Play Time
2nd String Quartet
Prélude – Microlude – Postlude
Durata : 18 minutes
Modeste apology of the game through some of his statements. "Ludus" taken as element of the temporal organization ; following the example of the jubilant Prelude, renewing the quasi-incantatory volubility of its origins. Instrumental games also in characterizing gestures, melodico-rhythmic figures and morphologies acting in order to be accessible to the memory of the listener. Moreover, the cinetic process can reminds some technical references from the cinema, espcially those from a particular movie by an esteemed author, Jacques Tati (maybe another hint to explain the title ?).
A choreographic idea – game of the body – takes also place in the various moments of the piece : Pre-lude, with its numerous instrumental gestures in a sensible choreography for four performers, going through the spectral vibration of the infinity, Micro-lude as a lively dance, as to thwart better the traps of a "too serious" human mind which - when we look at it closer - seems very derisory in front of the unlimitedness of our Space-time. And the nostalgia to take a seat by way of a post-playful activity, to demonstrate that the game can also express itself behind the curtain of the theater of our feelings.
This quartet was commissioned by the Festival Ars Musica for the Minguet Quartet who premiered it on March 2004. A new version of the work was done in 2011 and premiered by the Kryptos Quartet at Singel/Antwerpen in March 2012.
Claude Ledoux