Clostre, Adrienne

(b Thomery, 9 Oct 1921). French composer. She studied at the Paris Conservatoire,
where her teachers included Yves Nat for piano, Messiaen for analysis and aesthetics,
and Milhaud and Jean Rivier for composition. She was awarded the Prix de Rome for
her cantata La rsurrection de Lazare in 1949, since when she has dedicated herself
exclusively to composition, winning the Grand Prix Musical de la Ville de Paris in 1955
and the Prix Florence Gould in 1976, as well as the Grand Prix de la Musique of the
Socit des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques in 1987.
Clostre has found her inspiration above all in extra-musical sources visual and, more
especially, literary and composing for the theatre has naturally become her preferred
medium. She has endeavoured to go beyond narrative to produce a kind of theatre of
the soul, in which dramatic action is transcended in favour of a musical trans-figuration
of the inner, metaphysical quest of the characters. Many of her librettos drawn on
personal diaries and private letters. A technique essential to achieving the necessary
sincerity of expression, and one already evident in La rsurrection de Lazare, has been
the gradual replacement of the normal vocal line by declamation and the spoken word;
this development began to blossom in Nietzsche (19725) and found its culmination in
L'albatros (19868).
Clostre's musical language, generally atonal but free from any rigid system, relies
primarily on melody and rhythm; her formal structures of juxtaposed sequences favour a
contrasting and ever-changing compositional style. Though her music is constantlyevolving,
there are nevertheless occasional moments of respite in the form of chorales,
where all the harmonic ideas are concentrated, as if to stop time momentarily. Clostre
showed herself to be ahead of her time when in 1970 she introduced into her Oboe
Concerto (1970) quarter-tones, multiphonics and multiple trills, instrumental techniques
that were then barely known in France. Her latest works have tended towards an
increasingly austere style.
WORKS
(selective list)
Stage: Le chant du cygne (chbr op, 1, A. Clostre, after A.P. Chekhov), 1960; Julien
l'apostat (drame lyrique, 8 scenes, Clostre, after H. Ibsen), 1970; Nietzsche (action
Musicale, 12 scenes, after F. Nietzsche), 19725; 5 scnes de la vie italienne
(Clostre), 1980; Le secret (lecture musicale, S. Kierkegaard), 1981; Romans, 1983;
L'albatros (action dramatique, 9 scenes, Clostre, after C.P. Baudelaire), 19868;
Annapurna (action musicale, 7 scenes, Clostre, after M. Herzog), 1988
Other dramatic and vocal: Tre fioretti di San Francesco d'Assisi, chbr cant., 6vv, 10
insts, 1953; El tigre de oro y sombro, (lecture musicale, J.L. Borges), S, a fl, perc,
celtic hp, 1979; Dans la nuit ... le pote (dramatic cant., F. Hlderlin), S, fl, vn, pf,
tape, 1984; Froid comme le mtal ... brulant comme la passion (dramatic cant., H.
von Kleist), S, Mez, fl, vc, pf, tape, 1989; Peinture et libert, radiophonic melodrama
(J. Michelet and J.L. David), nar, inst ens, tape, 1989; Fantaisie la manire de
Callot (dramatic cant. E.T.A. Hoffmann), Mez, vn, 1990; L'criture du Dieu,
melodrama (Borges), nar, inst ens, 1991; Le Zare, sung melodrama (Borges), Bar,
recorded music, tape, 1992
Orch: Sym., str, 1949, rev. 1962; Concert pour le souper du roi Louis II, 1957;
Conc., ob, chbr orch, 1970; Conc., fl, vn, chbr orch, 1972
Chbr and solo inst: 6 dialogues, ob, 1972; Permutations, tpt, ob, va, trbn, 1972;
Feux d'artifice pour le 111me anniversaire de Bilbo, 8 variations, pf, 1976; Premier
livre des rois, sonata, org, 1980; Brother Blue, celtic hp, perc, 1981; Variations
italiennes, 4 interludes, pf, 1981; La reine de Saba, fresque musicale, org, perc,
1990; Sun (lecture de Virginia Woolf par le quatuor cordes), str qt, 1991; Waves
(lecture au piano de Virginia Woolf), pf, 1991

Principal publishers: Billaudot, Choudens, Editions Transatlantiques