Occam Notions Collaboration and The Performers Perspective in Eliane Radigues Occam Ocean

22 TEMPO 70 (275) 22–35 © 2015 Cambridge University Press
doi:10.1017/S0040298215000601
occam notions: collaboration

and the performer’s perspective
in éliane radigue’s occam ocean
Luke Nickel
Abstract: After nearly 40 years of creating

recorded electronic music, for the last 10
years Éliane Radigue has created music exclu-
sively in collaboration with performers, using
solely oral and aural transmission. Focusing
on the details of this ‘scoreless’ working
method, this article considers the performer’s
perspective on Radigue’s Occam Ocean
(2011–), a series of 22 infinitely combinable Luke Nickel,
solos and over 20 chamber pieces. Through photo courtesy of
Edwin Isford
interviews with the performers and Radigue,
a composite understanding of their collaboration is reached, focus-
ing on the emergent ideas of virtuosity, memory, images, scores,
hospitality and non-hierarchy. A typical transmission and collabor-
ation is described, and a new lens for viewing this method is pro-
posed, the living score. The article concludes with a brief
discussion of how Radigue and her collaborators’ non-hierarchical
model of collaboration may offer an alternative compositional
framework.
In a recent concert of works from Éliane Radigue’s Occam Ocean series

in Glasgow as part of the Tectonics Festival, I sat awestruck for an
hour as four musicians on stage slowly made musical tones emerge
from and retreat into silence.1 The resulting combinations of complex
overtones and undertones formed ephemeral constellations of
musical relationships that took my ears captive. Radigue’s music
shines a light on infinitesimal sonic details, such as the tiny rhythmic
beating found when high frequencies sound simultaneously, and the
subtle change in the timbre of a sound when certain frequencies
jump to the fore. These details – animated by the incredible virtuos-
ity of the performers with whom she now collaborates – seem to
transport the listener from the realm of the purely acoustical to
the realms of spirit and heart.
Over the last 40 years, Radigue has created several iconic electro-
acoustic pieces (mostly using the ARP synthesizer) such as Trilogie
1
Rhodri Davies (harp), Charles Curtis (cello), Robin Hayward (microtonal tuba) and Dafne
Vicente-Sandoval (bassoon) on Saturday, 2 May 2015 and Sunday, 3 May 2015.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298215000601 Published online by Cambridge University Press

occam notions 23
de la Mort (1993) and L’îsle Re-sonante (2000). Recently, she has enjoyed
rising public attention, including many concerts dedicated to her
work.2 Her work has also significantly influenced many musicians,
as well as artists outside the field of music such as Jesper Just3 and
Xavier Veilhan.4 For the last 10 years, Radigue has created work exclu-
sively in collaboration with performers, and she has now arrived at
her largest project yet: Occam Ocean.
In the past five years, Occam Ocean has been discussed in several
published sources, most of which are interviews with the composer
herself.5 Few sources, however, consider the performers’ perspectives,
outside of written accounts published by Charles Curtis6 and video
interviews with Rhodri Davies and Carol Robinson.7 Currently,
very few pieces in the Occam Ocean series are available on recorded
media, making the musical content of the series difficult to discuss
outside of the live concert experience.8 Instead, this article seeks to
(1) form a composite view of the creative process of Occam Ocean,
and (2) provide an in-depth examination of the unique qualities of
the series – musical or otherwise – that arise out of Radigue’s collab-
orative working method. The article focuses primarily on the solo
pieces in the Occam Ocean series, as the logistical complexity of the
ensemble pieces places them beyond the scope of examination in
the current context. In addition to previously published sources, this
article draws upon 11 personal interviews with both Radigue and
her collaborators.
Background
Occam Ocean is a series of 22 solos, three of which are written for elec-
tronic instruments and 19 of which are written for acoustic
instruments,9 as well as over 20 ensemble pieces comprised of super-
impositions of the solo pieces in different combinations.10 The solo
pieces are named according to their position in the sequence
(Occam I, Occam II, etc.) and the ensemble pieces are grouped by cat-
egory and followed by their number in the sequence.11 According to
Radigue, it was essential that there be enough solo pieces that creating
2
Examples include Triptyche: the Music of Éliane Radigue, in London (2011), CTM.12
SPECTRAL, in Berlin (2012), the Festival d’Automne, in Paris (2013) and Tectonics, in
Glasgow (2015).
3
A Danish artist who recently showed an installation entitled Servitudes at the Palais de
Tokyo with music inspired by Radigue (2015).
4
A French multidisciplinary artist who created the performance SYSTEMA OCCAM, for a
composition by Éliane Radigue (2013).
5
See Bernard Girard, Entretiens avec Éliane Radigue (France: Éditions Aedam Musicae, 2013),
Thibaut de Ruyter, ‘Jamais la même chose, ni tout a fait une autre’, in Éliane Radigue:
Portraits Polychromes, ed. Daniel Teruggi et al (Paris: INA, 2013) and Max Dax, ‘Éliane
Radigue, an Interview’, in Electronic Beats (2012) http://www.electronicbeats.net/
eliane-radigue-an-interview/.
6
Charles Curtis, ‘Éliane Radigue et Naldjorlak’, in Éliane Radigue: Portraits Polychromes.
7
Éliane Radigue – Virtuoso Listening, directed by Anaïs Prosaïc (2011; Stanmore, UK:
Wienerworld, 2013), DVD.
8
See Appendix 2, Occam Ocean discography
9
See Appendix 1 for a complete list of Occam Ocean solo pieces and the performers with
whom they were created
10
There are currently over 20 ensemble pieces in Occam Ocean; but the series is not complete
and will be continually added to by Radigue and her collaborators. It should be noted that
Radigue has decided never to mix electronic and acoustic instruments in the ensemble
pieces.
11
All Occam River pieces are for two instruments; Occam Delta are for three or four instru-
ments; Occam Hexa are for five or more and Occam Ocean denotes a large ensemble.

