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by Stéphane Roy |imed_9630-0001|
Swarming, exploding, contrast and transparence. Color! This sonic color,
klangfarben, born at the beginning of our century and which has
nourished our contemporary mode of listening. In its different stylistic
manifestations, acousmatic music often unites plastic research and desire for
expression. A Kaleidoscope of
antagonistic feelings, of transmuted materials and ephemeral forms, it is the
bearer of imaginary spaces and of galvanizing passions, delicately poetic
enharmonicity like forceful distress. One must prick up ones’ ears to
this art which electrifies the very interior of listening.
In acousmatic works, the sound materials are fashioned, even sculpted, in
order to put into relief their most singular characteristics. Among the
sounds which result from these workings, there are those which possess a
surprisingly evocative force. Like archetypes, they are intended as the
expression of our interior world and their mysterious meanings radiate
throughout the entire work, thus participating in the formation of its poetic
substance. During this compositional process, the material and the formal
architecture of the work mutually generate a circular fertile movement, until
the right moment when something suddenly appears and the composer then makes
it permanent. Haunted by the problem of reception, the composer does not
approach the work as an abstract project, but like a palpable esthetic
phenomenon which proliferates by way of numerous transformations through a
concrete sonic experience.
Kaleidos has its
origins in such a process. It draws together four works composed over the
past seven years during which an expressive will was manifested in Ondes /
Arborescences (1987) and Paysages
intérieurs (1988), and which progressively led to a preoccupation with
more and more insistent plasticities and forms in Mimetismo (1992) and
Crystal Music (1994).
Ondes /
Arborescences and Paysages
intérieurs bear witness to a continual development. Lively and exuberant,
the shattering of sonic colors which burst forth from Ondes /
Arborescences sometimes turn into violent expressive contrasts. Bursts
and contrasts yield to a dialogue of shadows and twilight in the dreamlike
discourse of Paysages
intérieurs where an ever-present tension creates an expressionistic
atmosphere. More recent works, Mimetismo and Crystal Music were an
opportunity for me to question myself regarding the existence of a manner of
writing which is acousmatic; they both exploit the principles regulating the
phenomenon of causality between musical unities.
Stéphane Roy, Montréal
[v-96]
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