I chose to approach Albert Giraud's poem ‘A mon cousin de Bergame’ (To my cousin from Bergamo) from a purely electroacoustic perspective, focusing on the sounds and alliterations. The meaning, which is relatively different in Otto Erich Hartleben's German translation ‘Mein bruder’, is revisited by highlighting fragments of sentences, words and syllables in both languages, according to their sounds and their dreamlike power.
Granulation techniques are used to bring out prosodic profiles and micro-perturbations in the voice, creating organic sound materials which, through the exploration of phonemes and vowel transitions, reveal another reading of this symbolist poem.
Commissioned by Ars Musica / Musiques Nouvelles for the PIERROT REWRITE project, premiered on the 30th of November 2014 at Les Halles de Schaerbeek.
Composed at ARTeM studio, with support from Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Direction générale de la Culture, Service de la Musique