Liner Notes

A stunning level of cohesion

Ingrid Drese belongs to that category of composers who have their own style, a unique and intimate form of expression. This music features a stunning level of cohesion that seems to unfold, piece by piece, like chapters of a long tale, cycling through the multiple facets of a deep form of sensitivity, always staying true to herself yet in constant renewal. No repetitions; instead, the gradual unveiling of an endearing soliloquy. Through her choices in morphology, her writing — finely detailed, researched, elegant and always on the move — the way she richly develops her sonic materials, her “figures over figures” and her spectral preferences leaning toward the treble register (there is some Bayle in her), this composer is offering us music that is both talkative and secretive, occasionally whispered or even trembled, made with finesse but firmly chiseled, simultaneously discreet and quivering.

To step inside this universe of swarming, of innumerable rustling, is to discover the luxuriousness of a complex world inhabited by “êtricules” — Michel Chion’s short sonic molecules invested with internal life — and streaked by sudden flashes that may have been held back for a long time.

Occasionally drawing inspiration from meaningful and vocally-rich poetic texts by Étienne Leclerq (Tout autant) and Marc Jaffeux (Sept œils sauvages), Ingrid Drese’s music also introduces us delicately to the mysteries of Paysage avec miroir, Inés Wickmann’s troubling video, only to step back behind what the image says, accompanying it brilliantly with an economy of means.

Francis Dhomont, Avignon (France) [English translation: François Couture, vi-09]