Ivo Malec (1925-2019) was born in Zagreb, Croatia. In 1959, he settled in France and joined Pierre Schaeffer in what was to become the GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales) one year later. When he arrived in Paris, Malec was already a fully equipped composer with a number of works to his credit, including a piano sonata (1949), a cello sonata (1956) and a symphony (1951) as well as several vocal works. He however considers his works written after 1960 as his first mature compositions. His work at the GRM was to prove extremely fruitful for his later musical progress. On the one hand, it allowed him to expand his expressive palette considerably; and, on the other hand, it made him conscious of the expressive potential of sound, as an object, so to say. From 1960 onwards, he regularly composed either electro-acoustic pieces and works for live instruments and electronics, such as Lumina (1968) for strings and tape, Cantate pour elle (1966) for soprano, harp and tape and Attaca (1986) for percussion and tape, for which he is particularly well-known and highly regarded. However, he never ceased to compose for more traditional orchestral and instrumental forces. From Sigma (1963) onwards, his orchestral works benefited from his experience in electro-acoustic music. In fact, as a number of other composers at that time, he asked the question as to how electro-acoustic devices could satisfyingly transfer to orchestral music. His mature composing career was devoted to finding viable answers to that question. From Sigma onwards, a number of substantial orchestral pieces such as Oral (1967) for actor and orchestra, one of his greatest pieces, Lied (1969) for 18 voices and 39 strings as well as the works heard on this CD provide several possible answers.
Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
Artist biography from last.fm