Maurice Ohana

Ohana, Maurice (b Casablanca, 12 June 1913; d Paris, 13 Nov 1992). French composer of Spanish descent. One of the leading independent figures in French music during the second half of the 20th century. 1. Background. 2. Achievement. WORKS WRITINGS BIBLIOGRAPHY CAROLINE RAE Ohana, Maurice 1. Background. Throughout his life Ohana claimed to have been born in 1914. By his own declaration he was plagued by superstitions, particularly concerning the number 13: there is a certain irony, therefore, in the date of his death. Ohana was described by Gide as a French Joseph Conrad. The intriguing parallel highlights the unusual complexity of Ohana’s cultural origins which, like those of the Ukrainian-born Pole, were different from his bureaucratic national identity. Both Ohana and Conrad were British citizens. (Ohana took French nationality in 1976.) Born in French, colonial Morocco into a family of Spanish origins (Gibraltarian-Andalusian on his father’s side and Andalusian-Castilian on his mother’s), Ohana inherited his British citizenship from his father. The southern culture from which he stemmed reaches beyond the political boundaries of any one country; hence in later life he spoke more of cultural roots and geographical influence than of nationality. As in many Gibraltarian families, English was spoken in the Ohana household, as well as Spanish, while French was, by necessity, Ohana’s language of education and training. He remained trilingual, publishing writings and conducting interviews in all three languages. Describing himself as Spanish by birth and upbringing but French by training and adoption, he had much in common with the stream of Spanish musicians, artists and writers who migrated north to Paris to exploit their cultural heritage. His cultural complexity contributed to the relative neglect of his music in the Anglo-Saxon world. In France, where fascination with the exotic and acceptance of the eclectic are long established, his music has enjoyed a position of eminence since his emergence as a composer in the 1950s. He received numerous prizes and distinctions throughout his lifetime. Cosmopolitan in upbringing, he spent his youth in Morocco, Spain and the Basque region, and became familiar with Spanish folk music from an early age. He learnt many legends and dances of Spain, as well as repertory from the chanson de geste to the zarzuela from his mother, while his Andalusian-gypsy nurse

nurtured him into the tradition of the cante jondo. His musical gifts were recognized early, and he gave his first public piano recital at the age of 11, the programme including Chopin’s Study op.10 no.5 and Beethoven’s op.13 Sonata. Soon after, he enrolled at the Bayonne Conservatoire, where he studied until 1931 as a pupil of Ermend Bonnal. Before the age of 18 he had publicly performed all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas, though as a mature composer he did not remember the experience fondly, feeling ill at ease with music belonging to the Austro-German tradition. Another teacher, Jéhanne Pâris, organist at Ste Eugénie in Biarritz, led him to discover many works, including the quartets of Debussy and Ravel, which remained important to him. He took the baccalauréat in 1932 and went to Paris the same year, originally to study architecture. Following two years at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, he entered the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Decoratifs in 1934. He met Mallet Stephens and visited the workshop of Le Corbusier. Against his father’s wishes he continued his musical training, studying piano with Lazare-Lévy and later with Frank Marshall. In 1936 he abandoned his architectural studies and devoted himself solely to the career of a pianist, giving his Paris début recital in February 1936 at the Salle Pleyel. Of mammoth proportions, the programme clearly revealed his instinctive cultural alignment and included works by Scarlatti, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Ravel and Albéniz. Before the war he played in many European cities (including London), and he performed Falla’s Noches en los jardines de España at the Salle Gaveau with the Lamoureux Orchestra and Eugène Bigot in both 1937 and 1938. Despite his success as a pianist, he was increasingly drawn to composition and made his first sketches at this time. Feeling the need to extend the scope of his musical training he enrolled at the Schola Cantorum in 1937 and studied for three years with Daniel-Lesur. His studies in counterpoint, plainsong and the medieval and Renaissance repertory, characteristic of the Schola, proved a lasting influence on his musical language and vocal style. An earlier chance meeting with the flamenco dancer and singer La Argentinita (Encarnación Júlvez López) in October 1936 had encouraged him to look to his Spanish origins as the catalyst in developing a compositional style. Already an established artist closely associated with Lorca and his circle, La Argentinita was famed not only for her Ballet Espagnol and revival of traditional Spanish folk music but also her collaborations with Falla. Together with the guitarist Ramón Montoya, Ohana and La Argentinita formed a trio and made a tour of Spain and northern Europe that included appearances at the Salle Pleyel and the Arts Theatre Club in London. Some of Ohana’s first works were composed for La Argentinita, although most he subsequently destroyed or withheld from publication. Through her he became acquainted with many of the leading figures in ballet at the time, these contacts resulting in several commissions for ballet scores during the 1950s. As a further encouragement to draw on Spanish subjects, La Argentinita

