Vol en V des oies sauvages

I thought of scales because the piece's progression is based on a translateral movement from scale to scale (actually, tonalities). I thought of scales because of animals changing skin. What do we do - we, growing humans? I thought of not epidermic - but of profound change, transformation, transfiguration. That I think of it does not mean I represent it or express it at all. But it's there. And all I say, in the end, is I like your voice.

Scales

This is an improvized addition to Lady ElectroTrek's music "It's Meant to Be" > https://soundcloud.com/electrotrek/its-meant-to-be. Now, why add anything to a piece that is already a full-blown entity to itself? Because this is the gist of incredible encounters - one is complete as s/he is, but one still can extend. One is complete - and two is greater, for two know better of completeness than one alone. Of course, if ElectroTrek's piece didn't exist, that oboe line wouldn't have come into existence. It couldn't be otherwise. But the oboe line is not the child of the initial piece - for the child is the dialog that comes into existence as the two pieces come together.

It's Meant To Be (V2) (Remix)

This is a collab with my long-time friend Paul (aka Sylvain Dicte). A Lady I know might like to propose and develop a version of her own, so that it is also open to a collaboration with her. All in all, we have:
- 3 people: her, me and my poet friend
- 2 tongues: French and English
- 2 languages: music and poetry
- 1 mystery... as to whether or how this thing will branch out!

Original version of the poem >

J’ai vu en laissant partir l’abeille
Des arbres plantés vers le ciel
Suppliant le soleil.
Grands frères bras tendus
Buvant l’air et mangeant la lumière,
Tanguant comme des algues tentaculaires
Au cœur clair de la mer agitée,
Dendrites et axones puisant
Insatiablement l’énergie
Intarissable de l’univers.
Entre ciel et terre, traits d’union sacrés.
Je ne peux croire que ce n’est pas décidé...

English version of the poem >

I let go of a bee
And I see trees planted in the sky
Imploring the sun.
Ample brothers, their arms held out wide
Drinking the air, feeding on the light
Swaying like sprawling seaweed
Amidst the clear waters of a turbulent sea,
Dendrites and axons
Unquenchably drawing
The inexhaustable energy of the universe.
Sacred links unifying sky and earth –
I cannot believe it is not meant to be.

Ample brothers

Si entiendes esa música, significa que te has liberado de la condición en la que estabas - en la que te encontré. Pero lo sé que eres libre en tu corazón, lo que sea, para siempre. Me lo has aprendido a cultivar para mí porque fuiste como una emisaria en un momento de mi vida cuando conocía la oscuridad del alma. Mi deseo más profundo para ti es que vivas la vida de la persona que eres realmente, en el silencio de lo que tu corazón te manda.

I will seek the way to find you

I used to sing my elder daughter, then a baby, this Mother Goose nursery rhyme, which I had turned into a tune. She asked me a duet to play it with me - I made a trio so there is room for her sister.

Little jumping Joan

For Anouschka. Of the 30,000 days that we humans are given to live on average, 1,000 are absolutely determining as to shape who we are to become and how we are to live this life. Those 1,000 days are the first ones in a human's life, and however deterministic this view might be, within that view it is also a wonder that the possibility remains to start one's life all over again. How many times in a life are  we given to live such 1,000 days? What can be so "determining" in a person's life? This piece is the result of a work by 2 hands and 4 ears, a combination of me playing and she listening and readjusting every now and then the orientation the piece would take - like a walk along the Norman shore.

30,000 days

bug - a technological variation - it all started as I was listening to my daughters' defective CD player ; the opening piece's development, as well as the whole series' driving principle, is owed to the application of different kinds of defect and distortion - I turned the defects of the player into composition principles, which I tested on the Finale music writing program : skipping, cutting, overlapping, extending, smoothing, spreading, etc.

Bug - 1 caveat emptor

This piece is inspired from the sounds of the Paris metro, or subway, which I take every day to go to work. Here is how the piece was made : 1. I recorded real-life metro sounds and 2. converted the audio .wav format into MIDI format 3. which in turn produced a music score. 4. I chose the most meaningful melodic lines (and discarded most of the deep sound, cluster-like partials) and 5. experimented different echo, reverb and delay effect filters on the tuba part to bring out the tunnel's ambiance and 6. added the real-life sounds of the crystal glass to suggest the friction of the metro wheels on the iron rail. That's the tunnel mermaids singing.

Chant des sirènes de sous terre

piano solo series - the title has something to do with the sort of relief and serenity that one feels in the heart of an old or very sick kin when death is near, though I haven't taken that theme to its full consequences in the piece

Usherer's whisper

Sentier des promesses

Intensity and duration. These are the two dimensions of love - depth of feeling in the moment, yet a yearning for it never to stop on the arrow of time. Caress is my teacher, and as I am caressed, it is my skin that itself is caressing. For piano, impro percussion (conga and tambourine) and decorative guitar.

Caress - intensity & duration

One piece I hope she likes and which we can dance on.

One slow dance

The first song was initially called 30,000 days, the total number of days at the beginning of a human life that will determine that one life. There are however moments in a human's life that are like - a rebirth. You'd want such moments to last forever - and it does in a way, for the 30,000 days that it lasts last all the way to the end. Actually, humans may never cease to be born again and again to be what they are to become. Toute une vie pour naître à soi-même. Though not a musician, Anouschka was there all along to compose the song with me, giving the song its direction. Part II of the song is an echo and a continuation of that moment experienced with her - this time on my own.

