Marcelle Deschênes: petits Big Bangs: track detail

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petits Big Bangs
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1. Big Bang II (1987, 95) 7m40s imed_0681-1.1 | 10410 | ISRC CAD500619830

music for the multimedia installation by George Dyens

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Premiere: 1989, Images du futur, Cité des arts et des nouvelles technologies de Montréal (Montréal, Québec)

“Endlessly oscillating between light and darkness, Big Bang II is simultaneously a requiem, a gloria and a Halleluiah celebrating the fragile paths of Mankind’s destiny…” -Georges Dyens

In a postnuclear setting where all trace of human life has vanished, crushed remnants emerge from the layers of sand and stone, and the fragments of memory burst through the shadow mouths forming, singing, shutting up, screaming. An extravagant symbol evoking at the same time spiritual or emotional connections and social commentary, this very short representation becomes an imaginary journey, poetic and sidereal, full of the distress generated by our collective fear of the end of the world.

Big Bang II was designed for a strange technological planet created by holographic sculptor Georges Dyens for a multimedia installation comprised of holographic sculptures, lighting, optical fiber and electroacoustic music, all this set in motion by a programmed synchronization system.

[English translation: François Couture, viii-06]

Big Bang II was realized in 1987 at the Bruit Blanc studio in Montréal. It was created during the summer of 1987, as part of the international exhibit Images du futur at La Cité des arts et des nouvelles technologies de Montréal. This version was remixed in 1995 by Louis Dufort at the Université de Montréal. Bruno Bélanger performed the first mastering at PRIM, centre d’arts médiatiques, studio in Montréal (thanks to its coproduction program) in 2004. Dominique Bassal did the final mastering in 2005.

2. Indigo (2000) 10m40s imed_0681-1.2 | 19006 | ISRC CAD500619840

• Peur apprivoisée [Tamed Fear] • Trame de tension [Weft of Tension]

Premiere: October 31, 2000, Rien à voir (8), Réseaux, Salle Beverley Webster Rolph — Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (Montréal, Québec)

“… a ribbon around a bomb.” — André Breton

“Neither the inner world nor the outer world is a bed of roses.” -Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Part 1: Peur apprivoisée (Tamed Fear) (Blue Beard, Charles Perrault)

Knowing how to browse to gain access to the darkest secrets. Accessing isolated lairs. Not being afraid of the wound that will not stop bleeding. Following the fearsome intruder who turns crossroads into closed roads. Daring to open the door hiding everything that has been destroyed. Acknowledging and taming this malign force to avoid its destructive energy.

Part 2: Trame de tension (Weft of Tension) (Snow-white and Red-rose, Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm)

A world where roses have no thorns does not portray the realities of life. It needs a bear coming with the roughness of winter. So that darkness can make sense, forgetting the horizon-less Eden and letting the anger — so full of vital energy — explode. Tapping back into the instinct of claws and teeth to pick oneself up and defend.

Indigo was recomposed from Musique défilé (1999-2000) and contains quotes from the music works L’impatience des limites (1992-93) by Bernard Fort, Derrière la porte la plus éloignée… (1998) by Gilles Gobeil, and Électro-Prana (1998) by Jean-François Laporte, plus some early music samples.

The pieces composed for the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne’s music/fashion show event “Musique défilé pour une fin de siècle” were later reworked into standalone acousmatic works — Indigo and Le bruit des ailes. They became the first two parts of the large-scale work Griffes (Claws), still in progress and inspired by Clarissa Pinkola Estés’s research in psychoanalysis (Women Who Run With the Wolves) and by Marie-Louise von Franz (Feminine in Fairy Tales). Through the use of sonic metaphors and highly evocative referential sounds, the music stages mental pictures associated with various “wild woman” archetypes taken from myths, dreams and tales. These first two parts are introspective works digging into the intimate space of affects. Also rolling through them are the tragedies of the origins and the fascinating forces of creation. Attempting to explore these buried memories, these untamed torrents, cannot be done without some commotion or tidal waves.

