Claude Vivier

Claude Vivier (14 April 1948 – 7 March 1983) was a Canadian composer.

Biography

Born to unknown parents in Montreal, Vivier was adopted at the age of three by a poor French-Canadian family. From the age of thirteen, he attended boarding schools run by the Marist Brothers, a religious order that prepared young boys for a vocation in the priesthood. At the age of eighteen, Vivier was asked to leave the novitiate. His earliest works date from this period.

In 1971, he began a period of three years' study in Europe, first at the Institute for Sonology in Utrecht, and then in Cologne with Karlheinz Stockhausen. Vivier learned much from Stockhausen, and his early works have aspects that are clearly, and sometimes audibly, derivative of his teacher, even though his later works bear little audible resemblance. In 1974, he returned to Montreal and began to establish his reputation.

On the night of 8 March Vivier was stabbed to death in his Paris apartment. His killer was a male prostitute the composer had met in a bar earlier that evening. On the worktable was the manuscript of Vivier's final, uncompleted work, Glaubst du an die Unsterblichkeit der Seele? (Do You Believe in the Immortality of the Soul?), a dramatised monologue in which Vivier describes a journey on the Metro during which he becomes attracted to a young man. The music breaks off abruptly following the line: "Then he removed a dagger from his jacket and stabbed me through the heart."

Vivier's opera Kopernikus, to his own libretto, was premièred on 8 May 1980, at the Monument-National in Montreal.

Selected works

• Ojikawa for soprano, clarinet and percussion (1968)
• Prolifération for ondes Martenot, piano and percussion (1969)
• Musik für das Ende for twenty voices and percussion (1971)
• Deva et Asura for chamber orchestra (1972)
• Chants for seven female voices (1973)
• O! Kosmos for soprano and choir (1973)
• Désintégration for two pianos, four violins and two violas (1974)
• Lettura di Dante for soprano and mixed septet (1974)
• Liebesgedichte for voices and ensemble (1975)
• Hymnen an die nacht for soprano and piano (1975)
• Siddhartha for orchestra (1976)
• Learning for four violins and percussion (1976)
• Pulau Dewata for any combination of instruments (1977)
• Shiraz for piano (1977)
• Journal for voices and percussionist (1977)
• Paramirabo for flute, violin, cello and piano (1978)
• Greeting Music for flute, oboe, percussion, piano and violin (1978)
• Kopernikus: Rituel de la Mort opera in two acts, premiered in Montreal on 8 May 1980 (1979)
• Orion for orchestra (1979)
• Lonely Child for soprano and orchestra (1980)
• Zipangu for string orchestra (1980)
• Cinq chansons pour percussion (1980)
• Bouchara for soprano and chamber orchestra (1981)
• Prologue pour un Marco Polo for thirteen instruments, four voices and narrator (1981)
• Samarkand for wind quintet and piano (1981)
• Wo bist du Licht! for mezzo-soprano, orchestra and tape (1981)
• Et je reverrai cette ville étrange for ensemble (1981)
• Trois Airs pour un opéra imaginaire for soprano and ensemble (1982)
• Glaubst du an die Unsterblichkeit der Seele for voices and ensemble (unfinished) (1983)

Sources

• Gilmore, Bob. 2007. "On Claude Vivier’s Lonely Child". Tempo, new series 61, no. 239:2–17.
• Gilmore, Bob. 2009. "Claude Vivier and Karlheinz Stockhausen: Moments from a Double Portrait". Circuit: musiques contemporaines 19, no. 2:35–49. (Subscription access)
• Lesage, Jean. 2008. "Claude Vivier, Siddhartha, Karlheinz Stockhausen: La nouvelle simplicité et le râga". Circuit: musiques contemporaines 18, no. 3:107–20.
• Mijnheer, Jaco. 2001. "Vivier, Claude". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
• Tannenbaum, Peter. 1991. "Claude Vivier Revisited". SoundNotes SN1:12–27.

External links

• (French) A biography of Claude Vivier, from IRCAM's website.
• "Eternal Recurrence: Aspects of Melody in the Orchestral Music of Claude Vivier" by Janette Tilley. Discourses in Music 2, no. 1 (Fall 2000).
• Claude Vivier @ Boosey & Hawkes
• "A Response to Janette Tilley's Eternal Recurrence: Aspects of Melody in the Orchestral Music of Claude Vivier", by Ross Braes. Discourses in Music 2, no. 2 (Winter 2000–2001).
• L'écriture à haute voix: Lonely Child de Claude Vivier abstract (French) and (English) of article by Jacques Tremblay. Circuit 11, no. 1.
• On Claude Vivier's Lonely Child abstract of article by Bob Gilmore in Tempo (2007), 61: 2-17, Cambridge University Press. (Article access by subscription only)