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Radio // Figures
Figures
Track 1 from Figures
CD: empreintes DIGITALes (2009) IMED 0944
  • piste@imed_0944-1
    • 1
      Le renard et la rose (1995), 14m55s
      • Babillage et rythme [Babbling and Rhythm]
      • Nostalgie et timbre [Nostalgia and Tone]
      • Colère et dynamique [Anger and Dynamics]
      • Lassitude et espace [Weariness and Space]
      • Sérénité et texture [Serenity and Texture]
      • Commission: The Banff Centre for the Arts, with support from the CCA
      • Premiere: September 6, 1995, International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), The Banff Centre for the Arts (Banff, Alberta, Canada)

      To Odile Magnan

      Le renard et la rose [The Fox and the Rose] is a concert suite composed from two sound sources: the music commissioned for an adaptation for radio of the book The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (produced by Odile Magnan for Radio-Canada in 1994) and whose principal themes are found in it, and the voices of the actors who collaborated in the recording of the radio adaptation.

      It is the third work in a cycle begun in 1991 (Éclats de voix and Spleen [recorded on the album Tangram, empreintes DIGITALes, IMED 9419/20, and IMED 9920] were the first two) and is based exclusively on the use of the voice; more specifically on onomatopoeia, which is the only form in human language that corresponds directly to the designated objects, gestures or feelings as sounds, rather than as the abstract representations that are words.

      In each of the work’s five parts a state or feeling experienced in adulthood is associated with a sonic framework: Babillage et rythme (Babbling and Rhythm), Nostalgie et timbre (Nostalgia and Tone), Colère et dynamique (Anger and Dynamics), Lassitude et espace (Weariness and Space), Sérénité et texture (Serenity and Texture). In them the musical themes associated with the different characters in the book are arranged chronologically: the King, the Businessman, the Conceited Man, the Flock of Wild Birds, the Well in the Desert, the Rose, the Baobabs, the Lamplighter, the Little Flower, the Merchant Who Sold Thirst-Quenching Pills, the Fox and the Geographer.

      The voices of the different characters are those of Pierre Bourgault, Françoise Davoine, Cynthia Dubois, Michel Dumont, Gilles Dupuis, Luc Durand, Monique Giroux, Jacques Languirand, Jean Marchand, Jean-Louis Millette, Guy Nadon, Martin Pensa, Gérard Poirier, Claude Préfontaine and Christine Séguin.

      [English translation: Tom Carter]

      Le renard et la rose was composed in the composer’s studio with a grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. The work was commissioned by The Banff Centre for the Arts for the 1995 International Computer Music Conference with support from the Canada Council for the Arts. Le renard et la rose had its premiere on September 6th, 1995 at the Banff Centre for the Arts. It won the Golden Nica at the Prix Ars Electronica (Linz, Autriche, 1996). It has been recorded a number of times: Prix Ars Electronica 1996 (ORF PAE 96), Le petit prince d’Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, CBC Records (MVCD 1091-2) and Sonic Circuits V (Innova 114).

      piste@imed_0944-1.1 oeuvre@14461
    • 6
      Figures de rhétorique (1997), 13m37s
      tape, and piano
      • Commission: Jacques Drouin, with support from the CCA
      • Premiere: May 23, 1998, Jacques Drouin • Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur (Montréal, Québec)

      To Jacques Drouin

      The title: rhetoric is the art of discourse, and figures of speech are the forms that language takes to articulate that discourse. The figures of speech used here are arranged by type: figures of meaning (hyperbole, litotes, metaphor, oxymoron, parable and pleonasm), of words (alliteration, embellishment and rhyme), of thought (allegory, apologue, bombast, irony and tautology), and of construction (antithesis, ellipsis, repetition and reticence). These figures determine the relationship between the tape and the piano and constitute the work’s four movements.

      The subtitle: “for tape and piano,” intended to emphasize the chronological primacy of one over the other. Figures de rhétorique [Figures of Speech] was composed as an acousmatic work, which required work on the material, trials, a dynamic approach, and listening — a great deal of listening. The pianist’s score was created during the final stages of composition. It is a conclusion, not a premise. It is also the result of numerous working sessions with the pianist, Jacques Drouin; and as the performer is free to interpret a number of the passages it is his version that is presented here. This work only makes use of sounds made by the original instrument.