[English translation: François Couture, viii-06]

Indigo was recomposed in 2000 from Musique défilé (1999-2000) at the Bruit Blanc studio and mixed by Martin Hurtubise at the PRIM, centre d’arts médiatiques, studio in Montréal; the first mastering was performed by Bruno Bélanger in 2004 at Studio Prim in Montréal (thanks to its coproduction program); the final master was made by Dominique Bassal in 2005. The piece was premiered on October 31, 2000 at the Sallw Beverley Webster Rolph of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, during the first concert in Réseaux’s Rien à voir (8) series, itself presented as part of the SuperMicMac festival produced by Productions SuperMusique. Thanks to Prim, Centre d’arts médiatiques. Indigo was selected as finalist at the Concurso Internacional ART’S XXI in 2001 in Valencia (Spain).

2a. Peur apprivoisée (2000) imed_0681-1.2.2a | 23833

2b. Trame de tension (2000) imed_0681-1.2.2b | 23834

3. Le bruit des ailes (2000, 02) 10m54s imed_0681-1.3 | 19007 | ISRC CAD500619850

Premiere: November 2, 2002, Festival des musiques sacrées de Québec, Église Notre-Dame-de-Jacques-Cartier (Quebec City, Québec)

To all those who feel the urge to stretch their wings

“Is the bird scared of the sound its wings make when they open?” -Clarissa Pinkola Estés

“I reign in the azure like an unknown sphinx;
I unite my heart of snow to the whiteness of swans” — Charles Baudelaire, Les fleurs du mal: XVII. La Beauté

The trampled otherness, the wrench, the wandering, the freezing, and then the itch and the explosive freedom of the stretched out wings of an Ugly Little Duckling (Hans Christian Andersen).

Le bruit des ailes (The Sound of Wings) was recomposed from Musique défilé (1999-2000) and contains self-referential quotes from the music works Écran humain (1983), Lux (1985), D-503 (1987) and Ludi (1990). The materials used for this piece are taken from a “soundbase” of ice storms (from the ice storm that struck Quebec in 1998; thanks to Jean-François Laporte for helping with the recordings), erupting volcanoes and nuclear tests in forgotten deserts. This soundbase was created together with Nicolas Boucher.

The pieces composed for the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne’s music/fashion show event “Musique défilé pour une fin de siècle” were later reworked into standalone acousmatic works — Indigo and Le bruit des ailes. They became the first two parts of the large-scale work Griffes (Claws), still in progress and inspired by Clarissa Pinkola Estés’s research in psychoanalysis (Women Who Run With the Wolves) and by Marie-Louise von Franz (Feminine in Fairy Tales). Through the use of sonic metaphors and highly evocative referential sounds, the music stages mental pictures associated with various “wild woman” archetypes taken from myths, dreams and tales. These first two parts are introspective works digging into the intimate space of affects. Also rolling through them are the tragedies of the origins and the fascinating forces of creation. Attempting to explore these buried memories, these untamed torrents, cannot be done without some commotion or tidal waves.

[English translation: François Couture, viii-06]

Le bruit des ailes was recomposed in 2002 from Musique défilé (1999-2000) at the Bruit Blanc studio and the PRIM, centre d’arts médiatiques, studio in Montréal (thanks to its residency program); the first mastering was performed by Bruno Bélanger in 2004 at Studio Prim in Montréal (thanks to its coproduction program); the final master was made by Dominique Bassal in 2005. The piece was premiered on November 2, 2002 at the Notre-Dame-de-Jacques-Cartier Church during the Festival des musiques sacrées in Quebec City. Thanks to PRIM, Centre d’arts médiatiques. Le bruit des ailes was selected as finalist at the 5th Concurso Internacional de Música Eletroacústica de São Paulo (CIMESP ’03, Brazil).

4. Lux (1985) 23m16s imed_0681-1.4 | 19008 | ISRC CAD500619860

music for the multimedia presentation by Renée Bourassa

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Premiere: December 5, 1985, (S)pace, SMCQ, Spectrum (Montréal, Québec)

“An architecture starts living. The visual space emerges from a shape-shifting stage sculpture that is tied to the sonic imagination and the mobile images. These sculptural entities in constant mutations, protagonists in a mineral dream, are living their lives cut off from mankind.” -Renée Bourassa

On the subject of primitive, mythical light as an object of knowledge, the various forms of stage play are reminiscent of the repeated cycle of beginnings and endings. One finds in it the ever-present vibration of a vital energy, the dualities between power and fragility, outer and inner worlds, expansion and relaxation. The kaleidoscope of sensations and emotions, bellies and knots stacked in levels, creation and destruction of a universe looking for its own meaning.

