Siroko Duo performing La Musique by Brett Austin Eastman on February 2, 2018 at Center For New Music, presented by Hot Air Music Festival.

Jessie Nucho - alto flute
Victoria Hauk - flute

https://sirokoduo.com/

LA MUSIQUE is a work written for flute and alto flute. The title is taken directly from the poem of the same name by Charles Baudelaire. The piece was composed using three compositional ideas. The primary
compositional idea is a musical transcription of the poem using a comprehensive cryptogram developed for the piece. In this cryptogrammic technique designed to transcribe French text into melodic phrases, each letter in the alphabet corresponds to a specific musical pitch and duration, and quite often is accompanied by a fricative textural sound to mimic the pronunciation of the letter - aspirated articulation. The second compositional technique used in the piece involves a melodic rendition of recordings of myself reading the text out loud. Lastly, a lyrical theme serves as a link between the first and second ideas.

The compositional techniques complement each other like a mosaic pattern, modeled after the parallelism of the poem’s verses. The form of the poem influences the form of the piece. Textures and timbres in the flute writing are informed by the music of the spoken language.

LA MUSIQUE was written for Siroko Duo. 

LA MUSIQUE
La musique souvent me prend comme une mer!
Vers ma pâle étoile,
Sous un plafond de brume ou dans un vaste éther,
Je mets à la voile;
La poitrine en avant et les poumons gonfés
Comme de la toile
J'escalade le dos des fots amoncelés
Que la nuit me voile;
Je sens vibrer en moi toutes les passions
D'un vaisseau qui souffre;
Le bon vent, la tempête et ses convulsions
Sur l'immense gouffre
Me bercent. D'autres fois, calme plat, grand miroir
 De mon désespoir!

 MUSIC
Music often moves me like vast waters!
 Toward my obscure star,
Under a fog’s roof or in a boundless ether,
 Sail set for the afar ;
Chest out and lungs full of air
 Spread out like a tarp,
I skate the backs of mounding waves
 That the night warps;
I feel vibrating in me all of the passions
 Of a writhing ship;
The strong wind, the storm and its tractions
 On this immensely wide split
I lull. Other times, still as glass, great mirror
 Of my hopelessness! 

Translation: Brett Austin Eastman

La Musique - for flute and alto flute *live at Center for New Music Feb 2, 2018

Brett Austin Eastman