Monotone-Silence Symphony

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The entire handwritten score for the Monotone-Silence Symphony, showing the extreme sparsity of the work Score for Yves Klein's Monotone-Silence Symphony.png
The entire handwritten score for the Monotone-Silence Symphony, showing the extreme sparsity of the work

The Monotone-Silence Symphony (French : Symphonie Monoton-Silence) is a piece of minimalist music by the French artist Yves Klein. It consists of 20 minutes of an orchestra performing the chord of D major, followed by a 20 minute silence. [1] [2]

The original score calls for an ensemble consisting of 20 singers, 10 violins, 10 cellos, 3 double basses, 3 trumpets, 3 flutes and 3 oboes. [3]

Klein stated that he conceived the idea for the work in 1947 (as written on the score) or 1949 (in interviews and texts). [4] In the first public performance in 1960, three naked models on stage were painted with International Klein Blue body paint during the performance, and left imprints of their bodies on canvas. [2] [4]

Composer Eliane Radigue, a friend of Yves Klein's who was married to Arman at the time, recounted how Klein, at night on a beach in Nice in 1954 and shortly after his discovery of the Lettrists, had started improvising in glossolalia with a group of friends. Eventually, the whole group got into it, and the idea came to them of making a continuous sound. Radigue, the only musician in the group, took care of tuning the voices together to produce a chord. A few years later, Yves Klein asked Radigue to write the Monotone-Silence Symphony for him, but Radigue refused, "for many reasons", then redirected Klein to composer Louis Saguer, to whom Klein finally entrusted the symphony's production. [5] This anecdote challenges Klein's statement about conceiving the idea for the work in 1947 or 1949 and ultimately his authorship of the idea.

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References

  1. Kennedy, Randy (17 September 2013). "A Sound, Then Silence (Try Not to Breathe)". New York Times. Retrieved 2024-04-02.
  2. 1 2 Cowan, Sarah (2013-09-27). "Without Beginning or End: Yves Klein's Monotone-Silence Symphony". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 2024-04-02.
  3. "Partition de la Symphonie Monoton-silence". www.yvesklein.com (in French). Retrieved 2024-04-02.
  4. 1 2 Prot, Frédéric (2011). "La Symphonie Monoton-Silence". www.yvesklein.com (in French). Retrieved 2024-04-02.
  5. Au-delà du son avec Eliane Radigue, entretien avec Guillaume Kosmicki, France Culture, 30 septembre 2017

See also