2010 State order for the Dordogne CRD

Didactic work - middle level cycle 3

Duration: approx. 7'30. Editions Francois Dhalmann

This work is the succession of four short sequences all stemming from the same constitutive motifs but presented from different angles. To take a cinematic image, it is a series of four continuous shots that form a unit of narration and time. Like a certain experimental treatment of the image, the sound space is often fragmented: well-differentiated patterns emerge from nowhere, in always different registers and seem without apparent links. It is up to the listener and above all to the performers to create the link, that is to say the meaning. The work of linking the sequences is similarly related to the image: sequence 1 to 2 by a silence (cut) – 2 to 3 by a long suspension – 3 to 4 by a crossfade.

As with all my apprenticeship works, I have set myself the rule of a certain classicism within a contemporary language. Without exceeding certain instrumental limits that I impose on myself, I use sound effects and contemporary game modes, but in a non-systematic way. It is what founds our western art music that is targeted here. Also, the setting, the balance, the harmonic coherence, the instrumental and formal articulations, the conduct of the form - whimsical and by association of ideas -, frequent repetitions and return of the motifs, a certain clarity of the speech, are all references to our musical tradition.

Short film is therefore a real work of concert but with a certain degree of simplification which allows it to be made more immediately available to students. However, the writing solicits the musicians in a very demanding way, down to the smallest detail. This is how we progress.

But by its purpose, this work exceeds the limits of pedagogy and reveals itself to be a true concert work. As "everyone makes their own film", there is something serious about this short film, between exaltation and depression, a sort of questioning creating an atmosphere that can be described as strange anxiety. Something speaks, says, arises, howls as declaimed like someone who wants to be heard. But these are all stories constantly interrupted, never concluded.