Debussy Descent: that’s how this programme by Ensemble Court-circuit could be entitled. Claude Debussy may well be the father of French modernity: a composer of fragments, of luminous flashes and thick darkness, of infinite melodic lines and fragrant harmonies identifiable in just a few seconds. Composed in the ultra-nationalist context of World War I, the Sonata for cello and piano (1915) begins majestically with a “Prologue” constructed like a French overture, an entrance portico in the spirit of Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concerts that Debussy wanted to emulate. The “Sérénade” that follows bears the imprint of commedia dell’arte, which fascinated the composer of Pelléas et Mélisande. Humorous and furtive, this passage from the Sonata is striking for its burst of timbre and its freedom of tone. Three years earlier, Debussy had composed his Jeux for orchestra – an orchestral tennis match of abrupt outbursts that has become an icon of modernism, conducted many times, as it is, by Pierre Boulez.
Boulez, the multifaceted genius who revered Debussy, infuses the programme of this concert with his personality and his music. Like a desk blotter on which today’s composers would place their score sheet, echoes of Boulez’s Dérive 1 can be heard in Philippe Manoury’s Ultima (1996). This trio was composed for the muse of contemporary music, clarinetist Armand Angster, and his ensemble Accroche Note. The clarinet, cello and piano call out to each other, interrupt each other’s conversations, imitate each other, find each other again and abandon each other, to the point of causing a “short-circuit”, according to the presentation signed by the composer himself. A sign of destiny.
A short-circuited idea means above all rhythmic anfractuosity – chaos, clashes, calming moments too… all this while keeping the beat? You would have to ask Philippe Hurel, who undoubtedly holds the key to contrast with his …à mesure… composed the same year as Manoury’s Ultima. Hurel is a colourful character with an assertive voice and a swinging pen. A composer inspired by Debussy and Boulez, Hurel does not deny his love of pulse and jazz. His music is easily reminiscent of Gil Evans-like big bands, where a dozen or so instrumentalists can unfold a huge, jolting melodic phrase. Like one man, with clocklike precision. Hurel’s love of jazz also means writing riffs. Short, relentless cells that serve to develop the material. And God knows the riff of …à mesure… is heady! It is bouncy and lively, but instrumented with twirling colours – as if Arnold Schoenberg’s melody of timbres had been enthralled by an acid trip led by Gary Burton’s vibraphone.
Founded by Philippe Hurel and Pierre-André Valade in 1991, the Ensemble Court-circuit holds on to its legacy and cultivates its traditions. Gérard Grisey’s spectral music is one of them. In his quintet Talea (1986), Grisey conceived an ode to rhythm and heterogeneity. ‘Talea‘ means ‘cut’ in Latin. It is also, and above all, the name of one of the two parameters to be handled when writing a motet in the 14th century, at the time of the Ars Nova of Guillaume de Machaut and Philippe de Vitry. The talea is in fact the long rhythmic period that will be repeated tirelessly throughout the motet, although constantly varied by the arrangements between the voices and variations in pitches (known as ‘colour’). Far removed from medieval aesthetics – quite an understatement – Grisey’s music nevertheless sweeps us along a bewildering rhythmic voyage, culminating in a quasi-orchestral writing style (the climax in the first third of the work, with its Ravelian flavour), or the final minutes, which unfold into an immense stasis whose sound seems to vibrate from within, as if streaked by the luminous flashes of the violin’s high register.
Music that seems static but changes at every moment? This could be a label that one would hastily attach to the music composed by Marc-André Dalbavie, and potentially to his In Advance of the Broken Time… (1994). Inspired by a Marcel Duchamp readymade (In Advance of The Broken Arm – a snow shovel suspended from the ceiling), Dalbavie takes advantage of the opportunity to deploy a tapestry of vibrating and whirring sound, like the trills exchanged by the strings and winds at the beginning of the work. Like a process that seems to stretch out and get lost in a whirlpool, Dalbavie’s music constantly surprises us with its freedom of tone, its meticulous precision and its out-of-the-box language, even though he is a proponent of a type of spectral music. In fact, it is easy to compare Dalbavie’s music to that of Debussy. Like shimmering, luminous water. And to loop the loop, we can’t help thinking that one of Dalbavie’s famous pages is entitled Color. The counterpart to Grisey’s Talea?
Thomas Vergracht
