While Les Espaces Acoustiques will probably remain the most historically significant work by spectralist composer Gérard Grisey, there’s something dazzling about the achievement unlocked through Vortex Temporum. It’s an emboldened work, where extremities co-exist in uneasy tension – see, for example, the way thunderous clusters of piano wrestle alongside hovering, shivering strings. But perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Vortex Temporum is the recursive dilations that appear throughout, where strings spiral off into distance, a dizzying listening experience that dedicatee Gérard Zinsstag describes as “descending/ascending figures which unfurl and spin in different times.” Talea works similar contrasts into a more compact design, though I’d hesitate to call it economical.
