Paul Méfano - Involutive... (1959) pour petite clarinette mib

Gleb Kanasevich - E-flat clarinet Méfano's compositional style has evolved considerably from his early serial work Incidences (1960) down to recent compositions which make extensive use of microtones, such as Speed (2000). His early serial style is clearly under the influence of Boulez, but the ardour of his employment of these traits "confounds the crystalline, the mirror-like and with it all suggestion of musical geometry" (Pugin 2000, 15). He has an essentially poetic conception of music, reflected in a lifelong interest in poets and poetry (Pugin 2000, 16). This is manifested especially in his treatment of instrumental color and in his vocal writing. He also has a special feeling for drama, as manifested in La cérémonie. At the beginning of the 1970s he experimented with electronics (La messe des voleurs), and with its real-time combination with instruments. Though he has shown interest in the music of the spectralist composers, his own compositions are not at all similar, and today he is regarded as a "post-spectralist" composer (Pugin 2001, 38). Many of his works explore and develop contemporary techniques for the flute, such as in Captive, Eventails, Gradiva, Traits suspendus, or Ensevelie. His earliest works (Trois chants crépusculaires) maintain links with tonality, to which he returned in Micromégas. Since this work he has remained faithful to serial technique (Drake 2001).