24 tempo
all of their possible ensemble combinations could not be achieved

within her lifetime.12
The pieces in Occam Ocean are usually 15–30 minutes long,13 in
contrast with Radigue’s earlier compositions, which are typically 60
minutes or more. In a personal interview, she attributed this change
in length mostly to her own changing abilities in concentration.14
The length of each work in the Occam Ocean series is not necessarily
fixed, and may vary from concert to concert. Radigue comments on
this that ‘there is no decision or pre-decision about the duration. It
comes by itself’.15 Her collaborators say that the flexible durations
of the pieces are influenced by several variables. Dominic Lash, a
double-bassist, improviser and performer, says that the piece created
with him ‘seems to settle around 12 minutes or so. If anything, it’s
getting shorter’.16 He goes on to say that the piece contracts and
expands depending on how much he has played it. Carol Robinson,
a clarinettist, composer and long-time collaborator of Radigue, says
that Radigue’s pieces ‘depend a lot on the room where they’re
being played’, and that ‘the acoustical response of a space determines
how long the piece is going to be by the way it carries a sound’.17
Radigue has never created a written or recorded score for any piece
in the Occam Ocean series.18 All pieces are transmitted orally, and
any documentation associated with them serves only to provide
rudimentary structural ‘scaffolding’19 or, according to composer and
bass-recorder performer Pia Palme, to aid in the recollection of specif-
ic performance techniques.20
Radigue has commented that three main images drive the Occam
Ocean series. Regarding the first, she writes that she was initially
inspired by a visit to the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles
in 1973. There she saw a mural depicting all known wavelengths of
the electromagnetic spectrum from largest to smallest. She was particu-
larly struck by how few of those frequencies are audible to humans.21
While Radigue immediately doodled this image onto a concert pro-
gramme, she did not pursue the idea further for nearly 40 years.
Radigue had a similarly long interlude between inspiration and exe-
cution when creating Naldjorlak I, her first piece for any acoustic
instrument. As the Naldjorlak series is based on the idea of yoga
and the physical body, Radigue felt it was inappropriate to realise
the piece solely with electronics,22 but not only was she relatively
inexperienced with the workings of acoustic instruments, she also
lacked collaborators who could help her realise the characteristics
that typify her music,23 such as the extremely slow transition between
multiple sonic states. The creation of Naldjorlak was thus brought
about by both Radigue and her first acoustic collaborator, cellist
Charles Curtis. Similarly, before the creation of Occam Ocean,
12
Bernard Girard, Entretiens avec Éliane Radigue (France: Éditions Aedam Musicae, 2013),
p. 89.
13
Carol Robinson in conversation with the author, 12 July 2015.
14
Éliane Radigue in conversation with the author, 12 August 2015.
15
16
Dominic Lash in conversation with the author, 4 March 2015.
17
Robinson in conversation with the author, 12 July 2015.
18
Girard, Entretiens avec Éliane Radigue, p. 86.
19
20
Pia Palme in conversation with the author, 6 July 2015.
21
Éliane Radigue (2011), quoted in ‘Éliane Radigue, Occam Ocean’, in Interpretations, ed.
Julia Eckhardt and Eveline Heylen (Brussels: Q-O2, 2014), p. 74.
22
23

occam notions 25
Radigue felt that confronting the complexity and infinite variability of

