And in the final two movements, the singer, inhabiting the character of Gilgamesh, describes the myth’s apocalyptic flood and its aftermath. In the fifth and final piece, not a complete song but a short “Lullaby,” a crystalline, pulsing texture is there one second and gone the next. On the early morning of Nov. 10, 1998, Grisey returned from Milan to the Paris apartment he shared with his partner, the mezzo-soprano Mireille Deguy. Deguy returned to their apartment in the evening. Deguy remembers that Grisey removed his watch and asked her to do the same before he collapsed from a brain aneurysm.

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Persons: Erinna, Gilgamesh, Grisey, Mireille Deguy, ”, “ You’ll, Deguy Organizations: Paris Conservatory Locations: Milan, Paris