For solo harp, Bb clarinet (+ bass), trombone, 1 percussionist [marimba, 2 timpani, snare drum, 5 wood-blocks, wooden drum (4 pitches), 1 bass drum (+ brush), 5 toms, glockenspiel , tenor steel-drums, cowbells (G, A, Bb, C, Db), 3 large gongs (Eb, D, Db), 1 tam-tam (medium or deep), 4 cymbals (low, medium, high , sizzle), 2 gongs (desc. and asc.), 2 shimes (metal and shells)], violin, cello and double bass
Order of the Court-Circuit ensemble - Direction Jean Deroyer
Dedicated to Véronique Ghesquière and Joanna Ohlmann (creator of the work)
Created on March 5, 2018 in Paris (Salle Cortot)
Duration: ca. 18'. Editions Francois Dhalmann
In the theatre, an aside makes it possible, among other things, to reveal to the spectator the character and emotions of the character who is addressing the audience. By metaphor, the title of my work En Aparté underlines the discrepancy between the intentions of the composer and what the listener perceives... and the composer himself. Indeed, during the game, the sum of the constituents exceeding their addition reveals unsuspected potentialities that only the execution reveals. The logic and the internal processes of the writing - that is to say its construction by the interaction of the motifs between them, but also the form generated by these motifs - thus partly escapes the composer.
This is the reason why I like to consider a work as an architecture of sounds, a "truly living organism" at the time of the game - since in four dimensions - and endowed with its "own intentions". Each motif/component having its own character contains variant capacities (internal evolution/mutation) and mixing/exchange of their characteristics (contamination). They interact with each other at a distance and influence the unfolding of the form (truly organic self-organization), constantly thought of as a set of relationships of various densities. The linear dimension of the execution does not however abolish the fundamentally circular dimension of the work. At the time of composition, the work is thought of as a whole where the parts are all related, regardless of their unfolding over time. This is translated here by a plastic writing where all the patterns, or part of patterns, can generate form (pattern of development, form by association of idea (self-construction), form durchcomponiert, etc...). This process of spiral form - where like curvatures of space-time, everything constantly folds up, connects, and where the re-starts, returns on themselves, ramifications, etc. are constant - is the hallmark of my formal writing.
By using only bass instruments - therefore rich in partials -, the plasticity, the dynamics, the instability, the movement, the contrasts... are reinforced in a kind of kneading where the borders/edges are often blurred, both in the arrangement of the parts only between the pure sounds and the parasitic noises produced by the instruments.
Like a sort of “unconscious”, the sound result is a magma of affects and quasi-organic sensations, from which arise more perceptible moments of “consciousness”; from a great presence at the start, they disintegrate little by little as if the work unfolded from youth to old age by progressive reduction.
Like my other chamber symphonies, the writing uses a main instrument, here the harp. Either soloist, or of the same importance as the other instruments, or absent, it makes it possible to multiply the possibilities of sound combinations.
To perceive/feel the unity of the work requires a creative listening attitude in order to connect the different moments, as if it were a sculpture/architecture made of a block that does not unfold in time. Listening no longer simply consists of hearing a speech (rhetoric), or seeing a painting, or inventing images, but involves the listener in a modelling/kneading: writing and our intimate/inner organic mode are here a single and the same thing, preventing any distancing.
If the listener agrees to “take it in”, this organism becomes a part of itself. By penetrating into us, the work has the capacity to transform us because “its own emotions, its thoughts” are in the image of everyone. The background from which the work arises is the same as ours, what we call today “the living”. At the source of this, the Greeks called energeïa, this energy which circulates in the underpinnings.
The form is in 7 parts chained without interruptions:
A - Part I: exposition // B – Transition // C - Part II // D - Transition // E - Part III // F/G - Coda
SHORT PROGRAM TEXT
By metaphor, the title En Aparté underlines the discrepancy between the intentions of the composer and what the listener perceives... and paradoxically, the composer himself.
I like to think of a work as an architecture of sounds and, when playing, as a sort of “truly living organism” endowed with its own “intention” and internal logic.
Each of the patterns/figures, with well-differentiated characteristics, contains its capacity for variants (internal evolution/mutation) and for mixing/exchanging their components (contamination). They interact with each other at a distance and influence the unfolding of the form (truly organic self-organization), constantly thought of as a set of relationships of various densities.
This is translated here by a plastic writing where all the patterns, or part of a pattern, can generate form (pattern of development, form by association of idea (self-construction), form durchcomponiert, etc...). This spiral process - where everything constantly folds up, connects, and where the re-starts, returns to themselves, ramifications, etc. are constant - is the hallmark of my formal writing.
Like a kind of “unconscious”, the sound result is a magma of affects and quasi-organic sensations, from which arise more perceptible moments of “consciousness”. From a great presence at the start, the work crumbles little by little, as if it unfolded from youth to old age by progressive lightening.
