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Vanishing lines
3rd chamber symphony for guitar and ensemble (2012)

Thierry Mercier - Ensemble Stravinsky - JP Pinet
00:00 / 00:00

3rd chamber symphony for guitar and ensemble (flute in C, clarinet in Bb, bass clarinet, horn, 1 percussionist  [vibraphone, snare drum, low tom-tom, 5 cymbals_cc781905-5cde-3194 -bb3b-136bad5cf58d_(high, medium, high, sizzle, splash), wood drum (2 pitches), 5 temple-blocks, 3 toms (low, medium, high)] , violin, viola, cello.

 

Commissioned by the Stravinsky Ensemble

Dedicated to Thierry Mercier, soloist, and Jean-Pierre Pinet, musical director

Created on December 8, 2012 at the Théâtre de l'Hôtel de Ville in Le Havre

Duration : 16' ca. Editions Francois Dhalmann

 

Lines of flight, a work for guitar and ensemble in a single movement, develops the potential contained in En perspective , three short learning works for guitar and a percussionist. It is a remodeling/mixing of pre-existing elements and new motifs whose orchestral extension can be heard like a real living organism, which constantly evolves, transforms, absorbs, grows and decreases. This peculiarity of the writing - mixed between a concertante work and an orchestral work - explains the subtitle of 3rd chamber symphony.

 

The " vanishing points " of the work are the different stylistic and technical perspectives of this deeply rooted instrument whose millennial past, and whose present is as popular what a scholar. This work is in fact characterized by various techniques and modes of play from European and non-European cultures which are as many " open doors " on other ways of sound the guitar : from classical to jazz, passing through the ud in Arabo-Persian culture, improvisation and flamenco.

 

The form of the work - where the variants/transformations of the motifs propagate in all directions in a tangle of multidirectional vanishing lines - constantly folds in on itself. This form that I call " en spiral " contributes to creating an ever-changing world where the many constituent patterns collide, intertwine and intersect. to form a kind of complex, abundant, unstable and deeply nocturnal soundscape. Listening to this work - where nothing settles, stays in place and constantly varies - implies a sensitivity to the smallest and most constant changes in color, texture and density.

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