Editing Jean Barraqué (section)

==Music and reputation==
Barraqué stated that he wrote about 30 works before those that he eventually acknowledged; as far as is known they were destroyed by him. They included a ''Nocturne'' and ''Mouvement lent'' for piano, at least three piano sonatas, a sonata for unaccompanied violin, and a [[symphony]] in C-sharp minor.{{sfn|Henrich|1997|loc=7–8}} The presumably fourth, but un-numbered Piano Sonata, for which he gave the date 1952, was his earliest acknowledged work. Barraqué then produced his only [[electronic music|electronic]] piece, the [[musique concrète]] ''Etude'' (1954), made at [[Pierre Schaeffer]]'s studio. Subsequently, he planned a large-scale cycle of pieces, ''La Mort de Virgile'', based on [[Hermann Broch]]'s [[novel]] ''[[The Death of Virgil]]'', a book which Barraqué's friend and sometime lover Michel Foucault recommended to him. This cycle, along with other pieces deriving from it or acting as commentaries upon it, he envisaged as his principal lifelong creative project. Following the scheme of the novel, it was to be divided into four sub-cycles: ''Water (The Arrival)'', ''Fire (The Descent)'', ''Earth (The Expectancy)'' and ''Air (The Return)''. Most of Barraqué's creative efforts went into the works which were to take their place in ''Fire (The Descent)'', which – to give an idea of the projected scope of the whole design – was to have consisted of thirteen works.<ref name="Halbreich 1987, 7">{{harvnb|Halbreich|1987|loc=7}}</ref> Before his death he completed two of the projected parts: ''Chant aprés chant'' (1966), and ''[[Le Temps restitué]]'' (1957/68). Fragments of some of the other parts exist.

Barraqué also wrote ''[[... Au delà du hasard]]'' (1958–59) for three female voices and ensemble, and a [[Concerto (Barraqué)|Concerto]] for clarinet, vibraphone and ensemble in 1962–68, which are related to ''The Death of Virgil'', but not actually part of that cycle. (''... Au delà du hasard'' is described as a commentary on ''Affranchi du hasard'', which was to have been the eleventh piece of ''Fire (The Descent)'' but was not actually composed.)<ref name="Halbreich 1987, 7"/> The only other extant piece by Barraqué is ''Séquence'' (1955–56), a setting of [[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche]] for soprano and ensemble which is partly a re-working of three songs for soprano and piano from the early fifties.<ref>The songs are published in {{harvnb|Henrich|1997|loc=illustr. 21–23}}.</ref>

Barraqué's use of [[tone row]]s in his work is quite distinctive. Rather than using a single tone row for an entire piece, as [[Anton Webern]] did, or using a number of related rows in one work, as [[Alban Berg]] or [[Arnold Schoenberg]] sometimes did, Barraqué starts by using one row, and then subtly alters it to get a second. This second row is then used for a while before being slightly altered again to make a third. This process continues throughout the work. He called this technique "proliferating series".{{sfn|Riotte|1987}}

[[Harry Halbreich]] has written that "Barraqué's whole work is marked by terrible despair, lightened by no religious or ideological faith, and entirely dominated by the great shadow of Death".<ref name="Halbreich 1987, 7" /> In 1998 the record company [[Classic Produktion Osnabrück|CPO]] issued his entire output on CD, in performances by the Austrian ensemble [[Klangforum Wien]].

The major reference work on his music in English is a biography entitled ''The Sea on Fire'' by the British music critic [[Paul Griffiths (writer)|Paul Griffiths]] (2003). In German, Heribert Henrich's book of 1997 is its complement. His music is now published by the German firm of [[Bärenreiter]].