gave Ohana the manuscript of Lorca’s poem Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías which he set for baritone, narrator, chorus and orchestra in 1950. Throughout this early period, Ohana became increasingly fascinated with improvised folk music traditions, including not only Spanish folk music and the jazz he heard in Paris, but African tribal music. When visiting his home in Casablanca, he travelled into the Atlas mountains to seek out the indigenous berbers, sometimes participating in their tribal ceremonies. He absorbed much about their means of improvisation and learned many of their choral songs and microtonal melodies. He also discovered sub-Saharan African music, the rhythmic processes of which proved a decisive influence on his compositional development. He continued to make journeys to Africa, north and south of the Sahara, until 1965. Although he published some studies of Spanish folk-music, most of his research was intended more for compositional than musicological purposes. The cross-fertilizations between Spanish and African musics and culture became an enduring fascination, African and Afro-Cuban rhythmic patterns and drumming techniques providing a stimulus to which his fullest response came in the works of his last decade, most notably his final work, Avoaha (1991). Ohana, Maurice 2. Achievement. Ohana’s real beginnings as a composer were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. Fleeing France in 1940 via Portugal, he joined the British Army and saw active service in Africa, Madagascar, Greece and Italy. During periods of military inactivity he absorbed himself in the five scores he carried in his pack throughout his army life: Falla’s El retablo de maese Pedro and Harpsichord Concerto, Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and Nocturnes, and Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand. Holding a commission in the Intelligence Corps, he found himself in 1944 in Rome, where he joined Casella’s piano class at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. His first published works, ‘Enterrar y Callar’ (Trois caprices) and the Sonatine monodique, both for piano, date from this period. Shortly after the cessation of hostilities he gave a recital at the Institut Français in Naples and there met Gide, who was impressed by his interpretations of Chopin. They remained in contact until Gide’s death, and Ohana assisted on Gide’s Notes sur Chopin. Following demobilization in 1946 Ohana settled permanently in Paris and devoted himself increasingly to composition, gradually winding down his performing activities. Developing a musical language based on plainsong, techniques of early counterpoint, rhythmic processes derived from African tribal music, and melodic features from Spanish folk music, Ohana was not attracted to the new serialism of his contemporaries. He declared his fierce independence from Austro-German traditions by

founding the Groupe Zodiaque in 1947 along with two other students of Daniel-Lesur, Alain Bermat and Pierre de la ForestDivonne. They were joined in 1948 by Sergio de Castro, a former pupil of Falla, and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, then studying with Nadia Boulanger. The group, which mounted concerts on French Radio and at the Salle Gaveau from 1947 to 1950, rejected not only the tyranny of serialism and the neo-Romanticism of La Jeune France but all aesthetic dogma, advocating instead a reassessment of their respective folk music traditions and plainsong as the basis for an organic musical language that should avoid any elaborate precompositional system. Ohana’s conscious distancing of himself from Darmstadt resulted in exclusion from the concerts of the Domaine Musical, which in turn contributed to his neglect in the United Kingdom. Sympathetic to the independent standpoint of the Zodiaque composers, the positions both Dutilleux and Daniel-Lesur held at French radio were crucial in providing a platform for the group’s music. Although Zodiaque had disintegrated by 1950, Ohana kept his association with French radio and worked for a short time with Pierre Schaeffer; he incorporated electronic tape in several works, most notably in Sibylle (1968) where it is combined with soprano and percussion. Many of Ohana’s works of the 1950s draw on Spanish subjects and texts, or allude to forms borrowed from Spanish folk music. His setting of Lorca’s Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías owes much to the timbral acidity of Falla and includes an orchestral harpsichord. Together with Cantigas, based on the monodies of Alfonso el Sabio, these were his first important large-scale works, and show his growing predilection for the voice. Tiento alludes to the traditional Spanish form associated with the guitar, while the guitar concerto Trois graphiques, Si le jour paraît… and the Trois caprices are based on engravings by Goya. While Spanish influences continued to emerge in certain mature works, notably the first cello concerto, Anneau du Tamarit, and the opera La Célestine, they were absorbed into a more homogeneous, if widely eclectic musical language that includes elements of jazz, AfroCuban music, and Chinese and Japanese theatre music. His melodic parallelism and colouristic view of harmony as timbre, or sound mass, owes much to Debussy and has parallels in Varèse, just as his superimposed layers of ostinatos in aleatory counterpoint owe much to Stravinsky and have parallels in Lutosławski. His first incorporations of African and Afro-Cuban rhythmic patterns appear in the percussion ballet Etudes chorégraphiques, but were more fully developed in the layering techniques of the percussion concertos Synaxis and Silenciaire, and more freely adapted in certain vocal works, particularly Cris, Lys de madrigaux and the Mass. As a result of the stylistic and technical experimentation prompted by Ohana’s many commissions for incidental music in the 1950s and early 1960s, the middle 1960s marked a stylistic watershed and witnessed the emergence of his mature style. The Quatre

