Creation of Traces (n°1) on May 29, 2013 at the CRD de Montreuil by Florestan Boutin and Mickaël Ertzscheid.

Creation of the entire cycle  on December 11, 2015 at the Baschet Cultural Center in Saint-Michel-sur-Orge by Nolwenn Mahé and Ainhoa López de Dicastillo, dedicatees.

Duration total of the cycle: ca. 15'- François Dhalmann Editions.

“ My snapshots are  a scribble in pencil or ink, a little color, and that's it.  ” Van Dongen .

In 2001, the subject of my 1st Snapshots for solo piano (in 5 parts) was as follows: "  This collection of short works is neither sketches nor studies or preludes, nor to variations in the classical sense of the term, although the formal coherence is ensured by a work of variants of the motifs which cross the work from one end to the other. This kind of travel diary, like quick sketches, involves for each of the pieces different musical gestures, nervous, incisive, precise where everything is more suggested than developed ”.

My Modulations for piano 4 hands (in 6 parts) extend the spirit and develop the potential contained in the fundamentals of my writing.

Each title reflects the poetic and formal project of each of the parties.

Each part has its own consistency and must be linked to the next one.

The order of the parts is determined because thought of as an organic whole with a direction.

In a non-professional setting, it is always possible to play only certain parts.

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n°1 - Traces (ca. 3'): was commissioned by the 4-hand duo formed by the pianists Florestan Boutin and Mickaël Ertzscheid who, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, commissioned ten composers a short work of 3' maximum. These were intended to be played at the same time as the Sacre in its original version for piano 4 hands. Rather than writing a Homage to Stravinsky, I preferred to reflect on the impact and the personal traces that this work of incredible power and energy left on me, still irrigating certain aspects of my writing today. . In this “ Sacre en miniature ”, a distant echo of several motifs related to those of the Sacre is perceptible. Besides a constant energy, there is something very cubist  in the writing : the same constituent elements follow one another more or less abruptly (musical form in blocks ), punctuated by an element of rupture, paradoxically melodic. quasi quotation of the whole melody. Several constituent processes of the Rite itself underlie all the parts : hardness/brutality, constant energy/density, an element of suspension of time by holdings and/or trills, the fall effect, the principle of repetition, bell sounds, to which are added my own processes : timbre and intensities as structuring elements, constant instability generating movement, transitions by contrast .

n°2 - Insert (ca. 2'): on a calm background sound of chromatic notes repeated regularly in all registers, very brief and nervous inlays/inserts of figures/motifs/gestures stand out like so many reminiscences and expectations of other parties.

n°3 - Modulations (ca. 1'30): this moment of extremely dense transition, if not tense, deploys a sound space at the limit of saturation but not 5cde-3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_”. Consisting of a single tremolo chord, this one is “ animated from within ” by various incrustation processes timbres, colors, game modes, rhythms. A reason for appeal opens on the following parts.

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n°4 - Effacement/Emergence (ca. 3'): as its title indicates, this moment of time suspended in various ranges of colors, is rendered by a writing of held and quivering sounds. The motifs barely emerge from this sound background and never assert themselves : they disappear, crumble as soon as they seem settled.

n°5 - Vortex (ca. 5') : circulation of energy in its pure state, it is the vertigo of order and disorder where nothing remains in place. Everything fluctuates in a powerful and very turbulent maelstrom, made of volutes, change of regime, reminiscences in a patchwork, variegated and composite, where expectations and ruptures are constant. It is an integration and synthesis of all the writing processes of the work in a striking shortcut, in the physical sense of the term.

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n°6 - Empreintes (ca. 1'): short concluding part where only the resonance of tiny fragments of various moments of the work remains. To paraphrase visual artist Claudio Parmiggiani, all that remains is “ the shadows of things ”. It is " the silence after the disaster ", emotion in its most intimate form. A hollow, fragile, fugitive writing, immaterial and ghostly ruin, a kind of white writing. At work, a process of oblivion, of disappearance opening onto an almost mystical experience.

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