Beauty and Cruelty of Natural Harmony
This text, based on a correspondence from Fall 2018 with Montreal-based composer Michel Gonneville (b. 1950), offers an overview of the origin and development of his microtonal approach. In the context of a musical language already marked by serialism and thematism, Gonneville approaches microtonality at times in a colouristic way, other times structurally, and includes the integration of spectral elements with research on just intonation and the confrontation of these non-tempered universes with equal temperaments in semi-, quarter- or sixteenth-tones.