Song for Anouschka I & II

Auguste could have been my son. I would have loved him all the same. Life seems to take other directions than those we would like and death strikes in ways so painfully unexpected, which we see as unbearably unfair. The piece is played on my old piano, which I saved from the dust and ressuscitated out of the plastic layers it was covered with because of the months-long renovation work being done in my house. The piece opens and ends with a reference to the Song of Anouschka - Anouschka being Auguste's mother. You can hear birds too, for Auguste was a man of nature, his father called him "le directeur de la buvette des oiseaux" when he was a little boy. He was 23 in July 2023.

Être majestueux

Intertwining clarinets set on fixed motifs and scales, repetition disrupted by erratic rhythm and melody. The oboe sound sticks out, as if carried on a bed of clarinet fog, then they imitate, support each other, and mix.

Oboe specks in clarinet cloud

Fantaisie. 1 oboe, 4 clarinets. 2 bits of music saved from nothingness. Put together to sound like a piece - though undeveloped, taken from what could have been a greater - and which is now a forgotten project.

Piece of cloth (from the greater patchwork)

Solo piece, oscilating between determination and contemplation. I was at my sister's in NY state when I started it, which makes me nostalgic (yes, America is the place of some nostalgia for me), thinking of using it as material for a new piece dedicated to my friend Jeff's wind ensemble.

Je ne suis pas hanté par la fin

Another version of "Je ne suis pas hanté par la fin". By the way, Janie, that's my sister. The piano part comes from an impro at her home, which I later called "Je ne suis pas hanté par la fin", to be used as material for a wind ensemble version, still under construction. Meanwhile, I chose to enhance the piano with oboe, English horn and bassoon.

At Janie's

84, for 84 days. Piano solo piece, recounting the short-lived reality of a blissful glory unaware of its doom. Though I will remember this too: "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall" (attributed to Emerson?). How far down did I fall, for "all glories end up in RIP" (attributed to Edward Young)? At the heart of the piece, there is a quote of Francisco Tarrega's "Spanish Romance" or "Romanza". [I found the statue in the picture as an allegory of glory, but the sweetness in her face tells you otherwise. It is a war monument in Cormeilles-en-Parisis, "Victoire endeuillée", by Bartholomé]. Something beyond, or deep underneath the fuming ruins of the dead splendors of glory, remains and smoulders still. Isn't it simple, tender, undying love?

Die ist eine schönere Version von ,,84", die von Michael Spielmann interpretiert wurde (https://soundcloud.com/search?q=michael%20spielmann). Ich denke, das Stück klingt verbessert und vergrössert. Ich bin dafür so dankbar ! 

[Bild: http://www.olgakuczer.com/portfolio_page/metatron-merkabah-sacred-geometry/]

84 - 3 - COLLAB with Michael Spielmann

Relax. You’re going to be all right. I know this piece is made of sorrow. It’s longer than usual. Think that my daughters liked the original, faster version, feeling like and actually dancing on it. A lovely moment for a piece born out of sadness. The title is a reference to Stig Dagerman's book. The illustration, closest to what I was looking for, is a detail from a painting by Engène Boudin.

Notre besoin de consolation est impossible à rassasier

The original version of "Notre besoin...", slightly revisited.

A l'amont des soupirs

I don't know what I did to deserve what befalls me. Nobody deserves life when it happens - for it happens. Don't be mad is what this music says, don't be mad and be joyful, as I seek to be. You are the guardian of my magic world. Even though it seems lost now, or taken away by some mysterious force, I rest assured that I lived only by the truth and shall live fully in confidence that what happened happens still.

Don't be mad

3 oboes, english horn, bassoon -
classical-inspired composition, in 2 parts ; dedicated to my oboe teacher gilber flory ; l'espiguette is a restaurant in my home town, rouen, normandy

À l'espiguette 1

3 oboes, english horn, bassoon - again !
very similar mood as in n°1, though slower, calmer -
[classical-inspired composition, in 2 parts ; dedicated to my oboe teacher gilber flory ; l'espiguette is a restaurant in my home town, rouen, normandy]

À l'espiguette 2

Short orchestral piece mixing nostalgia and a sentiment of imminent liberation. A hint to childhood's tune, "à la claire fontaine..."

Trésor perdu d'Albarracin

I started this piece as a continuation of "le Visage que je te donne". I was on a trip at some dear friends' house in Alicante and then in Catalona. First it felt I barely couldn't touch the keyboard, as if the keys were hot. There was a cold determination behind this however, but also a sense of fun and play, and so being with my friends I was brought back to some inner strength, whereby the hot and the cold (also: fear and courage, loneliness and independence, sadness and joy)would somehow unite and both be subsumed into a wider state of being. - This is the face I give you, this is the work of my hands.

Cold hands on hot keys

Acoustic piano and synth soft layers. French poet René Char has this word about love that it is a "sereine crispation" - i.e. a serene tension or tightening, which I think might often apply to music as well: tension, intention, and sensuality. Both lack, longing - and communion. The title "las protundidades" is from a poem by Isaure Saint-Martin: "Como la flor mira el sol, Como el mar mira las profundidades, Mi corazon solo ve a ti." For I only know an angel from the fields above has rapt my heart away. [Illustration by photographer Stefan Adams]

Las profundidades

One breath. Because breathing is all we need, though we seem to forget it, our faces covered with masks, an insult to smiles. "Un même souffle" is the title of my friend Sylvain Dicte's love poem, the source of this piece, for oboe and rainstick.

Un même souffle

First, a sequence of fifths. Then, an escape from that pattern. Behind the pursuit of resonance, an aspiration to rest.

Quintes

Quintes (piano & oboe improv)

I've been thinking: what do you want - if not life? You want it as if you didn't have it, though wanting is all life already. In this duet, she goes acoustic (ElectroTrek), I go electronic. I owe her the piano part, the harmonica part is hers. Her full piece > https://soundcloud.com/electrotrek/buttons-holes-keys

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