like
"all things French?" I think this is a fair
question because people who are drawn to
"all things French" are drawn to ideas such
as passion, beauty, nobility of cause and
the exhaltation of desire which is often
associated with Frenchness.
So I am not sure what to make of the quiet
music on this CD. At first I think of the
difference between the tension contained
in the pause of a piano player and the simulated
tension made on a computer. Whereas live
music could be seen as a conversation partly
with the audience and partly between the
musician and the instrument, what happens
when the music is completely derived from
a program? What becomes of the conversation
that makes a piano players skill effect
people emotionally? Jean Cocteau isnt
mentioned in the liner notes and so I am
also not sure what connection he has or
his work has to Methots work. So I
wonder if this is informed by the now classic
image of Baudrillards "Simulacra"
where the map is considered more important
than the landscape it describes? The landscape
we are dealing with here is music.
Even though the meditative sounds in Vingt
Chansons pour Jean Cocteau is nice to
listen to, its process and lack of clear
audience brings up a lot of artistic issues
especially those of authorship and
inspiration. I feel a little let down because
the liner notes give little sense of the
composers perspective or purpose.
It is intriguing to think of a group of
compositions dedicated to Cocteatu, but
I want to know what the connection is. Did
he meet Cocteau as a child? Was Methot influenced
by certain works of Cocteau or is he simply
trying to evoke the music of an era long
gone and is simply using Cocteaus
name to create context? Rather this appears
to be a kind of experiment or one off idea.
Music, like other art, needs a context and
it is unclear what that is.