Do you notice a mistake?
Henri Pousseur’s work divides into four periods, according to Célestin Deliège: around 1949-1955, Pousseur exploited tone-rows in a post-Webernian spirit; in 1956-1959, he explored mobility within the open work; in the 1960s, he was absorbed in composing Votre Faust; and after 1970, finally, came the era of the “generalized series” as outlined in Pousseur’s long article “L’apothéose de Rameau” (“The Apotheosis of Rameau”). Cutting across these divisions, Pousseur grew more and more interested in teaching, especially in the 1980s.
Even in his early works, Pousseur showed a fascination with the music of Anton Webern, on which he drew quite closely in his aphoristic Sept Versets des psaumes de la pénitence for mixed choir and especially in the Trois Chants sacrés for soprano and string trio, which attracted the attention of Pierre Boulez. Alongside his first electronic experiment, Séismogrammes (Seismograms, 1954), Pousseur continued to explore Webern’s influence in works such as his Symphonies à quinze solistes (Symphonies with Fifteen Soloists), as well as in his writings, which often correlate with particular compositions.
More interested in Webern’s free-atonal works than his serial ones — a rare perspective at the time — Pousseur looked especially to Webern’s Bagatelles, op. 9, which he analyzed in depth in one of his first major articles, “Le chromatisme organique d’Anton Webern” (“Webern’s Organic Chromaticism,” 1955). In that essay, he demonstrated the stylistic unity of Webern’s work. He identified a “rhythm of intervallic connections” that maintained a constant connection between simultaneous and sequential elements, suggesting that Webern’s music hinted at an “acoustic continuum of space-time” even before he adopted serial dodecaphony. Pousseur argued that both features underpinned a new kind of harmony, one that neutralized the constant chromaticism of post-Wagnerian harmony by using a structured metrical and rhythmic approach to establish contrast among harmonic relationships.
Whereas so many contemporary articles reduced Webern analysis to spotting tone-rows (see for example the Webern issue in Die Reihe, vol. 2), Pousseur was ahead of his time in criticizing the “futility of insisting on a complete and continual exposition of the chromatic ‘total,’ as in orthodox dodecaphonism.” He questioned how listeners could perceive music that extended Webern’s “multipolar sound space” to the point of non-differentiation. He was pioneering the idea, later widely explored, of the need for polarity based on the first five natural harmonics.
This essay was contemporary with Pousseur’s Quintette à la mémoire d’Anton Webern (Quintet in Memory of Anton Webern), whose instrumentation (clarinet, bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano) constitutes a unmistakable homage. The music draws on the tone-row from Webern’s Quartet, op. 22, and is based on major sevenths and minor ninths, which Pousseur dubbed “false octaves.”1
Pousseur clarified his position in a subsequent article, “De Schoenberg à Webern: une mutation” (“From Schoenberg to Webern: A Shift”) from 1956, in which he emphasized the continuity of Webern’s style through his transition from atonal to serial works. He also examined the “radical shift in meaning” produced when Webern adopted chromaticism, contrasting it with Arnold Schoenberg’s return in the 1920s to a thematic ideal. Echoing Boulez’s critique of extreme thematization in “Schoenberg est mort” (1952), Pousseur delved into Webern’s harmonic fields, arguing for the establishment of polarities that would enhance the appreciation of particular works.
In his article “Ébauche d’une méthode” (“Sketch of a Method,” 1957), Pousseur details the strategies employed in his own Symphonies à quinze solistes (structured as seven brief sections with varied instrumentation, in the spirit of Pierrot lunaire) and Quintette à la mémoire de Webern (a “relatively long large form” in a single fifteen-minute movement). His goal was to investigate the density of harmonic groups within a tightly organized timeline, even while working with pervasive chromaticism. Webern’s footprint is very much present in these works and would remain so in Pousseur’s subsequent works, though his language expanded significantly to include consonance.
