Les méandres du rêve

Dream’s Meanders
IMED 9310
1993
CD
1 disc
25.00 CAD -20%

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Radio // Les méandres du rêve
Les méandres du rêve
Prélude aux méandres (1985), 3m29s [excerpt]
Track 1 from Les méandres du rêve
CD: empreintes DIGITALes (1993) IMED 9310
1 August 2001
By François Couture in All-Music Guide (USA), August 1, 2001

Text

Les méandres du rêve is not your average tape music album…”

Serge Arcuri’s Les méandres du rêve is an untypical release for the musique concrète label empreintes DIGITALes. Although the composer works with concrete sounds and creates tape music, his approach also includes lots of recorded keyboard parts and performed instruments. The resulting music belongs as much to mixed electroacoustics music as to new-age instrumental music. The first five pieces on this CD form a cycle, Les méandres du rêve (“Dream’s Meanders”), the musical part of a creation which also included choreography and scenography. After a short prelude, the listener dives head first into Arcuri’s dreamy world. La porte des sables, based on Tahar Ben Jelloun’s novel The Sand Child, includes electroacoustic sounds, oboe, English horn, and MIDI percussion. References to Arabic sonorities turn this piece into something a lot more evocative (and engaging) than what could be expected. If Murmure comes closer to a standard tape piece, Errances (for tape, oboe and harp) and Lueurs (for tape, French horn and percussion) cross over many genres, from 20th century classical to synthesizer music, both of them beautiful musical dreams. To complete the program, Arcuri added Résurgence and Chronaxie (for tape and percussion), two earlier pieces. The first one is a traditional tape piece without any distinctive qualities, while the second consists of his first experience in mixed composition. Percussionist Trevor Tureski appears on a total of three tracks, but even when he does not contribute the music remains very rhythmical. Les méandres du rêve is not your average tape music album and will appeal more to synthesizer-based instrumental music lovers than musique concrète purists.

blogue@press-408 press@408
27 April 2001
By François Couture in All-Music Guide (USA), April 27, 2001

Text

Serge Arcuri’s Les méandres du rêve is an untypical release for the musique concrète label empreintes DIGITALes. Although the composer works with concrete sounds and creates tape music, his approach also includes lots of recorded keyboard parts and performed instruments. The resulting music belongs as much to mixed electroacoustics music as to new-age instrumental music. The first five pieces on this CD form a cycle, Les méandres du rêve (Dream’s Meanders), the musical part of a creation which also included choreography and scenography. After a short prelude, the listener dives head first into Arcuri’s dreamy world. La porte des sables, based on Tahar Ben Jelloun’s novel The Sand Child, includes electroacoustic sounds, oboe, English horn, and MIDI percussion. References to Arabic sonorities turn this piece into something a lot more evocative (and engaging) than what could be expected. If Murmure comes closer to a standard tape piece, Errances (for tape, oboe and harp) and Lueurs (for tape, French horn and percussion) cross over many genres, from 20th century classical to synthesizer music, both of them beautiful musical dreams. To complete the program, Arcuri added Résurgence and Chronaxie for tape and percussion), two earlier pieces. The first one is a traditional tape piece without any distinctive qualities, while the second consists of his first experience in mixed composition. Percussionist Trevor Tureski appears on a total of three tracks, but even when he does not contribute the music remains very rhythmical. Les méandres du rêve is not your average tape music album and will appeal more to synthesizer-based instrumental music lovers than musique concrète purists.

blogue@press-391_23 press@391_23
1 September 1999
By Philippe Tétreau in Guide ressources (Québec), September 1, 1999

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“… l’occasion de plonger dans des climats insolites mais fertiles en sensations.”

L’électroacoustique conçue par Serge Arcuri se laisse aisément apprivoiser. Nous avons là l’occasion de plonger dans des climats insolites mais fertiles en sensations. Les séquences réunies sur ce disque contiennent quantité d’images sonores que l’on croirait tirées de films portant sur les grandes régions désertiques. D’ailleurs, Arcuri a signé la trame musicale de documentaires et de films (dont Liste noire). Différents instruments (hautbois, cor anglais, harpe, cor français, percussions) soliloquent sur la trame des sons ambiants.

blogue@press-316 press@316
1 February 1996
By Stephan Dunkelman in Les Cahiers de l’ACME #170 (Belgium), February 1, 1996

Press Clipping

blogue@press-907 press@907
1 March 1995
By Denis Dion in CEC, Contact! #8:2 (Canada), March 1, 1995

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“… un compositeur en pleine possession de ses moyens.”

[Translation] Serge Arcuri has some new work out on empreintes DIGITALes. In Les méandres du rêve, the Montréal composer selected seven titles from his already very impressive collecion of works. The album’s title, roughly translated as ‘dream meanders,’ is representative of the works within. There is an interesting blend of pieces composed for tape which explore the genre of tape and live electronics. The works on the disc are: Prélude aux méandres (1985); La porte des sables (1989) for oboe or English horn, MIDI percussion and tape; Murmure (1989); Errances (1992) for oboe d’amore, harp and tape; Lueurs (1987) for horn, percussion and tape; Résurgence (1982); and Chronaxie (1984) for multiple percussion and tape.

There is an inate sense of sonic poetry in Arcuri’s work. The musical journey often begins delicately, and subtly offers the listener a wealth of discoveries. This record is a good example of work by a composer who is in full command of his abilities. Arcuri’s journey is an adventure in technological innovation — in other words, the music comes first!

I must also mention the other musicians involved: Lawrence Cherney on oboe, oboe d’amore and English horn, Trevor Tureski on percussion and MIDI percussion, Erica Goodman on harp, and the talented Francis Ouellet on [French] horn. The unique combination of instruments and tape testifies to the strong complicity that exists among these four great musicians. This type of writing is a study of the coming together of the instrument and electroacoustics, and these musicians do it beautifully. There is no hint of conflict or struggle between the genres, only a respect for the natural instrument and a desire to realize its full potential. It’s a successful union and leaves the listener with the pure pleasure of listening.

Like all works from empreintes DIGITALes, this CD conforms to the labels’s policy of quality over quantity. Congratulations to the whole group!

blogue@press-186_5 press@186_5
1 May 1994
By Christopher Elson in Paris Transatlantic #5 (France), May 1, 1994

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Serge Arcuri, a former student of Gilles Tremblay (see PNMR No. 2, Présences francophones), is one of Canada’s leading electroacoustic composers. This disc, true to its word, meanders a wee bit, but leaves the listener with a positive picture of Arcuri’s work. The electronic component is cutting, at times externally-oriented, referential, at others inward and self-defining — we hear for example, shimmering streets of static, and the fall of electronic rain — but also pick out more mysterious psychic groans, the grinding of deep structures like tectonic plates or a lake freezing in the night. The perfomances by some of the finest interpreters of new music (Cherney, Ouellet, Tureski, Goodman) are seamlessly integrated with the electronic materials. Lueurs is rather conventional but is so recognizably of Montréal that one half expects Uzeb’s guitarist Michel Cusson to cut in with a solo.

blogue@press-173_4 press@173_4

Other texts in

  • Circuit #5:2 (Québec), June 1, 1994
    “… excelle dans l’art de créer des atmosphères.”

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