Un Drame Musical Instantané (1976-2008)

Still active, initially formed by Jean-Jacques BIRGÉ, Bernard VITET and Francis GORGÉ, UN DRAME MUSICAL INSTANTANÉ has been giving a new impetus to live music on silent movies: 26 films at their repertoire since 1976, among which The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (Wiene), The Passion de Joan of Arc (Dreyer), The Man with the Camera (Vertov), Money (L'Herbier), La glace à trois faces and The Fall of House Usher (Epstein), the 5 episodes of Fantômas and The Vampires (Feuillade), The Strike (Eisenstein), The Wax Figure Cabinet (Leni), Håxan (Christensen), A propos de Nice (Vigo)... The band is also enthusiastic in music with literature : Edgar Poe, Michel Tournier and Jules Verne with Frank Royon LE MÉE, Le K by Dino Buzzati with Richard BOHRINGER, Michael LONSDALE or Daniel LALOUX, J'accuse by Émile Zola once again with R. Bohringer...
For its Hörspiels on radio or on stage (an opera bouffe on a libretto by Régis FRANC, a fairy play on the Péniche-Opéra...) and multimedia shows (live zapping on a wide screen, fireworks, ballets...) improvisation and previous composition merge, so with inventive electroacoustic treatments and traditional instruments to form evocative musical fictions they call music à propos (one could translate by music with a purpose, or music about).
Their recorded musical theatre contains not less than 17 albums (GRRR is distributed by Orkhêstra International).
From one album to another, from one show to another one, UN DRAME MUSICAL INSTANTANÉ is characterised by the collective aspect of their work, in trio from 1976 to 1992 with Francis GORGÉ (now sound and music designer and specialising in virtual reality multimedia production for the Briq society that he's founded), and also with their 15 piece orchestra, now being a duo since Gorgé has left, but performed most of the time with many artistic collaborators :
Steve ARGUELLES, Etienne AUGER, BALANESCU String Quartet, Michel BERTO, Richard BOHRINGER, Raymond BONI, Jean-Yves BOUCHICOT, Dee Dee BRIDGEWATER, Jean BRULLER (dit VERCORS), Michèle BUIRETTE, Lulla CARD, Kent CARTER, Jean-Louis CHAUTEMPS, Valentin CLASTRIER, Denis COLIN, François CORNELOUP, Lol COXHILL, Pablo CUECO, Benoît DELBECQ, Philippe DESCHEPPER, Agnès DESNOS, Frédéric DURIEU, André DUSSOLLIER, Pierre FAVRE, Luc FERRARI, Brigitte FONTAINE, Régis FRANC, Jean GAUDIN, Annie GIRARDOT, Bruno GIRARD, Vinko GLOBOKAR, Michel GODARD, le Groupe de Recherche Chorégraphique de l'Opéra de Paris, Michel HOUELLEBECQ, Eric HOUZELOT, l'Ensemble de l'Itinéraire, Lors JOUIN, György KURTAG, Daniel LALOUX, Mireille LARROCHE, Joëlle LÉANDRE, Youenn LE BERRE, Murielle LEFEVRE, Michael LONSDALE, René LUSSIER, Jean-Marie MADDEDDU, Colette MAGNY, Didier MALHERBE, Massimo MATTIOLI, Youval MICENMACHER, Etienne MINEUR, Jacques MONORY, Alain MONVOISIN, Michel MUSSEAU, DJ NEM, le Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique, Bulle OGIER, Guy PANNEQUIN (Macloma), Didier PETIT, Claude PiÉPLU, Yves PRIN, Jean QUERLIER, Luis REGO, Michael RIESSLER, Yves ROBERT, Frank ROYON LE MÉE, Hélène SAGE, Karine SAPORTA, Raymond SARTI, Antoine SCHMITT, Louis SCLAVIS, Gérard SIRACUSA, Marie-Christine SOMA, TAMIA, Henri TEXIER, Michel TOURNIER, Luigee TRADEMARQ, François TUSQUES, Brigitte VÉE, Martine VIARD, Boris de VINOGRADOV, Kate WESTBROOK, Carlos ZINGARO...
Working together daily for 32 years, BIRGÉ et VITET are now writing songs and film music. Rebels and dreamers, they are very excited by multimedia which allows new forms of musical composition and interpretation.

