80 Facts About Claude Vivier

Between 1976 and 1977, Claude Vivier traveled to Egypt, Japan, Iran, Thailand, Singapore, and Bali, where he came under the influence of aspects of their respective traditional musics.

Claude Vivier is known for incorporating elements of serialism and dodecaphony, musique concrete, extended techniques, surrealism, traditional Quebecois folk songs, and more.

Claude Vivier used his personal experiences to advance an avant-garde style, having written multilingual vocal music and devising his so-called.

Claude Vivier is believed to have been born on 14 April 1948 in the vicinity of Montreal, Quebec, and was voluntarily placed in the orphanage of La Creche Saint-Michel the same day by his mother.

Claude Vivier would posit in later years that he was likely not of French Canadian heritage.

Claude Vivier searched his whole life in the hope of finding his birth parents, to no avail.

Claude Vivier was considered a mentally disabled child, as the nuns believed him to be "deaf and dumb".

Claude Vivier was adopted at the age of two-and-a-half by the working class Vivier family from Mile End, with parents Armand and Jeanne, and their two biological children.

The couple had suffered a miscarriage many years prior and were looking for a young girl to adopt, only to find each Montreal orphanage having just boys; it is unknown why Claude Vivier was chosen out of the many in Saint-Michel.

Claude Vivier was a charismatic and excitable child, but his time in the large and strictly Catholic Vivier household was fraught with incidents.

Claude Vivier is reported to have learned to speak at the age of six, before which the family considered sending him to a mental institution.

Claude Vivier revealed this to a priest during a routine confession, and the priest reportedly told the young Claude that he would not be forgiven unless he told his parents.

The family moved north to the suburb of Laval when Claude Vivier was nine or ten, and frequently migrated from house to house as they continued to struggle financially.

Claude Vivier already had effeminate manners, laughed loudly and behaved strangely.

At the age of thirteen, Claude Vivier's parents enrolled him in boarding schools run by the Freres Maristae, a French Catholic organisation that prepared young men for a vocation in the priesthood.

Claude Vivier recalled poetry being his favourite course, being especially fascinated with the works of the French poet Arthur Rimbaud and the Canadian poet Emile Nelligan.

Claude Vivier developed a strong interest in linguistics and historical literature, studying the mechanics of ancient Greek and Latin, which would later prove influential for his.

Claude Vivier's grades were ranked the highest in a class of thirty-four at the Juvenat Superieur Saint-Joseph, with a two-year average exam mark of eighty percent.

Claude Vivier's first documented poems, including Noel and the dada-inspired Not' petit bonheur, date from this period.

Claude Vivier discovered he was gay while attending classes and experiencing what he called "" towards his fellow male classmates.

Claude Vivier was expelled from the novitiate of Saint-Hyacinthe halfway through the school year; the reason given by the Freres Maristae being his "inappropriate behaviour" and a "lack of maturity", but it is generally accepted by music historians that Christian intolerance towards homosexuality was the legitimate reason.

Claude Vivier reportedly sobbed for hours after receiving the expulsion notice, believing his time with the Freres Maristae was the only time he was ever truly happy.

Claude Vivier's earliest known works date from this period, and he began to profit from his music around the same time; according to his adoptive sister Gisele, he gave music lessons to his peers and played piano accompaniment for the ballet school in nearby Ahuntsic in his early teens.

Claude Vivier developed an interest in the organ, searching for various churches in the Pont-Viau neighbourhood where he could practice and perform.

Claude Vivier is believed to have written a handful of songs for voice and piano, and several organ preludes before the age of twenty, nearly all of which have since been lost or destroyed.

Claude Vivier studied piano with Irving Heller, harmony and counterpoint with Isabelle Delorme, fugue with Francoise Aubut-Pratte, and composition with Gilles Tremblay.

Claude Vivier analyzed contrasting genres with his students, including Gregorian chant, and the music of Johannes Sebastian Bach and Alban Berg.

Claude Vivier began his first known romantic relationship in Montreal with a man named Dino Olivieri.

In 1971, following studies with Gilles Tremblay, Claude Vivier studied for three years in Europe, first with Paul Mefano at the Conservatoire de Paris, Gottfried Michael Koenig at the Institute for Sonology in Utrecht, and finally in Cologne with Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Claude Vivier had first heard Stockhausen's music after attending a 1968 concert of new music in Montreal, and was fascinated with the German composer's experimental approach to timbre.

Claude Vivier moved to Cologne hoping to take lessons with him, and was initially rejected.

Claude Vivier was strongly influenced by Stockhausen, and would often revere the composer as the greatest in music history.

Claude Vivier had a reputation among his classmates, often being teased and ridiculed for his disheveled, eccentric appearance and overt flamboyancy.

In spite of this, Claude Vivier did develop amicable relationships with some of his peers, including Gerard Grisey, fellow Quebecois Walter Boudreau, and Horatiu Radulescu.

Claude Vivier differed from his teacher and contemporaries like Pierre Boulez by continuing to use melody as the driving force of his compositions.

Claude Vivier had begun composing experimental electroacoustic music inspired by his first semester in Utrecht, all of which for tape.

Between 1972 and 1973, Claude Vivier dramatically shifted his musical language.

Claude Vivier had come to reject twelve-tone music as "too restrictive" and began furthering his own unique style.

Claude Vivier explored the possibilities of monody and homophony in his vocal works, and more confidently applied his and multilingual texts.

Claude Vivier once stated that Mahler was perhaps the musician who he had most in common with; Chopin and Mozart were two others he would relate himself to in terms of musical application.