improvisations for flute seek to recreate the spontaneity of improvisation, while Tombeau de Claude Debussy for soprano, piano, zither and orchestra, takes as its point of departure several piano works of Debussy and makes use of a coordinated system of third-tones, created by subdividing each interval of either wholetone scale into three (see ex.1); the third-tone-tuned zither was thenceforth a recurrent feature of his music. The first string quartet, Cinq séquences, includes sections of aleatory counterpoint, and Si le jour paraît… for the newly invented ten-string guitar, further explores an Impressionism stemming from Debussy. Incorporating all these new textures and techniques, Signes for instrumental ensemble (1965) represents the complete emergence of his mature style. It is the first of a series of eleven works composed during the 1960s and 1970s bearing esoteric titles beginning with the same letter, the ‘Sigma Series’, which according to the composer symbolized evolution and the proliferation of his mature style into his second 50 years. With its title partly borne out by hand-drawn ciphers at the head of each movement, Signes is also one of many works to incorporate allusions to extra-musical symbolism, in this case the image of the tree. Other works notable for their allusive symbolism include the chamber opera Auto-da-fé, the orchestral works T’Harân-Ngô and Livre des prodiges, and Trois contes de l’honorable fleur, music theatre for soprano and ensemble.

Ohana contributed to almost every vocal and instrumental genre and was conspicuous in the harpsichord revival: the concerto Chiffres de clavecin and the opera La Célestine are representative. In Sacral d’Ilx for harpsichord, oboe and horn he used the instrumental combination envisaged by Debussy for the fourth of his uncompleted series of late sonatas. Other instruments he favoured include the guitar, the piano and the two he invented: the third-tone zither and the ten-string guitar. Prolific as a composer for the voice, writing opera, chamber opera and music theatre, as well as non-dramatic works, he concentrated on vocal music in his last years and produced some of his most personal statements. In Swan Song (1987–8) he composed his epitaph. Ohana, Maurice WORKS stage Les répresentations de Tanit (ballet, M. Béjart), orch, 1951, Enghien, Casino, 1956;

suite, pf, withdrawn La soirée des proverbes (incid music, G. Schéhadé) (fl, 2 ob, bn, hn, perc)/(fl, perc), 1953–4, unpubd, Paris, Marigny, 30 Jan 1954 Paso, solea (ballet, F. Dominique), orch, 1954, Lyons, Opéra, 1955, unpubd Etudes chorégraphiques (ballet, M. Parrès), 4–6 perc, 1955–61, Strasbourg, 8 June 1963 Le guignol au gourdin (incid music, F. García Lorca: Tragicomedia de Don Crístobal y la seña Rosita), 1956, unpubd; arr. as music theatre, 1958, Carcassonne, July 1958 Prométhée (ballet, Béjart), chbr orch, 1955–6, Lyons, July 1956, withdrawn; suite, orch, 1958 Récit de l’an zéro (dramatic orat, G. Schéhadé), 1958–9, Paris, Grand Auditorium de l’ORTF, 11 April 1959 Histoire véridique de Jacotin (incid music, C.J. Cela, adapted A. Trutat), 1961, Paris, ORTF, 1961; rev. as Le mariage sous la mer (children’s chbr op), 1990, Boulogne-Billancourt, Conservatoire National, 18 April 1991 Syllabaire pour Phèdre (chbr op, 6 episodes, R. Cluzel and M. Ohana, after Euripides), 1966–7, Paris, Musique, 5 Feb 1968 Auto-da-fé (dramatic cant., Ohana) spkr, 3 SATB, ens, puppets, 1971, Vaison-laRomaine, 9 Aug 1971; rev. 1972 as chbr op (10 scenes, Ohana), Lyons, Opéra, 23 May 1972 Office des oracles (music theatre, Ohana), 1974, La Sainte-Baume, 9 Aug 1974 Trois contes de l’honorable fleur (music theatre, O. Marcel, after Ohana), 1978, Avignon, 15 July 1978 La Célestine (op, 2, Ohana and O. Marcel, after F. de Rojas), 1982–8, Paris, Opéra, 13 June 1988; see also vocal [Suite de concert de la Célestine 1989–90; 3 prophéties de la Sibylle, 1989–90]; chamber and solo instrumental [Miroir de Célestine, 1989–90] Sundown Dances (ballet, E. Hawkins), fl, cl, tpt, trbn, perc, vn. db, 1990, Washington, DC, Kennedy Center, May 1991 other incidental music (selective list)