“Neither pure music nor painting, theatre, sculpture or cinema, but a little of all that. Lux was offering a new stage language blending sound, image, movement, space and voice.” -Renée Bourassa, “Le spectacle total,” Québec-Science, 25:2, October 1986

Lux contains quotes from the following music works: OUT (1985) and Quarks’ Muzik (1983) by Alain Thibault, and deUs irae (1984) (self-referential). It also quotes the writings of Georges Bernard Shaw, Ernest Rutherford, Robert Oppenheimer, Emmanuel Kant and Renée Bourassa.

[English translation: François Couture, viii-06]

Lux was realized in 1985 at the Bruit Blanc studio in Montréal and was premiered on December 5, 1985 during the (S)PACE concert presented by the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) at the Spectrum in Montréal. Lux was composed for Renée Bourassa’s multimedia show by the same title, for two performers, constant-variation multidimensional stage system, multiple projections, special effects, and spatialized electroacoustic music. Lux was realized with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the ministère des Affaires culturelles du Québec. Thanks to Gaël Andrews and Jean-Sébastien Marcoux, recorded voices; Claude Godcharles (synthetic voice, the INRS’s Loquax synthesizer). The first mastering was performed by Bruno Bélanger in 2004 at PRIM, centre d’arts médiatiques, studio in Montréal (thanks to its coproduction program); the final master was made by Dominique Bassal in 2005.

5. Moll, opéra lilliput pour six roches molles (1976) 22m55s imed_0681-1.5 | 19009 | ISRC CAD500619870

• Le monde est une goutte d’eau et «Lucia di Lammermoog» [The World is a Waterdrop and “Lucia di Lammermoog”] • Naissance des roches molles [Birth of the Soft Rocks] • Puce: Zig!… Zig! Zig!… Tu es là?… Es-tu blessé? — Zig: Je ne crois pas. Je suis tombé sur une chose molle. [«Zig et Puce»] [Puce: Zig!… Zig! Zig!… Are you there? Are you hurt? — Zig: I don’t think so. I fell on something soft. (“Zig and Puce”)] • Insectes secs — bâiller aux corneilles [Dry Insects — Yawning One’s Head Off] • Étoile variable [Variable Star] • Insectes «amertubes»: boire la mer avec une paille [“Bittuber” Insects: Drinking the Sea with a Straw] • Étoile double [Double Star] • Jeu: vers une synchronisation [Game: Toward Synchronization] • Si by the Sea [B by the Sea] • Sirènes [Sirens] • J’ai perdu le si de ma clarinette • Comme la lune se lève rouge [«Wozzeck»] [As the Moon Rises Red (“Wozzeck”)] • Supernova et étoiles pulsantes [Supernova and Pulsing Stars] • Étoile du matin [Morning Star] • Vaisseaux fantômes [Ghost Ships] • London Bridge is Falling Down • Le monde est une bulle d’air [The World is an Air Bubble]

2 clarinets, 3 trombones, 3 percussion sets, toys, and tape

Pierre Langevin, clarinets; Réjean Marois, trombones; René Joly, Raynald Lévesque, Robert Pelletier, Robert Leroux, percussion and toys

Commission: SMCQ, with support from the CCA

Premiere: March 18, 1976, Concert 75, SMCQ, Salle Pollack — Université McGill (Montréal, Québec)

To our “fleeting body, neither lasting nor stone.” — Roger Caillois

A transposition of children’s dreams of sea, earth and sky from a research project in music teaching (Université Laval, 1975), this suite of 17 miniatures is the result of long, obsessive hours spent looking at the ordinary gray pebbles found on the Bas-Saint-Laurent beaches.

No one knows quite why, but the fascinating force of the Origins and memories of a lost paradise rule the tiny world of pebbles and grains of dust. All these forgotten, undecipherable signs look strangely like the sea, the stars, an insect, the red moon, the mountain, the thunderstorm, human dramas, and abstract points, lines and spirals. The wonders of children? If you shrink down and mineralize yourself, they offer a sanctuary or vertigo, vague daydreaming or initiation, “hearing the sounds of the hermetic stone under a tiny spot on the inside of the heart” (Mahmoud Shabistari). I also wanted to express the revelation of a crazy itinerary through the slow grind of Time. Exploring the underside of tiny things, introspecting in the world of childhood, the infinitely big littleness, hardness turning into something soft, tender, flexible, inert becoming alive, drama turning to wonder, sadness becoming sweet madness.

