Abstraire

Starting from a complex sound material, to draw out the lines of force, the functions present in it and on which it will be a question of building. From this particular concrete, abstract the general, the signifier. These behaviours and characters are likely to serve as a basis for a writing and a discourse. In the particular case of this piece, the basic function is rotation. It is the first level of abstraction, the one that unifies and justifies all presence, the starting point. Then the rotation itself is in turn the object of abstractions of various types. This is the second level. Thus, it is sometimes an abstraction that we will describe as primitive, magical, or poetic that induces a metaphorical musicality, carried by a certain idea of ritual. Sometimes

it is certain perceptive and constitutive criteria of a rotational movement which, having been isolated, are transposed and applied to a musical writing and the medium, and this, once again, according to different degrees and types of abstraction (image, rhythm, montage). The third level of abstraction is finally the
one that organises the evolution of the degree or type of abstraction throughout the piece, thus giving it
its abstract form. This evolution takes place in successive episodes, thus starting from the vital magical abstraction that anchors a certain relationship of the human to the world, to arrive progressively and finally at the formal abstraction of the material itself, still anchoring this same relationship of the human to the world, but in a completely different way.

Abstraire was composed with the support of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (Direction générale de la culture, Service de la musique).