1st Chamber Symphony for mezzo-soprano voice and 13 solo instruments (fl ; htb ; clar._cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b-136bad_19 bas.0cc136bad; -5cde-3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_; cor trp ; trb ; hp, 1 perc ; vl_cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b -136bad5cf58d_; alto ; vlc and cb)

Poem by Philippe Jaccottet, extract from A la lumière d'hiver (Éditions Gallimard-1977)

Creation EOC - Vera Nicholova, mezzo-soprano - Daniel Kawka, conductor.

Editions Lemoine

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November clouds, dark birds per flock that hang around

And leave after you to the mountains a bit

White feathers from your bellies,

Long mirrors of deserted roads, ditches,

Earth more and more visible and large, falls

And already cradle of herbs,

The secret that binds you,

do we ever stop hearing it?

Listen, listen better, behind

all the walls, through the growing din

who is in you and outside of you,

listen…And draw from the invisible water

where perhaps invisible beasts still drink

after others, always, who came,

silent, white, slow, at sunset

(having been at dawn obedient to the sun on the great meadow),

lap up this light that doesn't go out at night

but only covers itself with shadow, barely,

as the flocks are covered with a cloak of sleep.

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This poem by Philippe Jaccottet is completely representative of his writing, his thoughts and his concerns. The richness of meaning, its chiaroscuro climate, gently bathed in sadness, close to death, undoubtedly join the feelings that inhabit my music.

I retained from the poetic writing of Philippe Jaccottet a certain number of characteristics that I made mine :

Firstly,

A certain purity, simplicity of writing

An aesthetic of the outline, of almost nothing, far from exhausting its object

Sensitivity on edge,

A poetics of the immediate, of the real as it arises,

Attention to small things, to daily fragility,

And then,

A fear of death, of aging

A perpetual anxiety and melancholy

An incessant doubt, sweeping away all certain truths

And finally,

A space, a light, a sweetness and a pure and simple joy in front of what is.

Philippe Jaccottet's poetry has accompanied my creative work for a long time now. Its apparent simplicity has always made me fear its setting to music : how to preserve such fragility, how to render anxiety, sensitivity, dreamlikeness, space, light, contrasts and the flexible rhythm of the phrases without falling into the musical description ; how to integrate into abundant music, rich in contrasts, a fluid, smooth, subtle and secret text. Exciting, perilous work to which I would therefore have delivered myself not without apprehension or maturity in writing.

The form of the poem, like three linked haiku, allowed me to " l'emboiter " in the structure of the musical work, itself in two chained movements without interruptions. We will find " en insert " in the first movement the central part of the poem while the other two parts of it constitute the whole of the second movement where the central part of the poem is then only suggested and not taken up verbatim. La forme générale de l'œuvre va du « vacarme incessant » au « manteau de sommeil  ".