Commissioned by the Berlioz Festival and the Le Concert Impromptu ensemble

Premiered by the dedicatees on 22 August 1997 during the opening concert of the Berlioz Festival at La Côte Saint André

Duration : approx. 9'. Editions Francois Dhalmann

I have retained only low instruments here (flute in G, English horn, bass clarinet, horn and bassoon) in order to obtain a palette of rich, opulent, dark, harsh and soft timbres.

Perhaps this is the origin of the title ?

Mais tant d'images sont attachées à ces sables qui « chantent », « chuchotent » , « crissent »,  « rugissent », « bourdonnent » ou « hurlent » :

the distant, tumultuous and diverse origins,

movement and instability

winds and storms,

seas and deserts,

black color,

roses,

and above all, the inexorable passage of time, from one bulb to the other of the hourglass, where the white sand is hollowed out like a funnel in the top one and bulges out like a cone in the other.

“  We could see in this mound of lost moments, a consoling sign that time flies away without disappearing. It is enriched in depth ».

(Ernst Jünger, the treatise of the hourglass)