Jean-Claude Risset (French: [ʁisɛ]; born 18 March 1938, Le Puy-en-Velay, France) is a French composer, best known for his pioneering contributions to computer music. He is a former student of André Jolivet and former co-worker of Max Mathews at Bell Labs.

Arriving at Bell Labs, New Jersey in 1964, he used Max Mathews' MUSIC IV software to digitally recreate the sounds of brass instruments. He made digital recordings of trumpets and studied their timbral composition using "pitch-synchronous" spectrum analysis tools, revealing that the amplitude and frequency of the harmonics (more correctly, partials) of these instruments would differ depending on frequency, duration and amplitude. He is also credited with performing the first experiments on a range of synthesis techniques including FM Synthesis and waveshaping.

After the discrete Shepard scale Risset created a version of the scale where the steps between each tone are continuous, and it is appropriately called the continuous Risset scale or Shepard-Risset glissando.



3 works by Jean-Claude Risset / Janice Jackson, soprano

L'autre Face (1983) by Jean-Claude Risset

In this piece (1983), the soprano dialogues with a tape generated by computer. The form of the piece was influenced by a poem: "L'autre face" by Roger Kowalski (in "Le Sielciaire", Editions Guy Chambelland, Paris).

The poem is sung in a lyrical and expressionist style, calling for non-conventional singing techniques: high pitches, inhaled sounds, voice split into multi-phonics, vocal harmonics. In counterpoint with the voice, the tape exposes motives and textures synthesized or processed with the MUSIC V program. 
Quasi-vocal syntheses - uttered by no one's voice - are like virtual counterparts of the soprano live on stage. At the end, the soprano's part is entangled with sinuous melodic lines traveling in space and dwindling in the treble.

L'AUTRE FACE

Vois : j'ai posé sur le papier un point d'encre très noire; ce feu sombre est l'eau même de la nuit; un silence d'étoiles échevelées.

Il suffit de peu de choses,presque rien; une syllabe, une consonne et je deviens tempête ; un geste de l'arbre, et cent racines me lient;

le pas des filles de mémoires, et je tourne vers ta face un oeil qu'emplit une plainte égarée; écoute : quelque chose ici n'est point de ce monde;

ni le verbe, ni le point où s'articule un discours entrepris dans l'ennui, mais la profonde, chaste et noire encre sur ton masque de papier.

 Roger KOWALSKI 
(1938-1972)






L'autre Face by Jean Claude Risset

Inharmonique (1977), for soprano and 2-track magnetic tape synthesized by computer at IRCAM.
     - Jean Claude Risset, composer
     - Janice Jackson, soprano

Inharmonique combines the voice of the soprano with a tape of computer-synthesized sounds. During most of the piece, the tape sounds are made up of "inharmonic" components, whise frequencies do not relate to each other as the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 ... Such configuratios are rarely found in instrumental and vocal sounds. The internal structure of the sounds brings out different relations between them.

The piece opens with noise bands in motion. Pure sounds then emerge and gather in increasingly rih layers. The voice first appears in the background, then it eventually breaks through the curtain of artificial sounds. It elaborates on the note A, whose harmonics are taken up by the tape. The pitch intervals broaden. The tape introuces imaginary bells, composed like chords, which then break up into fluid textures (this is obtained by transforming the temporal profile of its components witjout modifying their frequencies). The voice's intrusions become sparse but increasingly dramatic. The tape distanly echoes the voice (recorded and modified by computer). The singer's breath is submerged in surging bands of noise.

The tape was synthesized by computer at IRCAM. Inharmonique is dedicated to Irène jarsky who inspired it and who enriched the vocal portions. Recorded by Irène Jarsky, it appears on compact disk INA C1003 (together with Mutations, Dialogues and Sud by Jean-Claude Risset). The piece was also sung by a number of other performers, among which Neva Pilgrim, Kerstin Stahl, Linda Richardson, Olga Szwajgier, Linda Hirst, Akemi Mitsuishi, Brenda Hubbard-Mitchell, Jane Manning, Pamela Jordan, Janice Jackson ... 


Inharmonique by Jean Claude Risset

Sola - Jean Claude Risset
Janice Jackson - soprano

Jean Claude Risset is a French composer of mostly orchestral, chamber, vocal, piano, and electroacoustic works that have been performed throughout the world.  He is best known for his pioneering contributions to computer music. He is a former student of André Jolivet and former co-worker of Max Mathews at Bell Labs.

Sola - Jean Claude Risset

My name is Janice Isabel Jackson, I am a New Music Singer, specializing in the music of living composers using classical vocal techniques along with non-western singing styles, from overtones to multi-phonics to yodeling to...  I have sung over 200 world premieres and work with composers from around the world.   I am always excited by the new sounds my voice is able to make.  With each new piece I learn more and more about music and my instrument.

3 works by Jean-Claude Risset / Janice Jackson, soprano

Janice Jackson New Music