DELIRIUM and FORM: The Life and Music of Gérard Grisey

Le temps et l’écume was premiered on December 11, 1989, at the Maison de Radio France by the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, conducted by the American David Robertson. It was Robertson’s first in-depth engagement with spectral music. “I remember thinking, OK, this is complex stuff, let me go to the piano and play it,” he said. “There were thirteen notes in the first chord that starts the piece off, and I could only play three of them on an equally tempered piano. That left me feeling quite daunted.” Robertson had to accept that he would not be able to hear the music in his head before he gave the first downbeat. But he rehearsed with Grisey, whom he found “very calm, but very exacting,” and the premiere was a success. The concert was long and had too many new works, Robertson recalled, but the audience could tell that Le temps et l’écume “was a serious piece in the repertoire.”