these waves was, at the time, ‘an idea . . . which has to wait’.24
Describing the feeling of looking at the electromagnetic waves,
Radigue says the idea felt
almost impossible, just vertigo when you think about the space. It’s too impos-
sible. I want to [represent] that by any means, but the only thing which is near
to that is the ocean, which has, also, several wavelengths, and which always
touches and moves us . . . so this is why the general title is Occam Ocean.25
Her search for a way to represent the immense scope of the electro-
magnetic spectrum led to the second image of the series: the ocean. At
the beginning of each collaboration, Radigue and her collaborators
agree on an image related to the ocean, often associated with a
body of water personal to one of them. These images guide the per-
formers, ‘letting descriptive words and evocations establish a system
of communication as the piece is being elaborated’.26
The third image is Occam’s razor, defined in Radigue’s words as
the maxim of ‘simplest is best’.27 Radigue originally connected the
idea of Occam’s razor with the ocean by way of the science fiction
novel Occam’s Razor, by David Duncan, a book about which she
recalls little beyond the title and the presence of a magical ocean.28
The principle of Occam’s razor, named for medieval philosopher
William of Ockham, states that when evaluating the possible solutions
to a problem, simplicity should be preferred over complexity. Radigue
states that she uses this principle prescriptively or pre-emptively to
guide decisions about the work’s structure during her collaboration
with performers.29 In addition, Occam’s razor applies during perform-
ance. When faced with the decision of whether or not to depart from
the current musical idea, performers are encouraged to choose the
simplest option. It should be noted that this principle does not
apply to the instrumental techniques employed in the performance
of the pieces. To the contrary, these techniques are often quite com-
plex and require intense concentration and physical effort on the part
of the performer.
Typical Transmission of an Occam Ocean Piece

This composite summary is based on all 11 interviews with both
Radigue and her collaborators. While the details of the transmission
may vary slightly from piece to piece, certain consistent themes
have emerged. In almost all cases, the creation of an Occam Ocean
piece begins when performers reach out to Radigue to initiate a col-
laboration. After an exchange of physical letters, which generally
include a CD-audio sample of the performer’s work, and an introduc-
tory phone call, performers agree to meet Radigue in her Paris apart-
ment. For the most part, this collaboration does not guarantee the
completion of an Occam Ocean piece, except in cases where Radigue
knows the performer well and there is a specific opportunity for per-
formance. Some performers choose to make musical preparations,
others do not. In general, performers enter the collaboration with
some degree of familiarity with Radigue’s previous work.
24
25
26
Radigue, quoted in ‘Éliane Radigue, Occam Ocean’, p. 74.
27
28
29

26 tempo
Upon arriving in Paris, most performers spend one to three days

with Radigue. She begins the collaboration by explaining the key
tenets of the Occam Ocean series and the conceptual background
of the series as a whole. Then, Radigue and the performer settle
on a water-related image that will guide the work – either a
photo or verbal description provided by Radigue, or the perfor-
mer’s own mental image of a body of water that is personally
important to them. These images inform the work’s structure,
mood and concept.
With their images in mind, the performers then improvise on their
instruments under Radigue’s guidance, often attempting to find novel
performance techniques. After this, Radigue often conducts what she
likes to call her ‘shopping’: selecting sounds from the improvisations
that she deems appropriate for the work.30 Generally, once the
sound world of the piece is established, performers leave Radigue’s
apartment and practice individually. When they return, Radigue and
the performer refine the work’s structural and sonic aspects. This
phase of the collaboration sometimes concludes after one meeting;
however, the process can also span multiple meetings over the course
of several days, months or years.
At some point, Radigue proclaims her part in the collaboration to
be finished, and the piece ready for performance. Sometimes, there is
an interim stage where the performers demonstrate the piece to small
groups of friends or colleagues before the piece’s public premiere.
Often, performers subsequently work with Radigue in the creation
of ensemble pieces, which generally comprise a combination of super-
imposed sections from solo works. Radigue considers Occam Ocean
solo pieces to belong to the performers, and advises them that they
can transmit ‘their’ work to another performer, should they choose
to do so.31
The Virtuosity of Forgetting and Remembering

Virtuosity is a subject often associated with the music of Éliane
Radigue. It pervades many accounts of her work, from the extreme
concentration and duration of listening required of her audiences,32
to her intensely focused way of working to create electronic music,33
to the high level of instrumental technique possessed by her colla-
borators. Regarding Occam Ocean, Radigue comments that this virtu-
osity is ‘not the virtuosity of the speed of playing, but of special
concentration’.34 She asks performers to forget traditional instru-
mental techniques as well as notions of complexity and control over
musical material. In their place, she fosters a meditative approach to
the continuation of singular ideas and explores new techniques
based on controlling the natural properties of the instruments, such
as resonance and vibration. Carol Robinson notes that because of
‘the idea of this incredible [instrumental] control, there’s really little
music that’s so difficult. I hadn’t done anything quite like it before’.35
Julia Eckhardt, a violinist and improviser, says that Radigue is
30
Éliane Radigue in Ruyter, ‘Jamais la même chose, ni tout à fait une autre’, p. 80.
31
This secondary transmission has not yet occurred in any known cases.
32
Prosaïc, Éliane Radigue – Virtuoso Listening, DVD.
33
Éliane Radigue – IMA Portrait Documentary, directed by Cornelia Primosch, Daniela
Swarowsky, and Elizabeth Schimana (2006; Vienna, Austria: Institut Für
Medienarchäeologie – Portrait #4 09), DVD.
34
35

occam notions 27
‘searching for a maximum of concentration and exactitude’.36 At the

