Seasoned With Passion, Humor and… Love
by Roxanne Turcotte |imed_9413-0001|
Amore (Love) is a tale told
through the language of sound. A cinematic approach conveys images and
sensations, evoking various destinations midst an amorous universe. Clichés,
‘forbidden’ people and places, wild love stories with a
Romanesque flavor. Fiction for the imagination made real, becoming deep
musical breaths.
Cinema plays a fundamental role in the musical creative process. The
synopsis of the five tableaux presents themes of love: the heart, seduction,
waiting, desire, secrets, the unexpected and travel… The music itself
becomes an image. The movie theater, the main setting for this story, is
still the ideal place for the clandestine tryst. Brushing up against the hand
of the man (or woman) beside you, a stranger whose presence is disarming. The
only light the shining screen and the illuminated exit sign which divulge an
aura of intimacy. The darkness obscures and the sound conceals the unforeseen
events of the evening…
On the imaginary screen, these unnatural, untouchable characters become
part and parcel of the script, and thusly almost real. These characters,
symbolized by human voices, remain fastened to the music, like the images
imprisoned in a comic strip, like the images caught on film. They never die;
always heroic, they exist only in and of the story.
The sound materials used to evoke the themes are divided into four
categories:
- those of a suggestive nature — the rings of a telephone, unwanted
calls, the heart, musical themes (French folk songs such as: Auprès de ma
blonde, Reviens
veux-tu?), club music… realistic treatment of the material and
anecdotal sounds;
- the dream-like: synthesized sounds, sampled sounds and those
manipulated to alter the source material, the appearance of multiethnic
influences in the various musical worlds;
- the voice: human voices represent unidentified characters and explain
the situations; and
- a leitmotif: rhythmic, suggesting movement, changing location, a
destination.
The musical structure is based on human breathing. This impetuous element
of love, the impetus of life itself, is marked by amassment leading to
climax, a change in the cycle, an ending. The alternating cycle of tension
and release is in some way an evolution, a progression, the passing of time,
the heart, a breath of life and… a catastrophe! We find this expressed
in the repetitive rhythm of the music, in the contours of each tableaux, the
leitmotif as well as in the finale: a vague idea of what might be construed
as an end, or as an eternal beginning.
Transposed into a musical form, breathing is conjured by extra-musical
parameters, such as the lunar cycle, life and death, natural transformations.
This form is the constant renewal of matter, of the state-of-being, the ever
spiraling growth of the chambered nautilus: Kalpa and Pralaya, Yin and Yang,
T’ien-tai, Dhikr… a universal phenomenon. As we grow, the world
over respires, aspires with all its might, whatever the medium: music, art,
different beliefs or creeds, meditation or prayer…
Amore is seduction, passion
and… a breath of life.
Roxanne Turcotte,
Montréal [i-94]
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