Sufi Letter: Sh(ìn), for flute, clarinet, percussion, piano and string trio was commissioned by the Spectra Ensemble and premiered in Ghent on april 4, 2009, conducted by Filip Rathé. Shìn is the ninth piece in a large project "Lettres Soufies ", a reflection on musical writing, time, memory and form, in which I exploit the symbolism as described by certain Sufi masters - Sufism is a mysticism related to Islam - as a key to poetic correspondences. Every single piece is, at the same time, a research into a specific sonorous status (with a material voyaging freely from on piece to another) and an implementation or a transformational logic.
Shìn, associated with acceptation, white aloe, the cleansing fire, ... constitutes a form of lamento, or rather a status of abandonment and renunciation where a silent and restrained lamentation is dreamt, a plaint addressed to no other one, like a stupor enclosed too intimately. Timid remnants [souvenirs or premonitions] on a background of murmurs. From this state, through a slow transformation - svelte in this case like an advent of the murmur, a recognition of its reality - emerge the necessary conditions in expectation of consolation.