Dedicated to Philippe Hanon and Christophe Tessier

Created during Musicora 1996.

Duration: ca. 7'. Editions Lemoine

This work is a sort of recitative, an "unaccompanied monody" close to many works of the Italian Baroque (Claudio Monteverdi among others).

The title refers to these, the writing too.

This "last letter", modest and restrained, does not exclude "extreme passions"; thus, the contrasting motifs, the sudden changes in flow and tempo, the supple cascades of melodic designs, the great fluidity of the complex and capricious rhythms, the spatialization by colors, the breathless pauses, the jagged figures as well as the very large variations contribute to the development of an ornate style, very rich and of great virtuosity.

The “durchkomponiert” form (composed from end to end) does not call for any repetition of the different sections. The work must be played almost “senza beaten” (without a fixed tempo) with great expressiveness and tense sensitivity, to the rhythm of an absent but constantly implied and suggested declamation.