Published
Musique rituelle
Barraine worked at the French National Radio from 1936 to 1940 as a pianist, sound recordist, and the head of singing, then after World War II as a sound mixer. During the war, Barraine was heavily involved in the French Resistance and was a member of the Front National des Musiciens.Between 1944 and 1947 she held the position of Recording Director at the well-established record label Le Chant du Monde. In 1953 Barraine was appointed to the faculty at the Paris Conservatoire, where she taught analysis and sight-reading until 1972. It was then that the Ministry of Culture named her Director of Music, giving her charge of all French national lyric theaters.
She died in 1999 in Strasbourg.
Her chamber work Musique rituelle (1967) for organ, gongs, and xylorimba features serialism and is inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
In all of Elsa Barraine’s works there is an ardent focus on the human condition