Pousseur experimented with open form, which later became a hallmark of his work, as early as 1957 in the tape piece Scambi (“Exchanges”), created at the RAI studio in Milan. In his article “Scambi, description d’un travail” (Scambi: A Description of a Project), he explains that the piece consists of thirty-two sequences “dosed differently, and according to different dosing instructions” that allow for a large number of progressions, determined by shared characters at the beginning or ending of each sequence. This approach aligns with Umberto Eco’s concept of the “work in movement” from his 1962 study of the open work. Indeed, Luciano Berio and Marc Wilkinson have proposed alternative realizations of their own.
Pousseur further developed his approach to the open work in Mobile, for two pianos (1957-1958). In comparison to Boulez’s Third Piano Sonata and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Klavierstück XI, Mobile is different in that there are two performers, playing the roles of “leader” and “follower” (which is also seen in André Boucourechliev, notably). Mobile’s structure consists of ten continuous sections, with three interchangeable parts for each piano (parts II, IV, VIII and II, IV, VI). As Pousseur explains in his article “Théorie et pratique dans la musique récente” (“Theory and Practice in Recent Music,” 1959), “The groups in which one leads are fully specified in all their parameters (but in approximate, broad, qualitative fashion) […] Units of time, dynamics, attacks, and pedaling are also variable; only an approximate total duration is indicated.”
Pousseur continued this experiment in ludic interchangeability among players in Répons (Responsorial Chant), for seven musicians (1960), though it quickly revealed its limits. As Pousseur noted, “While the play could prove exciting for performers well-versed in the instructions, to the audience it came off as esoteric.”2 To address this problem, he made a second version in 1965, Répons avec son paysage, for the same ensemble and one actor, adding a text by Michel Butor. The text was “designed both to assist the musicians in their playing and to leave them freer for the actual musical interpretation […] as well as to inform the public by means of an imaginary poetic representation.”3 Despite these improvements, the work continued to challenge the public. However, his acknowledgement of the public’s difficulty pointed to his growing intent involve them directly in shaping the musical experience. Répons avec son paysage would date to the same period as Votre Faust.
Pousseur’s meeting with Butor sparked an unusual, long-lasting collaboration that extended well beyond the years they spent writing Votre Faust, subtitled “Variable Fantasy in the Operatic Genre.” In 1960, Pousseur’s essay “Vers un nouvel univers sonore” (“Towards a New Sonic Universe”)4 appeared in the magazine Esprit alongside Butor’s article “La musique, art réaliste” (“Music, a Realistic Art”). Butor’s article revisited the ongoing debate over the “representational capacities of music,” drawing on Balzac to argue that contemporary music should explore this direction. He proposed a series of categories connecting “certain areas of the musical domain and certain areas of reality.”
These ideas resonated with Pousseur, who further explored the concept of “realist” music in his article “La musique électronique, art figuratif?” (“Electronic Music: A Figurative Art?,” 1961), later included in his collection “Essays on Expression,” which spans topics from his recent electronic works to Monteverdi’s Orfeo. Published in La musique et ses problèmes contemporains (Music and Its Contemporary Problems) — a volume celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Domaine musical by juxtaposing one section from 1953 with another from 1963 — Pousseur’s article was followed by an excerpt from the libretto for Votre Faust. The article contrasts strikingly with his writings from ten years earlier, at which time he was one of the most militant exponents of post-Webernian serialism.
One of the clearest signs of Pousseur’s new interests was his commentary on Trois Visages de Liège (Three Faces of Liège, 1961), an electronic work produced in Brussels and commissioned for a sound and light show. Its scenario has three main parts,
three ‘movements’ almost in the classical sense: a long introductory Andante, mostly limited to blue tones and fleeting forms; a Scherzo in red and yellow, with clear and sharp articulations […] and a Finale in the vein of the chorale.5
Votre Faust is also structured in three parts, in the course of which the audience is occasionally invited to participate in ways that shape the story’s direction. At the end of the first part, for instance, the audience votes in response to the question “Will Henri go to the puppet show with Maggy or with Greta?” — a choice that significantly alters the storyline. In the second part, the audience can interrupt or reject the unfolding events, while in the third part, they are encouraged to drown out the actors’ and musicians’ performance with protests, demanding a new direction. These interactions have serious consequences, with possible outcomes ranging from Henri’s suicide or damnation to his reunion with Maggy or his redemption, along with various intermediate scenarios.