same time, the very nature of the score-less oral transmission requires
performers to be solely responsible for the memorization of their
pieces to facilitate later performances and further transmission to
future performers.
For wind players, the special concentration mentioned by Radigue
seems to involve the quality and speed of breath necessary to play
Occam Ocean. Pia Palme says that to play Radigue’s music she ‘had
to totally relax and integrate the breath as an organic movement’.
She goes on to say that, while wind players are typically taught to
breathe in as efficiently as possible between phrases, ‘it just doesn’t
work with [Radigue’s] pieces. It’s from the gesture and the move-
ment, it totally interrupts the flow. I found I had to really not be wor-
ried about the silence caused by the “in” breath’.37
Nate Wooley, a trumpet player and improviser, says that the chal-
lenge involved in playing Radigue’s music is both physical and mental.
He notes that, on a physical level, it is ‘extremely difficult on the trum-
pet to come from nothing and go back to nothing’, and on a mental
level, ‘understanding “OK, now I move to this next thing, this is the per-
fect time” is really tricky as well. That’s the virtuosity of the piece’.38
When working with strings, Radigue is highly concerned with tun-
ing and resonance. In her interview with Bernard Girard, Radigue
recounts a specific anecdote about working with violinist Silvia
Tarozzi. Radigue says that while working with Tarozzi, she had to
convince the violinist not to tune in the same way as when playing
traditional Western classical music, and instead to try and find the
‘best threshold of resonance’ of her violin by tuning the strings in
accordance with the weather and the acoustics of the surrounding
space.39
Regarding this departure from fundamental aspects of most
Western classical music making, Radigue says that
technique, in any art, is the most difficult [thing] that we have to forget. And to
forget technique we have to work a lot. This is why this music can be played
only with very good musicians.40
Robinson echoes these ideas of forgetting technique, saying that
Radigue is ‘asking an instrument to do things that it can do but
doesn’t necessarily [do], and asking a musician to do things that
they were often taught not to do’.41 Angharad Davies, a violinist well-
versed in both classical and improvisational music, says that playing
Radigue’s music is ‘very different . . . compared to [learning] a conven-
tional piece of music’, for the reason that it requires her to ‘unlearn a
natural instinct to want to create something or to stick to
something’.42
What is radical about the idea of forgetting is that many works of
Western classical music require performers to add new techniques to
their practice, or to improve the facility with which they can switch
between traditional techniques. In contrast, Radigue asks each player
to investigate deeply one or two fundamental aspects of their
36
Julia Eckhardt in conversation with the author, 3 August 2015.
37
Pia Palme in conversation with the author, 6 July 2015.
38
Nate Wooley in conversation with the author, 15 July 2015.
39
Girard, Entretiens avec Éliane Radigue, pp. 90–91. All translations are the author’s own
unless otherwise stated.
40
41
42
Angharad Davies in conversation with the author, 28 May 2015.

28 tempo
instrument, and to achieve a high level of control over the instru-

ment’s natural sonic properties. In this way, the instrumental control
that she asks of her collaborators mirrors her own slow control of
microphones in relation to speakers in her early feedback works.43
In a similar way, as audiences we may also employ the act of for-
getting while listening to Radigue’s music. Because her pieces stretch
out over vast lengths of time and contain relatively little traditional
musical development, rather than comparing the present musical
moment to what has happened previously we begin to sense the
past and present of the music as one and the same: a mood or
space to inhabit and explore. Radigue says that this is ‘another mystery
about music, that . . . time [is] whole at every moment. I mean, the
past, is there in the present, and future is there in the present, all
the three times are just one’.44
It should be noted that for two of the interviewed musicians the
idea of resisting traditional performance practices did not arise.
Robin Hayward, a tubist who developed and performs on a unique
microtonal tuba, says that ‘this wasn’t one of those pieces where I
had to choose techniques that felt external to what I do in any
way’.45 One might surmise that this feeling of naturalness may
come from the fact that Hayward had developed the microtonal
tuba shortly before working with Radigue, so there was very little
traditional technique to ‘forget’.
Intentionally to forget techniques requires one first to know them
intimately. It was for this reason that Ryoko Akama chose not to col-
laborate with Radigue using the shamisen they had originally dis-
cussed, but rather an EMS synthesizer. Akama, a noted composer,
improviser and performer on electronic instruments, says that
‘Éliane may have wished it, but I was not confident enough to
make a stable texture by bowing that Japanese instrument, the
shamisen’.46 It is important to note in this statement that Akama
was aware of the virtuosity required to play Radigue’s music, and,
feeling that she lacked an advanced level of technique on the shami-
sen, she instead opted to collaborate with Radigue using her primary
instrument, the synthesizer.
Radigue’s Occam Ocean necessitates a radical forgetting of previ-
ously learned technique, leading players to build new techniques in
order to embrace and alter fundamental properties of their instru-
ments. These new techniques often become integrated into the per-
former’s improvisational or compositional practice, profoundly
affecting the way they interface with their instrument. But while
Radigue’s music requires her musicians to forget their training, it sim-
ultaneously asks them to remember the musical content of the pieces
themselves. According to Robin Hayward, this results in a piece that is
‘never a static thing that’s finished in the sense that it’s set in stone’,
due to the fact that it is ‘residing in [his] memory, when [he’s] not
playing it, and it’s residing in the collective memories of people
who’ve heard it’.47
43
Ruyter, ‘Jamais la même chose, ni tout à fait une autre’, p. 81.
44
45
Robin Hayward in conversation with the author, 15 June 2015.
46
Ryoko Akama in conversation with the author, 7 July 2015.
47

