For mixed choir, 3 solo voices (soprano, mezzo and baritone), 2 pianos and 2 percussionists [I° - vibraphone (3 octaves : fa-fa)/snare drum/3 cymbals (medium/ low - studded - high)/3 melodic toms (medium - low - very low) // II° - marimba (4 octaves1/2)/timpani/5 temple-blocks/Tam tam]

Text by Claude-Henry du Bord

Duration 30'. Editions Francois Dhalmann

This work responds to very precise specifications: duration of thirty minutes maximum, an amateur choir (involving simplified musical writing and a restricted range), a text that can be given both in a church and in a hall in order to be taken up more easily by other ensembles, a reduced instrumentation (but which can be orchestrated later) and finally, 2 or 3 solo voices, one of which would possibly be a narrator's part.

Armed with these maximum constraints, and not wanting to write on a purely sacred text, I asked Claude-Henry du Bord, poet and translator, for a writing whose dramaturgy would allow me to develop a great and unique form, developing almost without interruption. This one gave me, in July 2001, a rewriting of Super flumina Babylonis, the famous Psalm 137 (or 136 according to the Latin classification of Saint Jerome) already set so many times to music and which, the height of humor for a psalm , makes the Hebrews say " we shall not sing " ! (rhythmic motif at the base of the whole work). New constraint, certainly, but deep reflection on human destiny: uprooting, wandering, despair, revolt and revenge, the bitterness of exile ; I had there a great text whose universal scope would allow me to work… for 2 years and 6 months !

Claude-Henry du Bord's text - whose literary work is so close to mine in form - is written in 12 verses (obvious allusion to a Christian reading of the text) which refer to each other like a gigantic work of memory and returns of the motives to themselves, thereby reinforcing the "movement of an explosion of anger that rises in waves" of the initial biblical text, that is to say the dejection/deploration/lamentation to anger/revolt/indignation.

How then to build a musical form in one piece but made up of sub-parts ?

Finally, after multiple preparatory attempts, various gropings and abandonments, experiments in other works, written in cycle, and with clean writing (for piano alone, for voice and piano, for piano and wind quintet, musical tale for child) was born in 137, a vast sound fresco - or tapestry in several paintings - dominated by a desire to simplify my writing and musical language :

• choice of patterns very easily executable and memorized listening

• work on the identical repetition of the motifs that run through the entire work from one end to the other, thus giving my own interpretation of the text (for example, the motif of the rustling of the willows = that of interior exile = fall of the leaves of fig tree, or else, the motif of Jerusalem = that of God = accompaniment to the rustling of the willows = (in reverse movement) fall of the leaves of the fig tree = the murmur of the choir = murmur that swells, or again, the Tigris = water (clean or dirty) = baptism and finally, “ We will not sing ” = basic rhythm in homorhythm and unison90_cc758c1de90_cc758c1de -3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_= all united with one voice or all autonomous until the cries = agreement/disagreement in both senses of the terms)

• each verse develops more particularly one of the motifs that run through the whole work, thus ensuring the general cohesion

• instrumental writing is thought of as the reduction of an orchestration

• the number of percussions is reduced.

Musical form of the work

Part 1 (this one can be sung separately)

• verses 1 to 4 :tutti

big break

2nd part : verses 5 to 12 arranged as follows:

• verse 5 : solo soprano and piano (+ occasional tutti interventions)

• verse 6 : tutti

half break

• verse 7 : solo mezzo and piano (+ solo soprano and tutti intervention)

• verse 8 : solo baritone and piano (+ solo soprano, solo mezzo and tutti interventions)

Very short hyphenation et :

• verse 9 : tutti

• verse 10 : soloists

• varied cover of verse 9 : tutti

Continuously chained to coda :

• verse 11 : tutti

• verse 12 : soloists then tutti