In 1974, Claude Vivier returned to Montreal to begin establishing a career as a freelance composer in his home country after years of little to no recognition.

Claude Vivier took a job as an organ teacher for a local school, Galipeau Musique, to pay for the rent of his new inner-city apartment, but would continue to struggle financially as he readjusted to life in Quebec.

Claude Vivier took up other professorial and pedagogical jobs during this time, including at the College Montmorency in Laval, the Universite de Montreal, and the University of Ottawa.

Claude Vivier's teaching contract lasted for the seven months from October 1975 to April 1976, and was paid hourly at a rate of approximately $20.

From late 1976 to early 1977, Claude Vivier spent some time travelling to Egypt, Japan, Iran, Thailand, Singapore, and Bali to document the musicology of these regions.

Claude Vivier was inspired to write the piece after listening to two blind singers perform in the city's market square.

Claude Vivier wrote in the piece's program notes how he found Shiraz to be, "a pearl of a city, a diamond vigorously cut".

Claude Vivier visitied kabuki theatres in the Tokyo area and was struck by the ritual-like nature of both the music and physical performance.

Claude Vivier kept an incredibly detailed notebook where he wrote everything he had learned from local villagers, including an anatomical chart with various body parts labelled in Balinese.

Claude Vivier described his Bali trip as, "a lesson in love, in tenderness, in poetry and in respect for life".

Claude Vivier concluded his journey in Thailand in January 1977 and returned to Montreal, cutting the trip six months short of what he initially anticipated.

Claude Vivier wrote some pieces for the Quebec dance ensemble Le Groupe de la Palace Royale, including the ballets Love Songs and Nanti Malam, both showing the Balinese influence he would continue to retain.

In June 1982, Claude Vivier decided to temporarily relocate to Paris, believing he had exhausted all the orchestras and ensembles he could possibly be commissioned from in Canada.

Claude Vivier left most of his possessions behind and lived in a small apartment on rue du General-Guilhem in Paris's eleventh arrondissement, in the northeastern corridor of the city.

The relationship ended on 24 January 1983, when Claude Vivier found out Coe had another boyfriend in New York City.

Claude Vivier rushed to his friend, Philippe Poloni, who was staying in an apartment complex not far from his.

Poloni helped recompose Claude Vivier, but warned him of the many in the area who could trick him into being robbed again.

On Tuesday, Claude Vivier was scheduled to give a midday lecture with Belgian musicologist Harry Halbreich on the music of Quebec, at the Conservatoire de Paris.

Claude Vivier was known to lock himself away for weeks at a time when working on music, but he had never missed a scheduled meetings without informing anyone.

Claude Vivier found his apartment door locked, and received no response when she knocked repeatedly.

Claude Vivier was found stuffed between two mattresses, having been beaten, strangled, suffocated, and stabbed with a large dagger at least forty-five times, rendering him nearly unrecognizable.

Claude Vivier was stabbed with such force that the dagger penetrated the mattress in several areas and left blood spatter on the walls and ceiling.

Claude Vivier confessed to Vivier's murder, stating that he had strangled the composer with a dog collar and jammed a white handkerchief in his mouth to silence his screams.

Claude Vivier was charged for and found guilty of all three confirmed killings by Paris's cour d'assises and given the maximum possible sentence of life imprisonment in November 1986.

Claude Vivier was cremated at the Pere Lachaise Crematorium, and his ashes were transported to Montreal for burial.

Claude Vivier's ashes were placed in Laval's Salon Funeraire Dallaire.

Claude Vivier was best known among his friends and acquaintances for his extroverted personality, effeminate mannerisms, and distinctive laugh, described by some as being similar to the cackle of a hyena; or, "very loud and a bit creepy".

Claude Vivier similarly had the tendency to blurt and shout out various phrases and expletives seemingly at random, with some speculating he had a form of Tourette's syndrome.

Especially as his career was beginning, Claude Vivier was recalled by many to have had incredibly poor hygiene.

Claude Vivier was noted for wearing the same shearling coat nearly every day of his adult life, and growing out his greasy, long and unkempt hair.

Claude Vivier had various anxiety disorders and extreme nyctophobia; which would manifest in his adulthood as oftentimes giving himself a curfew before night fell, and regularly leaving a bedroom light on when going to sleep.

Claude Vivier announced the project to UNESCO music organisations and consulted Harry Halbreich for help with the libretto, but very little was completed in manuscript form and the opera was never staged.

Claude Vivier was especially attracted to the stereotypically muscular, leather-clad biker.

Claude Vivier wrote in a letter to Desjardins, "I've never before experienced racism and its animality so deeply in my skin", referring to the racism in France he perceived at the time.

Claude Vivier's music is very difficult to perform very well.

Claude Vivier is believed to have only forty-eight surviving compositions completed before his death.

Claude Vivier is considered to be one of the founders of spectral music, and is placed among the early group of pioneers referred to as the "German Feedback" group, alongside fellow composers and Stockhausen pupils including Peter Eotvos and Clarence Barlow.

Claude Vivier is considered one of the most important alumni of the Darmstadt school, in terms of his contribution to the postmodernist trend that flourished after his death.

Claude Vivier attempted to learn the official languages of all the countries he visited, and the influence of these languages, mostly of Asian origin, show up in the sound of his own.

Claude Vivier used a modified Latin script with diacritics to write out these sounds, but would occasionally borrow glyphs from other writing systems, including Cyrillic.