      [English translation: Tom Carter]

      Figures de rhétorique was commissioned by the pianist Jacques Drouin with support from the Canada Council for the Arts. The tape sounds were obtained with the help of processing carried out on SYTER at the Groupe de recherches musicales in Paris in 1994. The final tape was produced at Queen’s University in Belfast (Northern Ireland, UK) and in the composer’s studio in 1997. Thanks to Michael Alcorn and Daniel Teruggi. It was premiered by Jacques Drouin on May 23rd, 1998 at the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur in Montréal where it was later recorded. Thanks to Guy Soucie. Figures de rhétorique was awarded the 1st Prize for mixed music in the Musica Nova 1998 International Competition of Electroacoustic Music (Prague, Czech Republic).

      piste@imed_0944-1.6 oeuvre@14462 ISRC CAD500910006
    • 7
      Venture (1998), 19m22s
      • Introduction
      • Innocence
      • Stabilité [Stability]
      • Tension
      • Délire [Frenzy]
      • Violence
      • Sérénité [Serenity]
      • Commission: Codes d’accès, with support from the CCA , Musiques & Recherches
      • Premiere: February 28, 1996, Échange Québec-Belgique, L’orchestre de haut-parleurs 2, Agora de la danse (Montréal, Québec)

      To Catherine Béchard

      The title refers to the 1960’s musical group The Ventures (theirs was the first stereo album in my small but growing record collection) but also to all of the progressive rock music of that decade and the one that followed. It is exclusively made up of fragments of that music. These are used not as quotations but rather as the sonic archetypes that an entire generation of composers, my generation, was listening to as it was growing up. It was while I was working on Venture that I understood something about the origins of my compositions during that period. To this music I have added quotations from the sixteen movements of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, which became a cult classic when Emerson, Lake & Palmer released a reworking of it in the mid-70’s. This was the work that enabled me to move from rock to classical music.

      Venture is made up of six movements that refer to different states of existence: Innocence, Stabilité [Stability], Tension, Délire [Frenzy], Violence, Sérénité [Serenity], and preceded by an Introduction. These are punctuated by variations on an ever-present movement, Tunnel (a metaphor for the transition between these states) which runs through the work.

      [English translation: Tom Carter]

      Venture was realized between 1996 and ’98 in the composer’s studio and at the Faculté Polytechnique de Mons (Belgium). It was mixed at the studio of Queen’s University in Belfast (Northern Ireland, UK). Thanks to Todor Todoroff and Michael Alcorn. The work was commissioned by Codes d’accès (Montréal) and Musiques & Recherches (Ohain, Belgium) and was made possible by the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. The first version was performed on February 28th, 1996 at Agora de la danse (Montréal) as part of the festival Échange Québec-Belgique.

      piste@imed_0944-1.7 oeuvre@14463
    • 14
      Ellipse (1999), 11m58s
      • Commission: Arturo Parra, with support from the CCA
      • Premiere: May 15, 1998, Parr(A)cousmatique — 15e Festival international de musique actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV), Cégep de Victoriaville (Victoriaville, Québec)

      To Arturo Parra

      Ellipsis is one of the figures of speech. It is the art of not saying everything, of omitting words, parts of sentences and elements of meaning, and of then allowing the interlocutor, the listener, to fill in the blanks. There are two people in this conversation. First there is Arturo Parra, who commissioned this work in order to produce a mixed version for guitar and tape (which is entitled L’envers du temps). So I composed this piece with him in mind, and left him enough space to move around in.

      As the composer of the piece for solo tape I am the other person talking. Knowing how cohesive the acousmatic version is when it is performed in concert, I decided to let the guitarist colour the work not just by providing him with sound elements but by also giving him access to some of the key elements. And in fact the tape that Parra uses today is different from the acousmatic version. The works had the same starting point, but diverged along the way.

      [English translation: Tom Carter]

      Ellipse was realized between 1997 and ’99 in the composer’s studio and at the Faculté Polytechnique de Mons (Belgium). Thanks to Todor Todoroff. The work was commissioned by the guitarist Arturo Parra with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. It was premiered at the Festival international de musique actuelle de Victoriaville (Québec) on May 15th, 1998.

      piste@imed_0944-1.14 oeuvre@14464 ISRC CAD500910014

Some Recommended Items

  • Le renard et la rose: Prix Ars Electronica 1996 — Golden Nica
  • Prix Opus 1998-99: Disque de l’année

Reissue of IMED 9944.

Includes a CD-ROM zone: MP3 (320 kbps)

  • UCC 771028094424
  • Canada Council of the Arts • SODEC