[English translation: François Couture, viii-06]

Moll, opéra lilliput pour six roches molles (Moll, Lilliput Opera for Six Soft Rocks) was realized in 1976 in the studio of the Université Laval (Quebec City) and premiered on March 18, 1976 at McGill University’s Pollack Hall in Montréal by the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ). It had been commissioned by the SMCQ with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Thanks to Stéphane Clark for the dreamy narrative. Moll, opéra lilliput pour six roches molles won First Prize (Mixed Works) at the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition (France, 1978) and it was awarded a 1992 Euphonie d’or “as one of the twenty most significant works from two decades of the Bourges Awards.” This recording was realized and mixed in 1978 by Jean Corriveau at Studio Jean Sauvageau in Montréal; mastering by Dominique Bassal in 2005. Performers: Pierre Langevin (clarinets), Réjean Marois (trombones), René Joly, Raynald Lévesque, Robert Pelletier, Robert Leroux (percussion and toys).

5a. Le monde est une goutte d’eau et «Lucia di Lammermoog» (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5a | 23835

Listen

5b. Naissance des roches molles (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5b | 23836

5c. Puce: Zig!… Zig! Zig!… Tu es là?… Es-tu blessé? — Zig: Je ne crois pas. Je suis tombé sur une chose molle. [«Zig et Puce»] (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5c | 23837

5d. Insectes secs — bâiller aux corneilles (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5d | 23838

5e. Étoile variable (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5e | 23839

5f. Insectes «amertubes»: boire la mer avec une paille (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5f | 23840

5g. Étoile double (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5g | 23841

5h. Jeu: vers une synchronisation (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5h | 23842

5i. Si by the Sea (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5i | 23843

5j. Sirènes (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5j | 23844

5k. J’ai perdu le si de ma clarinette (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5k | 23845

5l. Comme la lune se lève rouge [«Wozzeck»] (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5l | 23846

5m. Supernova et étoiles pulsantes (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5m | 23847

5n. Étoile du matin (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5n | 23848

5o. Vaisseaux fantômes (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5o | 23849

5p. London Bridge is Falling Down (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5p | 23850

5q. Le monde est une bulle d’air (1976) imed_0681-1.5.5q | 23851

6. Big Bang III (1992) 2m38s imed_0681-1.6 | 19493 | ISRC CAD500619880

music for the multimedia installation by George Dyens

Premiere: 1992, Images du futur, Cité des arts et des nouvelles technologies de Montréal (Montréal, Québec)

“Inside a semi-circular cockpit that gives us the feeling of floating into space, we discover crossfaded galaxies, nebulas, black holes and cosmic dust; or we are in the middle of a space storm with lightning, thunder, incredible winds and tornadoes enhanced by electroacoustic sounds. Among thousands of rocks and meteors, we glimpse electronic debris floating for all eternity… Man and his habitat, Man and the infinite…” -Georges Dyens

A celebration filled with light, a homage to Earth, “a devotion for Life in all its guises and worries about its foretold disappearance” (Marie Delagrave, Vie des arts #164, Montréal, Autumn 1996). “In the heart of radical movement, a universe lives and dies, exploding over and over” (Daniel Carrière, Le Devoir, Montréal, June 19, 1992), “as if the spectator were a witness to creation itself, a party to the end of time, suspended between the entrails of the earth and sidereal space, and holding his breath.” (Nell Luter Floyd, The Clarion-Ledger, Jackson, MS, USA, March 5, 1995).

Big Bang III was composed for Georges Dyens’ multimedia installation by the same title. Dyens’ work consisted of sculptures, lightings and holograms, all automated.

[English translation: François Couture, viii-06]

Big Bang III was realized in 1992 at Bruit Blanc studio in Montreal and premiered with the installation in the summer of 1992, as part of the international exhibit Images du futur presented at La Cité des arts et des nouvelles technologies de Montréal. This version was mastered by Dominique Bassal in August 2006 in Montréal. A second version of the installation was completely redesigned in 1995 under the title Vertigo terræ for the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson (MS, USA); that installation is now part of the permanent exhibit at the Musée du Bas-Saint-Laurent in Rivière-du-Loup (Québec).

Marcelle Deschênes: petits Big Bangs: track detail

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