Main creations :
Long series of poisons (first years)
Rideau! (discours de la méthode)
The Hole by Edgar A. Poe
U.S.A. le complot, La Peur du Vide, Ecarlate (Hörspiels)
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Passion of Joan of Arc, The Fall of House Usher, The Mysterious X, Fantomas, The Vampires, Potemkin, Strike, Nosferatu, Money (3h20), Waxworks, Witchcraft through the Ages (Haxan), Planète Lumière, etc (21 films in trio and quatuor)
Man with a Movie Camera, A propos de Nice, La glace à trois faces (3 films with the 15 piece orchestra of Un d.m.i. + original repertoire)

Music for pour fire organ and orchestra (organ built by Vitet)
La Bourse et la vie (Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, dir.Yves Prin)
Contrefaçons (harmony orchestra)
La Fosse (opera bouffe)
Le Chateau des Carpathes by Jules Verne (cantata on fire)
45 secondes départ arrêté et Féeries Jacobines (firewoks)
20 000 Leagues Under the Sea (magic show and museum on two barges)
Zappeurs-Pompiers 1 and 2 (live zapping on a wide screen)
J'accuse by Emile Zola (R. Bohringer, D. Fonfrède, A. Madani, 70 musicians, scenary by R. Sarti)
Jeune fille qui tombe... tombe by Dino Buzzati (talking oratorio)
Le K by Dino Buzzati (talking opera, R. Bohringer and D. Laloux, scenary R.Sarti)
Kind Lieder (songs)
Let My Children Hear Music by Charlie Mingus
Crasse-Tignasse (songs for children)
Sarajevo Suite (collective)
Il était une fois la fête foraine (scenary by R. Sarti)
At the Circus with Seurat (CD-Rom with Hyptique)
Machiavel (techno live, and CD-Rom with A.Schmitt)
Arles (Birgé Vitet Petit Echampard)

Bernard VITET

After a long career as a trumpetist Bernard VITET is today devoting himself essentially to composition.

He belonged to the first free jazz band in France with François TUSQUES, to the first meeting between jazz and contemporary music with Bernard PARMEGIANI, created the Unit with Michel PORTAL, he accompanied Serge GAINSBOURG, BARBARA, Yves MONTAND, Claude FRANÇOIS, Brigitte BARDOT, Marianne FAITHFULL, Colette MAGNY et Brigitte FONTAINE, he played with greatest jazzmen from Lester YOUNG to Archie SHEPP, from Antony BRAXTON to Don CHERRY, from Chet BAKER to the ART ENSEMBLE DE CHICAGO, from Steve LACY to Gato BARBIERI, from Jean-Luc PONTY to Martial SOLAL In his early years he was lucky enough to perform with Django REINHARDT, Gus VISEUR, Eric DOLPHY, Albert AYLER... One evening he even replaced Miles DAVIS in the "Dream Quintet" !

Under his own name he recorded La guêpe on texts by Francis Ponge, Mehr Licht ! , and more than 200 other records with the those mentionned above and also Jean-Claude FOHRENBACH, Georges ARVANITAS, Sonny MURRAY, Michel PASCAL, Alan SILVA, Alex von SCHLIPPENBACH, Hubert ROSTAING, Alix COMBELLE, Yvan JULLIEN, Christian CHEVALIER, Jef GILSON, Jack DIÉVAL, Jac BERROCAL... and of course UN DRAME MUSICAL INSTANTANÉ.

He invented instruments such as a the reed trumpet, the variable tension double-bass, the dragoon, which is a giant balafon with frying pans and flower pots keyboard, a clever system of modal clocks, and astonishing musical objects for Georges APERGHIS, TAMIA, Françoise ACHARD... Bernard VITET also sings, plays Flugel horn, French horn, piano and violin.

Before meeting Jean-Jacques BIRGÉ and Francis GORGÉ with whom he founded UN DRAME MUSICAL INSTANTANÉ in 1976, he composed theatre music for Jean-Marie SERRAULT and film music : Les coeurs verts by Édouard LUNTZ, L'ombre de la pomme by Robert LAPOUJADE (with Jean-Louis CHAUTEMPS), Bof by Claude FARALDO (in collaboration with Jean GUÉRIN), Le bourreau by Jean-Denis BONAN...

During these last yeras, he composes essentially in collaboration with Jean-Jacques BIRGÉ (songs, music for films, etc.). Their main last albums are Carton by BIRGÉ-VITET and Machiavel by UN D.M.I., both are CD and CD-Rom.

