Who but Éliane Radigue could work with sound as a medium seemingly in the air and environment itself; whose presence spanned every epoch of electronic music and contemporary acoustic composition quite like her? Radigue has died at 94, as reported today by her label and publisher.
Like many people, I heard the news from Scanner:
Farewell to French composer Éliane Radigue (1932-2026) who taught us the radical power of slowness, of patience, and attention stretched to the threshold of perception. Her work will continue to resonate—slowly, endlessly—like a tone that never quite fades.
— Robin Rimbaud – Scanner (@scannerdot.com) February 24, 2026 at 5:28 PM
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And from AGF; Antye found this reflection — see Antye’s work in THE LAPPETITES.
our beloved Eliane forever, eternal, elemental transitional vibration
— AGF 🎧 poemproducer (@poemproducer.bsky.social) February 24, 2026 at 5:42 PM
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There is too much to say, and so nothing to say.
But I appreciate especially what Louise Gray has written. To tease you into one whole piece among a lot of her work on Radigue, here’s an article opening (and a trace back to the heydey of the Voice):
In 1973, the American composer and new-music critic Tom Johnson wrote in The Village Voice of his experience of listening to Ψ 847, a new electroacoustic work by Éliane Radigue, during its New York premiere at The Kitchen. It was, Johnson said, as if sounds were “oozing” from the walls of the venue. Others seemed to be coming out of the ceiling. This strange, decentered sound—Radigue had pointed the loudspeakers toward the walls to create a web of sound waves that reflected from one surface to another—was for Johnson the source of a mesmerizing intimacy. How could Radigue, he asked of her compositional method, “accomplish . . . so much with so little”?1
It is a good question, and one still worth asking fifty years later. Radigue’s music is characterized by sounds that come into audibility with a practiced slowness and then, at the end, fade away into nothingness. Between these poles, a composition occurs in which many musical events unfold in carefully structured ways.
The Sound Before Sound: Éliane Radigue [Gagosian Quarterly]
And we have some exquisite portraits to reflect on. It seems like I just wrote about Radigue’s 90th birthday; that documentary is no longer available for free, but the music excerpts are still there.
IMA Portrait (French with English subtitles):
2019 interview with Ludger Brümmer at ZKM Karlsruhe (English):
And an interview in French from INA grm (2015?) conducted by Evelyne Gayou, which should start with if you can speak even a little, and should try to keep up even if you don’t, because it has a different cadence.
Or (2014?) with Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, conducted by Hans Ulrich Obrist in French. Truly, having interviewed a lot of people, I can think of few who light up with the energy that Radigue did — like a genuine ignition.
Condolences to all who worked with her as well as friends and family. Truly a loss to the world of sound.