Jean Barraqué: Path Towards Serialism and Aesthetic Views of the First Half of the 1950s

Abstract

The article examines the aesthetical views of French composer Jean Barraqué during the period
of the formation and development of the principles of serialism. The roles of Schoenberg and
Beethoven in the formation of the master’s artistic worldview are singled out. The path towards
the new conception of sonar thinking for Barraqué were determined by Olivier Messiaen’s music
analysis courses, the familiarization with the books of René Leibowitz devoted to the serial
technique created by the representatives of the Second Viennese School, as well as artistic contacts
with the leading composers – Pierre Boulez, Karel Goeyvaerts and Michel Fano. On the basis of an
overview of Barraqué’s articles from the 1950s the key musical figures (Webern, Berg, Schoenberg,
Messiaen and Stravinsky) and issues that interested the composer during the researched period of
time are disclosed, and a comparison is made between the composer’s utterances with the discourse
of Boulez. Notice is drawn to the fact that the questions of serial technology proper were of little
interest to Barraqué. His attention was focused on the historical needs of musical practice and
its ontological essence. The composer attributed special significance to the concept of musical
dialectics, considering it to be defining for the concept of serialism. Barraqué’s familiarization in the
mid-1950s with Hermann Broch’s novel “The Death of Virgil” stipulated the further development of
his music. The center of the composer’s interests turned out to be questions related to the nature of
art and artistic creativity, the true expression of which were served by the oppositions between life
and death, creation and destruction. In the article’s conclusion the connection between Barraqué’s
viewpoints with the romantic aesthetics is demonstrated.

Keywords: Jean Barraqué, integral serialism, musical dialectics, Anton Webern, Arnold
Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Igor Stravinsky, Hermann Broch.