Kaleidos, the disc
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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