GÉRARD PESSON (France, 1958)
LA MESSAGÈRE (2021)– 5e mouvement de FAURÉ À LUGANO
d'après Gabriel Fauré
L'Instant Donné et Marion Tassou (voix)
enregistrement live : auditorium de la Radio Suisse Italienne, Lugano, Suisse
le 19/09/2021 – Festival La Via Lattea, Teatro del Tempo, Lugano

Album de Rémy Jannin

Pesson | La Messagère – Fauré à Lugano | live at Lugano, 2021

Premiered by Ensemble et cetera  (Dustin Donahue, marimba; Curt Miller, clarinet; Scott Worthington, double bass) at Conrad Prebys Music Center - Recital Hall. October 10th 2014.

Program Notes

The prefix intra- signifies ‘within’ or ‘between layers of’, hence the title intrascaling means between layers of scaling and is a reference to the use of durational ratios of attacks, that control the rhythmicity and permeate various compositional aspects of the work, at various temporal levels by means of scale invariance. I am very interested in the conflict between variance and invariance among different—two, three, or even more—superposed rhythmic structures. I find very appealing the fact that, the antagonistic relationship of such perpetually interwoven rhythmic structures and their metric ambiguity results from a limited number of sets of invariant data, each one set independently in motion from the others, at different scales.

The texture of Intrascalings is based on a constant flow of rapid pulses that is confronted by multiple, polyrhythmic temporal streams of different and varying densities. The contrasting timbres that have been assigned to the layers of the design, as well as their different registral positioning create an effect of independent intrwoven lines, which are in constant conflict with one another, thus maintaing an intense and, at times, escalating energy plain until the end of the work. 

The pitch domain, on the other side, is governed by an additive and combinatorial generative process, which takes a few germinal cells as input and engenders inexaustible variants at the output. Cyclic patterned recurrences of patterns, that share the same underlying structure, unfold in time, elaborating centripetally on the the same structural complex again and again, creating, maintaing and exalting one or various states from a single or from a variety of perspectives.

In this work I make extensive use of algorithmic routines that have been implemented in the frame of the research project Patterns of Intuition at the Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics at the University of Music and Performing Arts at Graz, Austria. 

Intrascalings (2014)

I was significantly influenced by Musique concrète instrumentale. The ‘it is Coming’ series aims to capture my excitement in discovering Lachenmann’s music and to exploit the sounds that were being suppressed, organized in my own way, utilizing daily sound fragments to structure the composition.

This very piece, ‘it is Coming III’, unlike the previous pieces of this series, delineates a less fragmented structure and incorporates the voices from the instrumentalists while juxtaposing Western and Chinese instruments at the same time. It is always interesting for me to witness the chemistry between the products from these two culture.

Violin: Hong-Yu LEUNG 梁康裕
Traditional Gaohu: Ching-Yin WONG 黃正彥

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/3nKidgXXxl0

It Is Coming III (for Violin and Traditional Gaohu)

Performed by: Ensemble Espai Sonor

3rd prize of the contest "Jóvenes Compositores Fundación SGAE-CNDM"

Instrumentation: Flute, Clarinet, Percussion, Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello.

Offsprings of Wrath, for seven instruments (2014)

MDR-Sinfonieorchester
Michael Wendeberg - conductor

recorded live in MDR-Studio in Leipzig, on 18/06/2025

Quasi un notturno, for orchestra (2025)

Premiered on the 18th of June 2025 by the MDR Sinfonieorchester and conducted by Michael Wendeberg.

Stryphos, for MDR Sinfonieorchester (2024-25)

桑原ゆう｜三つの聲 (2016) for violin, viola, and cello
written as part of Academy Voix Nouvelles 2016 at Fondation Royaumont
recorded live at Abbaye de Royaumont on September 9, 2016
premiered by Talea Ensemble｜Yuki Numata Resnick (violin), Elizabeth Weisser Helgeson (viola), Chris Gross (cello)
The recording+score video is available on the Score Follower channel: https://youtu.be/maphPICGEvQ

Three Voices

Three Voices (2016) for violin, viola, and cello

For alto flute, bass clarinet, horn, violin, viola, cello, double bass, piano, and percussion

Performed by Ensemble Échappé, conducted by Jeffery Milarsky

Incredulous (2018)

Angus Lee : Et lux perpetua
spatial litany for three performers

for the ilSuono Academy for Young Composers

première :
23rd July, 2017
Sala degli Specchi, Circolo degli Illuminati,
Città di Castello, Perugia, Italy 

Soloists of Ensemble Suono Giallo
Andrea Biagini (flutes), Michele Bianchi (saxophones), Laura Mancini (percussion)

It Is Coming III (for Violin and Traditional Gaohu)

Samuel Hong-yu Leung

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