Les hommes et les autres (A. Trutat, after E. Vittorini), ens, 1956, unpubd; Médée (J. Bergamin, after Seneca), ens, 1956; Images de Don Quichotte, ens, 1956; Fuenteovejuna (Lope de Vega), SATB, wind, perc, 1957, unpubd; Homère et l’orchidée (B. Horowiscz), 1/3-tone zither, 1959, withdrawn; Hélène (Euripides), female chorus, ens, 1963, unpubd; Les héraclides (Euripides), SATB, wind, pf, 1/3tone zither, perc, 1964, unpubd; Iphigénie en Tauride (Euripides), solo vv, pf, 1/3tone zither, 4 perc, 1965, unpubd; Hippolyte (Euripides), S, Mez, SATB, ens, 1966, unpubd orchestral Sarabande, hpd, orch, 1950, unpubd; 3 graphiques, gui, orch, 4 perc, 1950–57; Synaxis, 2 pf, 4 perc, orch, 1966; Chiffres de clavecin, hpd, orch, 1968; Silenciaire, 6 perc, str, 1969; T’Harân-Ngô, orch, 1974; Anneau du Tamarit, vc, orch, 1976; Livre des prodiges, orch, 1978–9; Crypt, str, 1980; Pf Conc. 1981; In Dark and Blue, vc, orch, 1989–90 vocal

Choral: Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías (García Lorca), orat, Bar, spkr, female vv, orch, 1950; Cantigas (J. de Valdivielso, F.A. Mortesino, G. de Berceo, Alfonso X, J. Alvarez), child’s voice, S, Mez, SATB, pf, orch, 1953–4; Cris, SATB, 1968–9; Lys de madrigaux, female vv, ens, 1975–6; Mass, S, Mez, SATB, ens, 1977; 4 choeurs, children’s vv, 1987; Lux Noctis – Dies solis (Catullus, Lat. anon.), 4 choral groups, children’s vv, 2 org, perc, 1983–8; Swan Song (Ohana, after P. Ronsard), SATB, 1987–8; Suite de concert de la Célestine, solo vv, SATB, orch, 1989–90; Tombeau de Louize Labé ‘O beaux yeus bruns’, SATB, 1990; Nuit de Pouchkine, Ct, SATB, va da gamba/vc, 1990; Avoaha, SATB, 2 pf, perc, 1990–91 Solo: 2 mélodies (García Lorca), S, pf, 1947, arr. S, gui/hpd, unpubd; 3 poèmes de Saadi (trans. F. Toussaint), Bar, orch, 1947, unpubd; Tombeau de Claude Debussy, S, 1/3-tone zither, pf, orch, 1962; Sibylle, S, perc, tape, 1968; Stream, B, str trio, 1970; 2 incantations, S, fl, pf, 1972–4 [no.1 from op Auto-da-fé; no.2 from music theatre Office des oracles]; 3 prophéties de la Sibylle, 2 S, pf, perc, 1989–90 [from op La Célestine] Orchestration: Satie: La messe des pauvres, 1990 chamber and solo instrumental 3 or more insts: 5 séquences, str qt, 1963; Signes, fl + pic, chromatic zither, 1/3tone zither, pf, 4 perc, 1965; Sacral d’Ilx, ob, hn, hpd, 1975; Str Qt no.2, 1978–80; Kypris, ob/ob d’amore, va, db, pf, 1985; Str Qt no.3 ‘Sorgin-Ngo’, 1989 2 insts: 2 danses, 2 perc, 1954, unpubd; Neumes, ob, pf, 1965; Sorôn-Ngô, 2 pf, 1969–70; Syrtes, vc, pf, 1970; Noctuaire, vc, pf, 1976; Satyres, 2 fl, 1976; Anonyme XXème siècle, 2 gui, 1988; Miroir de Célestine, hpd, perc, 1989–90 Solo ww: 4 improvisations, fl, 1960; Sarc, ob, 1972 Pf: Sonatine monodique, 1945; 3 caprices, 1944–54; 24 préludes, 1972–3; 12 études d’interprétation: bk i, 1982, bk ii, 1983–5 [nos.11 and 12 with perc] Hpd: Tiento, 1957 [arr. of gui piece]; Carillons ‘Pour les heures du jour et de la nuit’, 1960; 2 pièces, 1983 [no.1 arr. of Wamba]; So Tango, 1991 Gui: Tiento, 1957; Si le jour paraît… 10-str gui, 1963–4, arr. 6-str gui; Cadran lunaire, 10-str gui, 1981–2, arr. 6-str gui Carillon: Wamba, 1980 MSS held by Association des Amis de Maurice Ohana, Paris and publishers

