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by Gilles Gobeil |imed_0892-0001|
The pieces included on this disc are related in at least three ways.
First, they were all realized at the same location: the Zentrum für Kunst
und Medientechnologie (ZKM) in
Karlsruhe (Germany), where I had the opportunity to complete four residencies
(for a total of almost 11 months) between January 2005 and August 2007.
Second, they all share the same musical intention. These three pieces
could be classified as ‘program music,’ since they are all based
on a literary argument. Ombres,
espaces, silences… came from Jacques
Lacarrière’s 1975 book Men
Possessed by God, which I read with fascination almost 30 years ago. This
book tells, with detachment and ethnographic flair, of the quest for the
absolute of the first monks of the Christian era. Entre les
deux rives du printemps is an attempt at setting to music my impressions
while reading Part Three of Dante’s great poem
The Divine
Comedy. As for Le miroir triste, it
is kind of a ‘cinema for the ear,’ based on an unshot scenario by
Andrey Tarkovsky
entitled Hoffmanniana
(1975), from which I have tried to evoke a few scenes.
Their third connection is found in their sound materials. I found
inspiration in (and taken liberties with) the marvelous heritage of past
music, an extraordinary source of colours that allowed me to borrow from the
strong and still fresh poetry of various pieces, some of them ancient. Also,
all three works contain materials generated by René
Lussier on his stunning and rather frightening daxophone.
I would like to express my gratitude to the manager of the Institut für
Musik & Akustik of the ZKM,
Ludger Brümmer, and
the whole technical and administrative crew, for their quality services and
unfailing support during my stays at the ZKM. This
album is also partly theirs. Thanks also go to René
Lussier, François
Gauthier, Mario Rodrigue, and
Dominique
Bassal.
Gilles Gobeil,
Montréal [English translation: François Couture,
x-07]
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