Henri Pousseur Collection
Henri Pousseur's Compositions and Sets of Works from the 1970s onwards
Studies of Henri Pousseur's oeuvre usually focus on his compositions from the 1950s and 1960s. In contrast to the works that were in all evidence created in the context of the Darmstadt Summer Courses and with the compositional techniques developed by the musical avant-garde of the time, many of the works written after Votre Faust (1960–68) still await in-depth examination and contextualization, which is to be carried out in the light of the various documents available in the Henri Pousseur Collection.
Among the works to be rediscovered are scenic and/or instrumental compositions in which Pousseur also experimented with electronic music, as in Tales and Songs from the Bible of Hell for soloists and live electronics (1979) or Déclarations d'Orage for soloists, orchestra and tape (1988/89). The latter, in turn, can be seen as a "satellite" of an earlier piece from 1983 (Trajets dans les arpents du ciel) and as an example of Pousseur's typical compositional approach, which saw him conceive some of his works as "generative systems" for subsequent compositions.
The research would aim to analyse the materials of selected compositions that Henri Pousseur created in the last decades of the 20th century and to assign them to the corresponding work sets. In addition to the numerous surviving manuscripts, sound documents can equally be used for this purpose.
Further information about the collection and contact to the curator Angela Ida De Benedictis