Jean-Jacques BIRGÉ

See the News in Journal du Drame : Nouvelles du front, Birgé's full updated bio and his blog (this one only in French).

Until 2000 he has spent most of his time with UN DRAME MUSICAL INSTANTANÉ.

Author, specialist of synthesis instruments in real time, sound engineer, he considers himself more as a film maker for the ears than as a music composer. He is actually the most famous multimedia sound designer in France.

Beside his own work as multimedia author for CD-Roms CARTON, MACHIAVEL, ALPHABET, Jean-Jacques Birgé has composed the music or realised the sound design of a lot of CD-Roms, web sites and modern art installations : "At the circus with Seurat" (RMN-Seuil), the collection "Fenetre sur l'Art" (RMN-Vilo-Arte), all Cahiers "Passeport" (Hachette), "Europrix 98" (Nofrontiere), "AZ" and "Firmenich" both Dauphin d'or at Communica (Lux Modernis), "La Tendresse" (Cacharel), "DVD-Rom Le Louvre" (RMN-Montparnasse Multimédia), "Le Grand Jeu" (Buchet/Chastel), "Sethi" (Montparnasse Multimédia), "Mr Men" (Hyptique), Adidas, Nike, Numer (sites), etc. He actually works with Hyptique, surletoit, incandescence, flyingpuppet and LeCielEstBleu.

His film studies (IDHEC) led him to film music : Patrick BARBÉRIS, Luc BARNIER, Igor BARRÈRE and Etienne LALOU, Dominique BELLOIR, Dominique CABRÉRA, Pierre DESGRAUPES, Tom DRAHOS, Serge DUVAL, Michèle LARUE, Bernard MALLATERRE, Pierre MORIZE, François REICHENBACH, Françoise ROMAND, Jacques ROUXEL, Raoul SANGLA, Miroslav SEBESTIK, Richard UGOLINI, Daniel VERDIER, Michaëla WATTEAUX, La Cité des Sciences de La Villette, La Cinémathèque ALBERT KAHN... And to produce sense (meaning) in company of Jane BIRKIN, Noel BURCH, Marie-Jésus DIAZ, Bernard-Pierre DONNADIEU, André DUSSOLLIER, Annie ERNAUX, Jean-André FIESCHI, Annie GIRARDOT, Claude GUERRE, Ludmila MIKAËL, Raymond SARTI, Michel SÉMÉNIAKO, Claude THIÉBAUT, André VELTER...

He shot his first movie, La nuit du phoque , in 1974, and recorded his first LP, Défense de, with BIRGÉ-GORGÉ-SHIROC (GRRR 1001), in the next year. Both have been reissued in 2004 (cd+dvd).

Successively musical director for Editions Ducaté literary cassettes, label AUVIDIS (traditional music, ambient music), Sarajevo Suite CD in benefit of the rebuilding of the National Library in Sarajevo (compositions by Un D.M.I. interpreted by Dee Dee BRIDGEWATER and BALANESCU String Quartet), in Arles (Rencontres de la Photo), Maore singer BACO, and for many exhibitions (Il était une fois la fête foraine at the Grande Halle de La Villette, The Extraordinary Museum in Japan, at the PASS in Belgium with Antoine Denize, in Amsterdam with Mark Madel, Jours de Cirque in Monaco...). He also plays and records with writers and poets, such as André VELTER, and 2 CDs with Michel HOUELLEBECQ, Le sens du combat and Établissement d'un ciel d'alternance.

Since 1993 he's been coming back to film making with Idir-Johnny Clegg a cappella (Vis à Vis), 11 episodes of Sarajevo: A Street Under Siege (British Academy Award of Films and TV Arts 1993, Locarno Festival Jury Award 1995), The Sniper (a short feature movie made in Sarajevo during the siege and shown in 1000 cinemas in France and abroad).

His last show, Somnambules, features painter Nicolas CLAUSS and musicians such as Pascale LABBÉ (singer), Didier PETIT (cello), Étienne BRUNET (sax, bagpipes), Éric ÉCHAMPARD (drums). In 2006, he creates interactive installation Les Portes with Nicolas Clauss, and Nabaz'mob, an opera for 100 smart rabbits with Antoine SCHMITT.

You can find a complete biography and pictures on Birgé's personal page.