occam notions 29
Living Scores
And we used what I call an image, which of course is related to water . . . it can
be starting from a fall and going to the mountain, it can be from a lake –
everyone has his own image that we decide together, which is our score.48
Images – either tangible or imagined – form an essential component

of Radigue’s collaborative working method, which is otherwise based
entirely on oral communication. Through the use of images, Radigue
and her collaborators share a common starting point for their creative
process. Images serve the unique function of allowing them to explore
and discuss fundamental aspects of the piece before they begin using
musical materials; in a sense, this allows them to model the structure
and mood of the piece using metaphor. Images ‘[provide] the essen-
tial, letting descriptive words and evocations establish a system of
communication as the piece is being elaborated’.49 In contrast, the per-
formers’ notes on specific fingerings and structural details become
ephemera or simple aids for memory.
In the earlier parts of the Occam Ocean series it was Radigue, rather
than her collaborators, who chose the images that underpin each
piece. For these works, Radigue used either descriptions of real places
that she had previously visited, or images taken from magazines.
Carol Robinson says of the image that inspired Occam III – the first
work she performed in the Occam Ocean series – that ‘in this case,
[Radigue] chose it. Later on, she let people choose their own’.50
Radigue began asking collaborators to envision their own, personal
images of water as the foundation for the piece. Nate Wooley says
that he ‘grew up on the Columbia River, which is between Oregon
and Washington, and so I immediately said that’s the river I’d like
to use’.51 According to Dominic Lash, ‘she wanted me to come up
with a particular image related to the sea. Which would be how I
make a start, and that was it as far as the score goes’.52
For some performers, images serve both as a constant reminder of
the structure of the piece and as a mental space that they can inhabit
during performance. For others, the image served only as a creative
device in the process of making the piece with Radigue and, despite
forming an essential ingredient in the collaboration, later faded into
abstraction. Robin Hayward says that he ‘did have [a] harbour in
mind when [he] was improvising, it was very intuitive’, but when
asked if he still uses it to perform the piece, he says it has ‘disappeared
completely’.53
In contrast, for a few performers, images did not play a significant
part in their collaboration with Radigue. Charles Curtis says that he
‘didn’t feel a need for [an] image’, going on to explain that he had
an idea of the musical material and structure of his collaboration
with Radigue before they agreed on an image.54 In the case of
Robinson’s collaboration on her second Occam Ocean piece, Occam
XVI, she had done ‘so many of them by that point, [she] didn’t
have to follow the idea of a place as much’, rendering the piece
‘more abstract’55. For Ryoko Akama’s piece, a first trial with an
48
49
50
51
52
Dominic Lash in conversation with the author, 4 March 2015.
53
54
Charles Curtis, in conversation with the author, 11 September 2015.
55

30 tempo
image led to a composition that Radigue deemed external to the

Occam Ocean series. Akama says that after discarding the initial image
It became more about the process of structuring sound as a continuous experi-
ence. Rather, I had some image of [Radigue] describing Occam, but I didn’t par-
ticularly have an image of a specific body of water.56
While other composers have used images as scores, what makes

Radigue’s image-scores unique is that they are never committed to
physical documents and, as such, remain only in the memories of
Radigue and her collaborators. Emmanuel Holterbach writes that
by working orally and aurally, Radigue and her collaborators bypass
any intermediate media (such as written scores in Western classical
music) and communicate entirely in sound, which, due to her back-
ground in electroacoustic music, is how Radigue has always worked.57
In the two interviews where performers mentioned Radigue show-
ing them tangible images – a picture from National Geographic
Magazine in the case of Angharad Davies and a Hokusai58 wave for
Rhodri Davies – the physical image was not available after it was
first shown to them. Thus, despite some performers’ initial access
to a visible image, all worked primarily from memory during their
collaboration with Radigue. This ephemerality allows the images to
fade deep into the structure of the works, and prevents them from
being interpreted literally. This also speaks to Radigue’s opinion
that music is the only language that can truly communicate the
abstract.59
Radigue gives her collaborators the option to discuss their images
with the general public, and a few, such as Robinson, have done
so.60 However, Radigue feels that, as an audience, we should not lis-
ten for a distinct narrative within her music. She says that she does not
want to put the images in front of people directly because she does
not want ‘people wondering and trying to see the image. It’s just
like if you would give people the score, to follow when listening to
the piece. It’s our score’.61
Despite the absence of written scores in Radigue’s work, many of
her collaborators (as well as the composer herself) make notes and
audio recordings during their creative sessions. But both Radigue
and the performers with whom she works seem reluctant to call
this documentation anything but an aid in collaboration. On the sub-
ject of recording the working sessions with Radigue, Rhodri Davies
says that
some musicians record the run-throughs just as a sketch. And when we meet
again and listen back to the recording together we quickly realise that it’s ridicu-
lous to try and fix on one version of this thing that happened once in a room,
and in a different room at that. So it’s used lightly. It’s not used like a reference
point that is fixed in stone. It’s a helpful sketch.62
Carol Robinson, who has performed Occam Ocean pieces on both the
birbyne and bass clarinet, says that she ‘did sometimes record, because
certain elements are so subtle that even if you’re writing down
56
57
Emmanuel Holterbach, ‘Peindre du temps et de l’espace avec des sons’, in Éliane Radigue,
Portraits Polychromes, p. 65.
58
A Japanese artist from the Edo period well known for his many woodblock prints.
59
60
Carol Robinson, interview by Bernard Girard, ‘Çe n’est pas le son qui devient expression
. . .’, in Entretiens avec Éliane Radigue, p. 108.
61
62
Rhodri Davies in conversation with the author, 21 May 2015.

