IL REGNO DELL’ ACQUA
10′ – 2013
chamber music
Il regno dell’ acqua
STATEMENT OF INTENT
1. In sospeso : The face is transformed according to the shimmering …
Venice … Scar looking between green waters and swallows
In suspense
The face is transformed according to the shimmering… Venice…
Scar searching for itself between the green waters and the swallows
2. La pioggia ha paura del temporale
today Venice has seized the rain that hesitates,
frightened by the looks of the night
The rain is afraid of the storm
today Venice has taken possession of the rain, which hesitates,
frightened by the night’s glances
3. Le campane inghiottite
the city sinks into the clink of things
The sunken bells
the city sinks in the chiming of things.
4. Le scaglie della nebbia
the scales of the mist and the fragmentation of the minute moons
The scales of the fog
the scales of the fog and the dividing-up of minuscule moons.
5 ; L’altro sguardo del viso
I look in my eyes, my face shivering on the skin of the mirror …The face’s other gaze
she looks herself in the eye, the face shivering on the skin of the mirror…
In 5 movements
1 In sospeso (pending)
2 The pioggia ha paura del temporale (the rain is afraid of the storm)
3 The Inghiottite campane (the sunken bells)
4 The scaglie della nebbia (the scales of the fog)
5 The altro sguardo del viso (the other look of the face)
set
1 flute, 1 clarinet, 1 piano, 1 percussion, 1 violin, 1 viola, 1 cello
percussions
2 bows, 1 cloth (to choke the bass drum), 1 tam M and G, 9 medium resonant metal, 3 toms of bass to medium bass, 1 symphonic bass drum, 1 vibraphone, 1 metal + 1 metal acute sound without precise pitch and without resonance, gongs, rattlesnakes
The beneficent water, the destructive water, – floods, overflows -, water that dilutes and cleans … the reign of water. This piece is written and dedicated to Venice, its liquid body, inseparable from its lagoon soul. Rain, drizzle, haze, the image of the city blurs – fuzzy -, flakes, engulfs and reflects. The five movements are concise and elaborate instrumental fragments, each one completely dissolved in a sensation – suspension, mirage, crack, shimmer – which connects us to the intimately poetic space of the City. At a time when the world is at the bedside of the threatened city, the composer-painter chooses the theme of water and light, as in painting he has just completed a series entitled The Fire of Water. Here we find the same forces in action, the same intensity, the same traces of tearing in a very abstract form. Sounds, silky or rough sets of stamps, laid bare. An inner matter, calm or bubbling, unknown, almost indecipherable. On the frontier of being and not being in the sense that Iphigenia of Euripides dares to say “To look at light is for mortals the sweetest thing; what is below the earth is nothing. (Catherine Peillon)
* Euripides Iphigenia at Aulis, 1218
Premiere: October 11, 2013
Venue: Biennale de Venise
By: L’Instant donné
Elsa Balas, viola / Nicolas Carpentier, cello / Caroline Cren, piano
Maxime Echardour, percussion / Saori Furukawa, violin
Cédric Jullion, flute / Mathieu Steffanus, clarinet
April 23, 2018 – Il regno dell’acqua, Contemporary Music Days 2018, Le Caire by Mosaic ensemble
April 26, 2015 – Il regno dell’acqua, France Musique, Alla breve by L’instant Donné
April 20-24, 2015 – Il regno dell’acqua, France Musique, Alla breve by L’instant Donné (rediffusion)
November 26, 2013 – Il regno dell’acqua German creation – L’Instant donné – Stuttgart
Commissioned by Radio France
© ŠamaŠ éditions musicales 2013
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