Gérard Grisey, a giant of contemporary music in France, was born in Belfort in 1946 and was one of the prime movers of what came to be known as the 'Spectral' movement in the mid '70s.
Périodes and Vortex Temporum belong to two separate periods in Grisey's output. In Périodes, he treats time as a slow process that directs sound and is organised in cycles or periods, (hence the title), whereas Vortex Temporum breaks time up and sets certain areas of time against others.Written in 1994-6, Vortex Temporum is the work of a mature composer. The title denotes a swirling arpeggio formula which is subjected to various time changes devised by
Grisey: the dilated, slow time of sleep intended by the composer to have a connection with time as perceived by whales, the ordinary time involved in human breathing and language and the fast, contracted time of birds and insects.