Principal publishers: Amphion/Durand, Billaudot, Jobert, Salabert, Schott

Principal recording companies: Audivis, Calliope, Erato, Opus 111, Philips, REM, Timpani

Ohana, Maurice WRITINGS ‘Alfredo Casella’, MR, viii (1947), 145 ‘Le Flamenco’, Los Gitanillos de Cadiz, Club français du disque G4188 (1955) [disc notes] ‘La géographie musicale de l’Espagne’, Journal musical français, no.47 (1956), 1–5; no.48 (1956), 1–3

‘Erik Satie’, Présences contemporaines: musique française, ed. J. Roy (Paris, 1962), 387–9 ‘Béla Bartók’, Ujiras [Budapest] (July, 1965); Fr. orig. in Nouvel observateur (18 Aug 1965) Disc notes, Etudes chorégraphiques, Philips DSY 836 990 (1967) ‘Micro-Intervals: Experimental Media II’, Twentieth Century Music, ed. R. Myers (London, 1968), 147–50 ‘En el centenario de Manuel de Fallaun revolucionario inconsiente’, Triunfo, no.63 (1976) ‘L’ankylose du théâtre psychologique’, Aujourd’hui l’Opéra, no.42 (1980) ‘Les paradoxes de la musique contemporaine’, Musique en questions, no.1 (1980), 9 only ‘La Niña de los Peiñes’, Le chant du monde, Harmonia Mundi LDX 74859 CM 340 (1980) [disc notes] ‘Ecrits et paroles’, ReM, nos.351–2 (1982), 69–76 [incl. ‘La marionette à l’opéra’, 75 only] ‘Au service de la musique’, ReM, nos. 361–3 (1983), 59–60 ‘Erik Satie’, ReM, nos.391–3 (1986), 177–9 ‘Sud–Nord’, 20ème siècle: images de la musique française, ed. J.P. Derrien (Paris, 1986), 164–7 Ohana, Maurice BIBLIOGRAPHY A. Gide: Journal 1939–49 (Paris, 1954), 286 A. Carpentier: ‘Revelacíon de un compositor’, El domingo [Caracas] (29 April 1956); repr. in Obras completas, x (Mexico City, 1987), 215–7 B. Gavoty and Daniel-Lesur: Pour ou contre la musique moderne (Paris, 1957), 248–50 C. Rostand: La musique française contemporaine (Paris, 1957; Eng. trans., 1958), 123–6 C. Samuel: ‘Maurice Ohana’, Panorama de l’art contemporain (Paris, 1962), 334 J. Roy, ed.: Présences contemporaines: musique française (Paris, 1962), 385–403 P. Ancelin: ‘Pierre Ancelin avec Maurice Ohana’, Lettres françaises (17 Sept 1964) R. Myers: Modern French Music (Oxford, 1971), 171–4 F. Goldbeck: Twentieth Century Composers: France, Italy and Spain (London, 1974), iv, 138–9 J. Roy: ‘Les compositeurs français contemporains: Maurice Ohana’, Diapason, no.186 (1974), 10–13 C. Chamfray: ‘Biographie de Maurice Ohana’, Courrier musical de France, no.51 (1975), 9–12 A. Grunenwald: ‘Conversation avec Maurice Ohana: T’HarânNgô’, Arfuyen II (Paris, 1975), 58–63 A. Goléa: La musique de la nuit des temps aux aurores nouvelles (Paris, 1977), 844–5 C. LeBordelays: La musique espagnole (Paris, 1977), 123