occam notions 31
fingerings and indicating which note is beating, notation is not suffi-

cient . . . the musician’s receptive state surpasses the impossible com-
plexity needed for a written score’.63 This sentiment is shared by Nate
Wooley, who comments that
you could notate it, but each sound would have two pages and you’d have to
come up with certain notational techniques. It’d be a nightmare. And then it
would sound like someone sweating their way through, like a hyper-complex
piece of music, which is absolutely not how it’s supposed to sound.64
Angharad Davies says that recordings and notes are like ‘tiny little
aids’, and that despite their utility she doesn’t think one could recreate
the pieces from them alone.65 The lack of a physical trace of the fun-
damental score-images poses potential problems for the future propa-
gation of the works. In Frieze magazine, Paul Schütz asks what might
be left from this ephemeral process in a hundred years. He suggests
that it might include any notes taken by the performers and
Radigue, as well as recordings and instructions for the series overall.66
But without the fundamental aspect of the embodied information
from the collaborators themselves, it would be impossible to preserve
the pieces in a fashion playable to others. Charles Curtis remarks that
recordings may even go against the very fabric of Occam Ocean itself,
saying that
the glory of this body of work that Éliane has initiated is exactly in that kind of
contested status that it proposes, of where is the piece now? And the idea that
the piece needs to refer back to the way it was last time is really a denial of
some of the most striking and beautiful and radical characteristics of the
project.67
Because neither the image nor the notes and recordings are sufficient
to transmit the piece to new performers, the piece must be said to res-
ide within the performers themselves, rather than in external docu-
ments. Rhodri Davies says that the pieces are
alive in the person who’s performing them. So the piece is alive when I
rehearse it at home or when I think about it, and again when I’m playing it
for an audience. So the pieces exist in multiple places and times and not
only in one place in time like a concert.68
Existing pieces in the Occam Ocean series may one day be played by
new performers, though as far as is known this has not yet occurred.
Radigue states, however, that any future performers must be taught
and approved by the original collaborator and not by Radigue, herself,
as the performer is ‘the only one who can transmit that piece’.69 Yet,
these pieces lie, at the present time, outside the framework of
Radigue’s conception of oral tradition, which she describes as involv-
ing the rigorous transmission of musical information between two
performers: a teacher and a student. As I described earlier, the creative
process for pieces in the Occam Ocean series requires a collaborative,
rather than didactic, relationship between Radigue and the perfor-
mers, and she has said that she does not consider herself a teacher.70
While Radigue and the performers do collaborate orally on works in
63
64
65
66
Paul Schütz, ‘Surround Sound’, in Frieze Magazine, Issue 142 (October 2011) http://www.
frieze.com/issue/article/surround-sound/.
67
Charles Curtis in conversation with the author, 11 September 2015.
68
Rhodri Davies in conversation with the author, 21 May 2015.
69
70

32 tempo
the Occam Ocean series, this process does not yet constitute an oral
tradition, and will only become so when transmitted from
Radigue’s collaborators to new performers (and perhaps onward
beyond even these new performers). Until that possible transmission,
the collaborators embody all aspects of an Occam Ocean piece within
themselves and are, in effect, living scores.
Home is Where the Heart Is

How does it work? By the mysterious power of the projection of ideas that
inhabit the spirit of the work and which determine the work’s structure; images
projected either by words or intuitively/abstractly, associated with a hint of the
intellectual, the same nature of the music, transported as if by magic in a way
that eastern thought calls ‘heart to heart’ (the location of the spirit in these cul-
tures), which here in the west we have had the tendency to situate after having
mentalized, stripped of affect, in the brain.71
Radigue might be describing the dismantling of the traditionally

