Another composer in our French Composers’ Names series: Jean-Claude Risset. Well, composer and researcher. Risset came to composition after considering being a concert pianist (he studied with Robert Trimaille, himself a student of Alfred Cortot) but he also studied Physics in parallel, and graduated from the most prestigious science institutes in France. NBD.
Risset is one of the true pioneers of electronic music (watch his 2011 lecture at CIRMMT) but—anecdotally—he is also known for auditory illusions: the continuous Risset scale (or Shepard-Risset glissando) and a rhythmic equivalent.
Here is a continuous Risset scale programmed by Gloumouth1 (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike):
And here is a similar effect applied to tempo programmed by Mcld (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike):
How cool is that?
Jean-Claude Risset: Pronunciation
Now here is the French pronunciation of Risset’s name:
Link to MP3 – ICYL – Jean-Claude Risset
I leave you with a video of Risset’s Songes (1979). Don’t watch it; just listen.
Check out the entire French Composers’ Names series or suggest one we haven’t covered on Twitter at @icareifulisten.
