Catégorie
Instrumental Ensemble
Vocal music
2000
Duration
20 min.
Line up
for ensemble of 16 musicians and mezzo soprano
Date de création
Program
This piece was composed for the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal in 1999-2000, a commission funded by the Canada Council for the Arts. It is almost 20 minutes long and scored for soprano voice and ensemble (14 players). The composition uses a text used in a work by sculptor Serge Murphy (Gigue, ô ma frigate), a collection of one-sentence poems all printed on individual sheets of paper, making the reading paced by the constant turning of the pages.
The text is either sung or spoken through a megaphone and the music is constructed a little bit like the visual work: a collection of very short musical objects sometimes superimposed, sometimes isolated form one another (as in a usual catalog). The whole follows a narrative structure in four general sections: first a pack of objects is iterated a few times, followed by an enumerative part where those objects are presented as a catalog of spare parts; then yet another (contrasting) "catalog" section precedes the Finale -- a slow musical conclusion based on the thematic of sleeping.
The piece was premiered in April 2000 at Pierre-Mercure Hall (Montréal), the texts were then projected as subtitles over the performers. Afterwards it was performed a few times, won the Jules-Léger Prize in 2000, and was recorded and published on the CD «Nouveaux Territoires vol. 2» by the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal (ATMA records).
The text is either sung or spoken through a megaphone and the music is constructed a little bit like the visual work: a collection of very short musical objects sometimes superimposed, sometimes isolated form one another (as in a usual catalog). The whole follows a narrative structure in four general sections: first a pack of objects is iterated a few times, followed by an enumerative part where those objects are presented as a catalog of spare parts; then yet another (contrasting) "catalog" section precedes the Finale -- a slow musical conclusion based on the thematic of sleeping.
The piece was premiered in April 2000 at Pierre-Mercure Hall (Montréal), the texts were then projected as subtitles over the performers. Afterwards it was performed a few times, won the Jules-Léger Prize in 2000, and was recorded and published on the CD «Nouveaux Territoires vol. 2» by the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal (ATMA records).
Audio
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