hierarchical roles of composer and performer, allowing for a more
cyclical flow of information between her and her collaborators.
However, it is also important to discuss the physical location of
Radigue’s collaborations, her Paris apartment, and the comfort and
routine it provides during the collaborative process, since many of
the interviewed performers mentioned the domestic situation with
Radigue as contributing significantly to the positive atmosphere of
their collaboration.
Charles Curtis describes this atmosphere at length in two different
publications, writing about how he essentially adopted Radigue’s per-
sonal schedule during their collaboration on Naldjorlak.72 While the
Occam Ocean collaborations tend to occur in shorter periods (one or
two days at a time instead years, in the case of Naldjorlak), performers
still enter Radigue’s personal space and adopt her schedule. Radigue’s
collaborators engage in niceties such as a ‘cup of tea, always a cup of
tea, and a bit of discussion’73 as well as rituals like ‘going to her apart-
ment and playing, having a beer, [taking] a nap on her couch and then
[playing] again’.74 In the case of Ryoko Akama, ‘one version [of the
piece] made [Radigue] really upset, and then she just said “we’ll get
out and then get some ice cream and come back”. And then I had
a really nice ice cream outside and came back, and [we were] really
happy again’.75 Angharad Davies says that she finds Radigue a ‘wel-
coming and friendly person, so it’s a very relaxed kind of atmosphere’,
and that the end goal of these collaborations is ‘not only about music,
but [also] about getting to know each other’.76 With such personal
pieces, it is essential that Radigue know the performers as well as
they know her and her music.
For Radigue, the primarily appeal of working in her apartment is
that it enables her to devote her energy entirely to creating, rather
than to traveling. Despite this, she is quick to mention that the way
she works is completely natural to her, no matter where she is. In
the few cases in which she has created Occam Ocean pieces outside
of her home, she does not feel that this has compromised the
71
Éliane Radigue, ‘Pour répondre à le demande de Julien’, in Portraits Polychromes no. 17, ed.
Daniel Teruggi et al (Paris: INA, 2013).
72
Curtis, ‘Éliane Radigue et Naldjorlak’, p. 95.
73
74
75
76

occam notions 33
collaborative process.77 For some performers, however, Radigue’s

home now represents a significant part of their mental preparation
when rehearsing or performing pieces. To Nate Wooley, Radigue’s
home is a space to which he can return mentally and emotionally dur-
ing a performance of his Occam Ocean piece. He comments that
when I play the piece now, I find myself thinking a lot about that space. That’s
the kind of relaxation, it’s not a meditative place for me, and it’s not like a quiet
serene garden kind of place, it’s like clutter-y apartment grandma-style warmth
kind of place.78
The interactions between Radigue and her collaborators are not only
warm and intimate, but also reciprocal, rather than hierarchical. Julia
Eckhardt says that ‘hospitality is part of it . . . there is no hierarchy . . .
it’s two way communication, it’s not just one way’.79 Robin Hayward
describes the situation as follows:
I often think about it as the head and the body, and how the head and the body
interact. So in this case the head is the composer, the body’s the performer with
the instrument. I think it’s much more of a feedback loop. And that’s actually
something I see as a problem in a lot of new music, that that feedback loop isn’t
working, or it’s a negative feedback loop, it’s blocked. Whereas with Éliane
Radigue it was certainly not blocked.80
In both Radigue’s concept of ‘heart to heart’ transmission and
Hayward’s views on composer–performer relationships, the composer
and performer are equated to the body and mind. Radigue places the
composer and performer on equal levels, speaking the same spiritual
language. Hayward instead discusses a relationship where the per-
former, the ‘body’, is allowed to provide feedback to the ‘head’, the
composer.
This equality between composer and performer in Radigue’s work
is enabled by the fact that she does not have an in-depth technical
knowledge of the instruments with which she works.81 According
to Charles Curtis, she ‘knows the heart better than she knows the
cello’.82 Traditionally, a composer might ask a performer to demon-
strate or experiment with particular instrumental techniques, but
this would ultimately result in the manipulation of these techniques
by the composer in the formation of a definitive written score. By cre-
ating her pieces in a way that allows the performer to be the expert on
their own instrument, and even to participate in choosing the struc-
ture of their piece via an agreed-upon image, Radigue embraces a
working method that relies on equal contributions from both the
composer and the performer.
Radigue’s and her collaborator’s individual processes add vital
humanity to the act of creation and contain an alternate model for
other composers. Radigue incorporates ‘heart’ into her collaborations
by graciously hosting performers in her own home, allowing for the
inclusion of daily ritual and hospitality in the compositional process.
Radigue’s practices erode the hierarchy found in traditional com-
poser–performer relationships, via both her deferral to performers
on matters of instrumental technique and her practice of beginning
collaborations with conceptual discussions guided by images that
bear an emotional significance to both Radigue and the performer.
77
78
79
Julia Eckhardt in conversation with the author, 3 August 2015.
80
Robin Hayward on in conversation with the author, 15 June 2015.
81
82
Charles Curtis in conversation with the author, 11 September 2015.