The character of the Opera Director acts as the main leader and mediator between audience and stage, even calling on an audience member at one point to make a choice or refusal. Henri (perhaps representing Faust, or even Pousseur himself) has the role of the Composer, giving a lecture at the beginning of the work (borrowed from the article “Pour une périodicité généralisée,” “For a Generalized Periodicity”) and later being commissioned by the Director/Mephistopheles to write an opera, “provided that it be about Faust.”
From this premise, Butor and Pousseur devised a complex combinatorial system involving five locations, each associated with a color and distinct musical styles. This structure enables multiple paths and sequences within an overarching scheme. The opera’s recording even came with a set of cards to illustrate these permutations. Butor borrowed from various literary Faust sources and incorporated broad literary citations, with the texts sometimes broken down to phonemes, recited, sung, or even shouted in multiple European languages.
Between Scambi and Votre Faust, Pousseur sought mobility on all levels, including by integrating (and often transforming) historical musical elements from a wide range of composers, including Monteverdi, Gluck, Schumann, Bartók, Weill, and even himself. He theorized this stylistic integration within his notion of the “generalized series” — not in the sense of strict 1950s total serialism but rather an expansion of the serial principle into various scales capable of absorbing quite different languages, ranging from tonal to serialism, jazz, and popular song. Seeking an answer to the problem of “How to make Monteverdi ‘rhyme’ with Webern,” Pousseur pursued his dream of recovering the musical past through a coherence ensured by his “theory of networks.” He expounded this theory in his most complex article, “L’apothéose de Rameau (Essai sur la question harmonique)” (“The Apotheosis of Rameau [An Essay on the Harmonic Question],” 1968), where he contrasts Webern’s “multipolar” conception of music with Rameau’s “unipolar” one. He defines a “network” as a “distribution of notes along several axes, each constituted as a chain of one and the same interval.” The transpositions of one harmonic field (e.g., that of superposed major sixths) onto another interval produce many other harmonic fields capable of evoking, when the field is strongly consonant, the styles of distant periods. Through these broad harmonic constellations, Pousseur developed connections between seemingly unrelated musical worlds, supported by extensive writings to analyze and justify these combinations (for instance, his article “La Foire de Votre Faust,” “The Fair in Votre Faust,” 1968).
The collaboration between Pousseur and Butor culminated in the premiere of Votre Faust in 1969 at the Piccola Scala in Milan. The opera was poorly received, due in particular to a convoluted staging that both authors later criticized. Berio attributed the failure mainly to Butor, arguing that “opera has never been a concerto with a drama superimposed on it” and that in Notre Faust the music is the only real element, while the dialogues feel abstract, unnecessary, and irritating. Pousseur, in his response, “Les mésaventures de Notre Faust, lettre ouverte à Berio” (“The Misadventures of Notre Faust: An Open Letter to Berio,” 1985), affirmed his solidarity with Butor and their shared responsibility for the work.
Contemporary with Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten and Satyricon by Bruno Maderna, Votre Faust — whichever one the public chooses — with its variable unfolding at each performance, offered an alternative approach, even if it did not fully achieve a sustainable solution.
The long gestation of Votre Faust was punctuated by numerous “satellite” works, which are excerpts or offshoots from it. Among others, these include Miroir de Votre Faust, for piano and soprano ad libitum (1964-1965), Jeu de miroirs de Votre Faust (with elements of the opera’s tape), Écho de Votre Faust, for high voice and three instrumentalists (1969), and Voyages de Votre Faust, a reduced film version made by RTBF (Belgian public media) over 1969 to 1970.
The expanded technique behind Votre Faust led Pousseur to develop these clusters of works with “satellites,” which would crop up throughout the remainder of his output. Examples include Icare (in which Icarus escapes from the labyrinth but is nevertheless brought down by his ambition), Mnemosyne (named for the personification of memory and mother of the nine muses), and Aquarius-Memorial (1993-1998), which overlaps with the Icare cycle.
