Amours, tides for baritone and ensemble (1991)
3 poems by John Montague
Commissioned by the city of Trappes for the Instrumental Ensemble of Music School Teachers
Bb trumpet (+ picc. Bb), Bb trumpet, F horn, trombone, tuba, 2 percussionists [I - snare drum, 2 bongos, 2 timpani, 4 cowbells, bass drum, 3 cymbals (small, medium, large ) – II - 5 tube bells, 5 toms, studded cymbal, tam-tam, 5 wood blocks] and double bass.
Duration: 8'. Unedited
A version still with baritone voice but with another set is planned
At the genesis of Amours, tides, there is my discovery of the collection of poems by John Montague, The tides of love and the request of the whole ??? to write for brass quintet with input from other instruments.
The solo voice and the percussions anchor the quintet in its historical past, while avoiding however an overly traditional and too direct connotation (no choir and apart from the tubular bells, the percussions are without determined heights: no timpani here). The piccolo trumpet, which often has an almost soloist role, is not unknown to this formation, it is only less commonly used.
This great diversity of timbres and dynamics joins the poetic universe of John Montague: “The rising tides of love that lift us up, the falling tides of death that drag us down to the bottom; between these two primary rhythms our life unfolds. For a brief moment, we balance like mayflies on the great Heraclitean river, but in a real life, we rediscover the great myths through our frail selves. The body is a cage where the spirit sings: a broken, solitary or loving song. (…) The poems in this collection reflect the difficult relationship between the psyche and the surrounding universe, the infinitely large and the infinitely small, the dream of union between microcosm and macrocosm. »
I chose to write a triptych. Three poems which, under different aspects, have quite close links between them: a vision of horror and dread, a look at nature, a philosophy of existence.
Thus, by the unity of the invoice and by the calculated way in which one shutter to another responds and balances the different patterns and the different colors, the whole of the work constitutes an inseparable whole, variation constant, inescapable until death: “we all turn, turn and tresh and disappear”.
This work is written in memory of my father, who died prematurely from Alzheimer's disease.
The three selected poems, Meduse - Sea changes - The tides of love, are taken from Amours, Marées, bilingual edition, choice of poems by Josine Monbet and Michael Scott, translated from English by the British Studies and Research Group , University of Bordeaux III, Editions William Blake, 1988.
JELLYFISH
Again she appears,
The putrid fleshed woman
Whose breath is ashes,
Hair a writhing net of snakes!
Her presence strikes gashes
Of light into the skull
Rears the genitals.
Tears away all
I had so carefully built –
Position, marriage, fame –
As heavily she glides towards me
Rehearsing the letters of my name
As if tracing them from
A rain streaked stone.
All night we turn
Towards an unsounded rhythm
Deeper, more fluent than breathing.
In the pale light of morning
Her body relaxes: the hiss of seed
Into that mawlike womb
Is the whimper of death being born.
SEA CHANGES
Each rock pool a garden
Of colour, bronze and
Blue gleam of Irish moss,
Rose of coral algae,
Ocher of sponge where
Whelk and starfish turn
In odor of low tide;
Faint smell of stillness.
WINE DARK SEA
For there is no sea
it is a dream
there is no sea
except in the tangle
of our minds:
dark wine
sea of history
on which we all turn
turn and threshold
and disappear.
ASTONISHED
She reappears,
The filthy woman of flesh
Whose breath is ash,
The hair a knot of convulsed snakes !
His presence opens gaps
Searing in the skull
Dress sex.
Tear it all out
What I had built so well –
Situation, marriage, reputation –
While towards me, heavy, she slides
Repeating the letters of my name
As if she were deciphering them
On a stone streaked with rain.
All night we spin
Tend to an unfathomable rhythm,
Deeper, more flowing than the breath.
In the pale morning light her body
Calms down : the hiss of semen
Engulfed by this belly
Is the wail of death that comes into [the world.
MARINE ALCHEMY
Every puddle of garden rock
Colored, bronze glow
And blue pearl moss
pink seaweed coral
Ocher of the sponges where the whelk and the star turn
In a smell of low tide ;
Vague smell of silence
WINE SEA
Because there is no sea
it's all just a dream
there is no more sea
except in the jumble
from our head :
the vinous sea
Of the history
where we all turn,
spin, we debate
and disappear.