Discography of the Drama

TROP D'ADRÉNALINE NUIT. 1977 (lp GRRR 1002)
RIDEAU ! 1980 (lp GRRR 1004)
PAS DE CADEAU. 1981 (in lp DeQualité 251281)
A TRAVAIL ÉGAL SALAIRE ÉGAL. 1982 (lp GRRR 1005)
UNDER THE CHANNEL. 1983 (in lp United Dairies 015, England)
LES BONS CONTES FONT LES BONS AMIS. 1983 (lp GRRR 1006)
L'UNIFORME. 1984 (in mc Unique 01)
L'HOMME A LA CAMÉRA. 1984 (lp GRRR 1007)
DAS KABINETT DES DOKTORS CALIGARI. 1985 (in mc Bad Alchemy 4, Germany)
CARNAGE. 1985 (lp GRRR 1010)
FRENCH RESISTANCE. 1986 (in lp Dry Lungs 2, U.S.A.)
INTERVIEW. 1986 (in mc Planeta 7)
FEAR OF VACANCY. 1987 (in mc BST 007, Japan)
DON'T LOCK THE CAGE. 1987(in lp Dry Lungs 3, U.S.A.)
L'HALLALI. 1987 (cd GRRR 2011)
SOUS LES MERS. 1988 (cd GRRR 2012)
DER FALSCHE MANN. 1989 (in mc Out Of Depression, Germany)
QUI VIVE ? 1989 (cd GRRR 2015)
LE FUTUR ABYSSAL. 1990 (in cd La Légende des Voix 03)
LE K. 1990 (cd GRRR 2016)
PALE DRIVER KILLED BY A SWALLOW ON A COUNTRY ROAD. 1991 (in cd Dry Lungs 4, U.S.A.)
LE FOND DE L'AME EFFRAIE : AIR CUT. 1991 (in mc Atomic Zen, Dedali Opera)
NORTH EATING SOUTH STARVING. 1991 (in lp NOY 02, Portugal)
JEUNE FILLE QUI TOMBE... TOMBE. 1991 (cd ADDA 590074)
KIND LIEDER. 1991 (cd GRRR 2017)
RIEN NE VA PLUS. 1992 (in cd Dry Lungs 5, U.S.A.)
UTOPIE STANDARD. 1992 (in cd VISA UFO16)
URGENT MEETING. 1992 (cd nml/GRRR 2018, Germany)
OPÉRATION BLOW UP. 1992 (cd GRRR 2020)
MUSICA PER DIMAGRIRE. 1993 (in cd Museo Immaginario 053, Italy)
ZAPPEURS-POMPIERS 2. 1993 (in cd Journal de Bord 38e Rugissants, ED13027)
LE K. 1993 (cd Unidisc-Zéro de Conduite U310040 & mc U2200)
CRASSE-TIGNASSE. 1993 (cd Unidisc-Zéro de Conduite U310043 & mc U2204)
SARAJEVO SUITE. 1994 (in cd l'empreinte digitale ED13039)
IL ÉTAIT UNE FOIS LA FÊTE FORAINE. 1995 (cd Auvidis-Tempo A6217)
¡VIVAN LAS UTOPIAS! 1996 (in cd Buenaventura Durruti, Nato 777 733)
CARTON. 1997 (cd Audio/ROM GRRR 2021)
L'INSTABLE / SO DEEP. 1998 (in cd CMG 4 Cez 4015)
AU FIL DU TEMPS. 1998 (cd/book Corbeil 91100)
WIT. 1999 (in enhanced-cd "Enhanced Gravity", Yucca Tree, Switzerland)
UN PETIT TOUR. 1999 (cd by Aki ONDA, All Access 007, Japan)
MACHIAVEL. 1999 (cd Audio/ROM GRRR 2023)
TROP D'ADRENALINE NUIT. 2001 (cd GRRR 2024, reissue + bonus track)
C'EST LE BOUQUET ! 2007 (cd to be downloaded with Sextant Magazine)

Without title. 1982 (Antène 1, Emmanuelle K, 10')
Without title. 1990 (Aujourd'hui en France, Didier Ranz, 5')
J'ACCUSE. 1991 (Ch. Gomila, 61')

Another site on Un Drame Musical Instantané, Assez Vu, by Francis Gorgé et Dominique Meens. You can listen to several whole pieces there !
Many videos with Un D.M.I. are now online on YouTube, DailyMotion or Vimeo.