34 tempo
By asking performers to unlearn existing techniques rather than solely

adding new ones, she expands the range of what is possible with an
instrument. But, most importantly, the resultant music reflects this
tireless commitment by Radigue and her collaborators involved in
the creation of every performance. The sounds of Occam Ocean con-
tain deep gravitas, untold virtuosity, flights of sonic imagination
and, ultimately, a trio of hearts beating together: Radigue’s, in her
Paris apartment; the performer’s on stage, and, gradually synchroniz-
ing, the listener’s as we sink into the depths of this vast sonic ocean.
Appendix 1: List of solos, performers and premieres in Radigue’s Occam

Ocean series
OCCAM I for harp
Premiere: Rhodri Davies in London – Sound and Music Festival – 14/06/11
OCCAM II for violin
Premiere: Silvia Tarozzi in Bologna – Angelica Festival – 03/05/12
OCCAM III for birbynė
Premiere: Carol Robinson in Bologna – Angelica Festival – 03/05/12
OCCAM IV for viola
Premiere: Julia Eckhardt in Bologna – Angelica Festival – 03/05/12
OCCAM V for cello
Premiere: Charles Curtis in New York – Issue Project Room – 20/09/13
OCCAM VI for EMS synthesizer
Premiere: Thomas Lehn in Berlin – festival faithful!/Berghain – 12/10/12
-OCCAM VII for voice and electronics – Antye Greie-Ripatti
OCCAM VIII for cello
Premiere: Deborah Walker in Metz – FRAC Lorraine – 05/012/13
OCCAM IX for “digital spring spyre”
Premiere: Laetitia Sonami in San Francisco – Brava Theater – SFEMF2013 – 13/09/13
OCCAM X for trumpet
Premiere: Nate Wooley in New York – Issue Project Room – 24/10/14
OCCAM XI for tuba
Premiere: Robin Hayward in Bruxelles – Q-O2 – 5/12/14
-OCCAM XII for viola – Catherine Lamb
OCCAM XIII for bassoon
Premiere: Dafne Vicente-Sandoval in Glasgow – Tectonics Festival – 2/5/15
-OCCAM XIV for harp – Hélène Bréchand
-OCCAM XV
OCCAM XVI for bass clarinet
Premiere: Carol Robinson in Dundalk – Oriel Centre – 20/06/14
-OCCAM XVII for double bass – Dominic Lash
OCCAM XVIII for sub-bass recorder
Premiere: Pia Palme in Huddersfield – Beyond Pythagoras Symposium – 21/03/14
OCCAM XIX for five string double bass
Premiere: Louis-Michel Marion in Clermont-Ferrand – Festival des Musiques
Démesurées – 15/11/14

occam notions 35
OCCAM XX for electronics

Premiere: Ryoko Akama in Hudderfield – Huddersfield Contemporary Music
Festival – 22/11/14
OCCAM XXI for violin
Premiere: Angharad Davies in Mexico – Nieho #5–17/05/15
-OCCAM XXII for voice – Yannick Guédon
Appendix 2: Occam Ocean discography and media

Released
Radigue, Éliane. “Occam II”. Virgin Violin. Sylvia Tarozzi, violin. I Dichi Di
Angelica IDA028. 2014, compact disc.
Future Releases
OCCAM recording January 3–4, 2015 (Studio de Meudon)
OCCAM I for harp
OCCAM III for birbynė
OCCAM IV for viola
OCCAM RIVER I for birbynė and viola
OCCAM DELTA II for bass clarinet viola and harp
Carol Robinson, Julia Eckhardt, Rhodri Davies
shiiin 10, release date unknown

Occam Notions Collaboration and The Performers Perspective in Eliane Radigues Occam Ocean

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Occam Notions Collaboration and The Performers Perspective in Eliane Radigues Occam Ocean

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22 TEMPO 70 (275) 22–35 © 2015 Cambridge University Press

occam notions: collaboration

Abstract: After nearly 40 years of creating

In a recent concert of works from Éliane Radigue’s Occam Ocean series

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298215000601 Published online by Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298215000601 Published online by Cambridge University Press

all of their possible ensemble combinations could not be achieved

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298215000601 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Radigue felt that confronting the complexity and infinite variability of

Typical Transmission of an Occam Ocean Piece

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298215000601 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Upon arriving in Paris, most performers spend one to three days

The Virtuosity of Forgetting and Remembering

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298215000601 Published online by Cambridge University Press

‘searching for a maximum of concentration and exactitude’.36 At the

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298215000601 Published online by Cambridge University Press

instrument, and to achieve a high level of control over the instru-

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298215000601 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Images – either tangible or imagined – form an essential component

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298215000601 Published online by Cambridge University Press

image led to a composition that Radigue deemed external to the

While other composers have used images as scores, what makes

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298215000601 Published online by Cambridge University Press

fingerings and indicating which note is beating, notation is not suffi-

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298215000601 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Home is Where the Heart Is

Radigue might be describing the dismantling of the traditionally

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298215000601 Published online by Cambridge University Press

collaborative process.77 For some performers, however, Radigue’s

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298215000601 Published online by Cambridge University Press

By asking performers to unlearn existing techniques rather than solely

Appendix 1: List of solos, performers and premieres in Radigue’s Occam

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298215000601 Published online by Cambridge University Press

OCCAM XX for electronics

Appendix 2: Occam Ocean discography and media

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298215000601 Published online by Cambridge University Press

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