The theoretical approach in “The Apotheosis of Rameau” led Pousseur to explore his “network technique” across various contexts, particularly in one of his major works, Couleurs croisées (Crossed Colors), for large orchestra (1967). This piece skillfully blends styles, unified by Pousseur’s use of a central matrix: the African-American song “We Shall Overcome,” from which the entire composition is rigorously derived. Its six sections successively present chromatic periods and Expressionist borrowings before ending symbolically in diatonicism.
In 1974, for Schoenberg’s centenary, Pousseur presented Die Erprobung des Petrus Hebraïcus (The Trial of Petrus Hebraicus), a musical theater piece for two actors, three singers, seven instrumentalists, and tape. Collaborating with Butor, he made a French version, Le Procès du jeune chien (The Trial of the Young Dog), premiered four years later. Playing with layered identities, Pousseur presents a young schoolteacher, P. H. (Pousseur Henri), who clearly evokes Schoenberg in Act I (The Heritage of Moses). The musical matrix is borrowed from the B-minor fugue in the first book of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (which symbolically presents all twelve tones), in a reference to Schoenberg’s article “On Nationalism in Music” where he outlines the fundamental stages of his musical journey (“What I Learned from Bach,” etc.). Taking up Schoenberg’s declaration “My originality lies in the fact that I immediately imitated everything that seemed good to me,” Pousseur revisits various styles from his own musical heritage. These styles emerge through the “network technique,” conveyed in a line sung by the bass voice: “From Noah [i.e., Bach], I derived my art: all things derive from one, the figures combine, accompany each other, and transform without losing their identities.”
Conceived as a historical parody, this piece spans different forms and styles: it pays homage to Bach’s forms (the cantata, ricercare, passacaglia) in Act I, moves into expressionism close to Erwartung in Act II (Abraham and Saul), and concludes with free music incorporating electroacoustics in Act III (The Drunkenness of Noah).
As with Votre Faust, Die Erprobung inspired various “satellite works” well into the 1980s, including Chroniques berlinoises, Ballade berlinoise, Canines, Chroniques canines, and others. Following the collaborative projects Stravinsky au Futur (Stravinsky in the Future) and L’Effacement du Prince Igor (The Erasure of Prince Igor, 1971), and his tribute to Schoenberg, Pousseur produced works honoring J. S. Bach, such as Nuit des nuits (Nacht der Nächte), ou la Voyante Insomnie de Monsieur Goldberg (Night of Nights, or The Visionary Insomnia of Mr. Goldberg, 1985), a “compression” of the Goldberg Variations, and others to Robert Schumann, such as Dichterliebesreigentraum (1992-1993), a “paraphrase” of Dichterliebe. To Schumann he also devoted a series of analytical readings, Vingt-cinq moments d’une lecture de Dichterliebe (Twenty-Five Moments from a Reading of Dichterliebe), which echo Butor’s Dialogue with Thirty-Three Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli.
Finally, Pousseur played a significant role in music education, serving as director of the Liège Conservatoire and of the Institut de pédagogie musicale in Paris. His pedagogical contributions include numerous instructional works, culminating in the collection Méthodicare, subtitled Studies in the Understanding, Interpretation, and Invention of Contemporary Music (1988-2008). He also explored what he called “multimedia,” combining electroacoustic music with digital images, as in Voix et Vues planétaires (Planetary Voices and Views, 2003-2004), described in its subtitle as a work of “ethno-electroacoustic” music and accompanied by texts by Butor.
Translated from the French by Tadhg Sauvey
1. Gottfried Michael Koenig writes of “indistinct octaves” in Die Reihe, vol. 4. ↩
2. Henri Pousseur quoted by Dominique Bosseur and Jean-Yves Bosseur in “Collaboration Butor/Pousseur,” Musique en jeu 4, Le Seuil, 1971, p. 107. ↩
3. Ibid. ↩
4. This new publication was an extract from “La nouvelle sensibilité musicale” (“The New Musical Sensitivity,” 1957). ↩
5. In “La musique électronique, art figuratif?” (1960/61), La Musique et ses problèmes contemporains: Cahiers de la compagnie Madeleine Renaud-Jean-Louis Barrault 41 (1963), pp. 169-202; reprinted in revised version in Écrits théoriques 1954-1967, edited by Pascal Decroupet, Mardaga, 2004, p. 167-172. ↩
Do you notice a mistake?