Georges Raillard is a unique artist with many talents and a singular vision for the creative arts. He is perhaps most studied in languages, an area which he has spent many years working as a translator, writer, and educator. But he is formidable as a composer. Though his musical works are meticulous and thoughtfully structured, the inventive spark comes not from an overwrought academicism but is kindled from an inborn sense for sound and the desire to give form to the artistic feeling itself.
Raillard’s works frequently have a poetic or literary connection, sometimes implicit but often explicit. The composer’s own short stories find musical counterparts in his compositions. This gives one the feeling that both pieces, the musical and the literary, point to some greater artistic truth, that this truth could take myriad shapes whether in sound or words or something else altogether, a single intention rising from the depths taking whatever form necessary to communicate.
Simple but evocative titles seem to inform both the creative as well as the experiential process of Raillard’s works. Disintegration, Pacemaker, Fading Sounds - all discover a direct link between language and sound. Raillard’s clarity in delineating the more obvious, even literal connections makes one wonder about the more obscure titles - Stray Thoughts, Diverging Spirits, The Labyrinth of Silence, Measuring Clouds - Raillard manages to give the impression that there is a concrete reality behind words that appear only poetic. This is all the more curious given the composer’s own feelings about the musical-literary connection of his own work. He writes, “The melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic guitar pieces… are musical constructs and in no way reflect the concepts and ideas expressed by their titles. The titles were added only after the pieces were finished, relating their moods and atmospheres to landscapes, experiences, memories, and thoughts.” These words, an echo of Stravinsky and other like-minded practitioners of absolute music, read like a legal disclaimer from a film-maker seeking absolution from lawsuits brought by individuals that the film is obviously based on. And yet, Raillard recognizes a post-hoc evaluation of the related moods and atmospheres the music evokes. Experiences, memories, and thoughts… quite to the point regarding the profundity of the ephemeral connections found in Raillard’s work, the realness of feelings and abstractions made solid in sound. Perhaps musical constructions are just constructions even if they do incidentally relate moods and atmospheres. Raillard’s own remarks call to mind many far eastern parables on emptiness and dualism: a chair is never just a chair, nor is it otherwise.
Performing “The Labyrinth of Silence” in the Basler Papiermühle, Basel (Switzerland)
The range of subjects in Raillard’s work is wide. Within the context of the composers collected works, what at first appears simplistic soon becomes profound. Lighthouse, Cut Flowers, Patio - all simple nouns, ordinary objects and mundane descriptors. But after reading In Search of Release from Searching and listening to its companion piece, He Burst Out Laughing - a story that begins “In search of the meaning of life…” and continues to describe in turn, the answer in a mathematical formula scrawled upon a paper scrap discovered in a dustbin, the struggle to find meaning, the eagerness and willingness of the masses to adopt beliefs without real understanding, the subsequent emptiness of disillusionment, a realization the scrap was just one of many in the dustbin, then a burst of laughter, and the enlightenment in rejecting system itself - a two page story in which every word counts and the real meanings are between each line. One must revisit Raillard’s simple nouns: is a lighthouse more than just a lighthouse? Then again, nor is it otherwise, maybe a patio is just a patio.
Raillard’s music can be minimalist in approach, repetitive with readily detectable processes at play. His music can be terse, relentless, and unforgiving with unflappable courage and integrity, committed to its own internal logic and never yielding to the opulent temptations of lavish orchestration or Romantic gesture for its own sake. Yet triads abound and at times one even hears the guitar’s ancestral Spain as articulated by Granados or Albeniz, rising to the surface as in sections of Coastal Rhapsody. The appearance of a portamento, rubato, a rolled seventh chord, homophony - all of which make Georges’ music uniquely familiar and comfortable but none of which betray it’s rational coherence, clarity of architecture, or compositional precision. If the process of the musical construction demands that a minor ninth or a tritone dispel the tonal illusion, so it is and so it must be.
A video by Andreas Pfiffner featuring the music of Raillard. I recorded his piece, “Fiebrige Vereisung” on both acoustic and electric guitars and Andreas used bits of each for his film.
I first encountered the music of Georges Raillard in 2015 when I was asked to record his Sinking Islands, a three movement piece for solo guitar that is characteristically Raillard, a mix of melody, texture, intervallic and rhythmic developmental processes, construction, and sonority. I learned this piece was not an anomaly but that the composer indeed had a distinct voice when I recorded a collection of his works the following year. I have since recorded several pieces and a second volume of collected works. I also have in my possession a score for guitar and narrator which I find very intriguing as it is the most literal union of Georges’ modes of expression, music and words. I hope to bring this piece to life soon as well.
Over the years, I have maintained a correspondence with Georges both about music and life and I have gotten to know an interesting person. I was grateful to spend a week in Basel, Switzerland where Georges lives with his wife Pilar - the most gracious of hosts, they showed me Basel from the inside out. Pilar spoke Spanish to me, for my benefit she spoke slowly so that I could digest and decipher her words, and to some degree I succeeded. Georges, most native in German but also a fluent Spanish speaker, would translate my English a bit for Pilar. Although language posed a barrier, their warmth and kindness was palpable. I can remember well seeing the city, the art, the traditional foods, of course- Pilar’s cooking, and a concert (Messiaen’s Turangalila, a chaotic and brilliant work, which, for the first time, gave me a surprising revelation about the significance of Futurama’s one-eyed, mutant, orphan character Turanga Leela, a funny takeaway from a work by one of music’s great geniuses, certainly not one the composer would have intended but nonetheless I was pleased to realize the depth of this cartoon). I am lucky to know and work with so many composers and to record and premiere their music. Georges is front among these, I perform Georges’ guitar music frequently in concert and I will continue to encourage him to produce more and to bring forth more music into this world. He has expressed an interest in electric guitar, something I’m very curious about trying with his music. It seems only natural that a composer so oriented around sonority would find the possibilities of that instrument intriguing. Perhaps I will find myself again at a late night table chatting about life and music, listening to jazz - Duke Ellington with Johnny Hodges in particular, one of Pilar’s favorites as I recall- and creating more music with this wonderful and thoughtfully insightful composer.
with Georges in Basel, Switzerland
with Pilar, Georges’ wife, strolling the Rhine
Click an album to explore more of Georges Raillard’s music
Visit Georges’ website: www.georges-raillard.net
Read more about Georges on Navona’s site: www.navonarecords.com/artists/georges-raillard