Commissioned by flautist Yves Charpentier
Premiered on March 11, 2010 at the Tambour, University of Rennes II as part of the Pèlerinage ROTHKO show of the Le Concert Impromptu ensemble by Yves Charpentier, flute and Bruno Belthoise, piano dedicatees.
Editions Francois Dhalmann
CD: CORIOLAN® discs 2013 - COR 330 141
This work was designed to be performed as part of a show around the work of American painter Mark Rothko. I wanted to highlight certain aspects of his pictorial work (he wanted the same emotion in painting as in music) and musically translate the aura of his paintings after 1950. I feel the particularly unstable vibration of those like a real joy. Moreover, their internal movement below the direct lines of force can lead to a certain almost mystical contemplation. Mark Rothko is based on a kinesthetic phenomenon that is almost disturbing because it is vague: you cannot focus visuelle, you have to constantly readjust.
The parallels that I have identified in my work are:
- Vibrations/breath : this is the title of the work. For the Greeks and the Latins, Aura is the air in motion, the breeze, the gentle wind in relation to the light. Today in occult acceptance it is what surrounds the physical body and by extension it is the resonance of a work of art in the sensibility.
- Blurring of contours and edges : this " sfumato " effect is rendered by the constant return to simultaneous playing/singing and the "_cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b -136bad5cf58d_fragility ” of the singing voice
- Visual fields : rendered by very intense brief moments like great lines of force.
- Detail of the textures : it is the very precise rendering of the articulations, the modes of play and their related sounds.
- Intertwining and criss-crossing motifs : contrapuntal work of motifs, tremolos and trills.
- Contemplation and contemplation : large, ample chords, constant return of a motif in which the high and low extremes are played simultaneously, " percussions " low on the piano like bells /gongs and finally, a flute playing like a declamation.
- The rise in clarity : work on resonances, particularly towards the end of the work
- Presence and distance : a wide variety of different intensities that follow one another.
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Due to my training as a flutist, the writing calls on multiple modes of play, some of which are reminiscent of the use of the flute in other cultures.
The writing implies a lively, fluid, light, soft, vibrant, playful, luminous, airy conception of the flute. This bias to play in half tone, without ever forcing the sound, without abruptness only calls for forced and/or violent sounds in very rare moments which are real lines of force which punctuate the sound space.
I especially directed my work on the vibration, the very particular movement which emerges from this pictorial work. The name of Mark Rothko can be guessed towards the end of the work as an evocation, a sort of echo/homage that the flautist pronounces.
The harmonic and rhythmic language comes from the very name of Mark Rothko (morse code and numerology).
The form of the work is intended as a response to the goal that he assigned to art: "an object of transformation of the world ". Also, this work in one movement is like editing work in the cinema. The various rushes (motifs) - from the simplest to the most complex - constantly invent new arrangements from unheard-of possibilities as in the work of dreams.
On the sidelines of Aura , a work intended for professionals (or students at the end of cycle 3), some " rushes were left out during editing " . Like the bonus features of a film, some of these have become two simple little works for learning the flute called 2 Rushes for flute and piano.