R. Lyon: ‘Entretien avec Maurice Ohana’, Courrier musical de France, no.62 (1978), 41–6 F.B. Mâche: ‘Les mal entendus: compositeurs des années 1970’, ReM, nos.314–15 (1978), 109–15 F. Bayer: De Schönberg à Cage (Paris, 1981), 119–21 J.-Y. and D. Bosseur: Revolutions musicales (Paris, 1979), 89–90 G. Wade: Traditions of the Classical Guitar (London, 1980), 202– 48 C. Prost: Formes et thèmes: essai sur les structures profondes du langage musical de Maurice Ohana (diss., U. of Aix-enProvence, 1981) P. Bolbach: ‘Maurice Ohana et la guitare: entretien avec le compositeur, analyse du Tiento’, Cahiers de la guitare, no.2 (1982), 4–10 J. Roy, ed.: ‘Maurice Ohana: essais, études et documents’, ReM, nos. 351–2 (1982) [Ohana issue; incl. J. Roy: ‘Pour saluer Maurice Ohana’, 5–10; O. Marcel: ‘L’Ibérisme de Maurice Ohana’, 13–26; C. Prost: ‘Catalogue raisonné’, 29–67] F. Bayer: ‘Sous le signe de l’imaginaire: Maurice Ohana’, Esprit, no.99 (1985), 43–57 F. Bayer, ed.: ‘André Gide et Maurice Ohana’, Bulletin des amis d’André Gide, no.71 (1986), 8–32 C. Prost, ed.: ‘Maurice Ohana: miroirs de l’oeuvre’, ReM, nos.391– 3 (1986) [Ohana issue; incl. articles by R. Cluzel, F. Ibarrondo, H. Sauguet, F. Bayer, E. Chojnacka, L.M. Diego, P. Roberts, H. Halbreich, G. Reibel, O. Marcel, C. Prost] C. Paquelet: ‘La percussion dans la musique d’Ohana’, Analyse musicale, no.8 (1987), 56–8 M. Cadieu: ‘La Célestine de Maurice Ohana: une tragi-comédie de moeurs’, Opéra international, no.115 (1988), 24–5 C. Rae: ‘La Célestine: Maurice Ohanas Oper in Paris’, NZM, Jg.149, no.10 (1988), 35–6 C. Rae: The Music of Maurice Ohana (diss., U. of Oxford, 1989) H. Halbreich: ‘Maurice Ohana’, Guide de la musique de chambre, ed. F.-R. Tranchefort (Paris, 1989), 678–83 L’avant-scène opéra: opéra aujourd’hui, no.3A (1991) [La Célestine issue; incl. interview and articles by C. Prost, H. Halbreich, S. de Castro] C. Rae: ‘Maurice Ohana: Iconoclast or Individualist?’, MT, cxxxii (1991), 69–74 F. Deval: Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias de Federico García Lorca à Maurice Ohana (Paris, 1992) C. Rae: ‘L’improvisation dans l’oeuvre de Maurice Ohana’, L’improvisation musicale: Rouen 1992, 73–85 C. Rae: ‘Le symbolisme et l’archetype du mythe européen dans l’oeuvre de Maurice Ohana’, Cahiers du CIREM, nos. 24–5 (1993), 115–30 H. Halbreich: ‘Maurice Ohana’, Guide de la musique sacrée et choral profane de 1750 à nos jours, ed. F.-R. Tranchefort (Paris, 1993), 771–81

R. Langham Smith: ‘Ohana on Ohana: an English Interview’, CMR, viii/1 (1993), 123–9 C. Rae: ‘Debussy et Ohana: allusions et réferences’, Cahiers Debussy, nos.17–18 (1993–4), 123–9 F. Deval and J. Roy, eds.: Maurice Ohana: le musicien du soleil, Monde de la musique, cahier no.2 (Paris, 1994) [incl. articles by B. Massin, F. Deval, J.L. Tournier, C. Rae, H. Dutilleux, E. Franco, Daniel-Lesur, J. Gottlieb, F. Bayer, M. Weiss] C. Rae: ‘The Piano Music of Maurice Ohana’, Revista musica [São Paolo], vi/1–2 (1995), 44–74 C. Rae: The Music of Maurice Ohana (London, 2000)