Musical works

A percussionist of a thousand colours, Béluse had a fascination for sound and particularly for metals. His piece Espace, premiered in 1988 at Radio-Canada and written only for metal instruments, is a testament to this. Using graphic and space-time notation, the score leaves much room for improvisation and sound research. Although the legend lists the instruments required to perform the piece, the performer must do some work beforehand to choose the instruments according to their resonance, their harmonics and the effects that can be brought out of each. The piece is based on a discourse between five gongs and five cymbals, responding to each other with crescendo and diminuendo effects. Tam-tam and metal chimes surround this exchange at the opening of the work. This is followed by a section emphasising the different metallic textures and the production of effects (glissandi, superball, rubbing of various types of mallets) and a more rhythmic section. This is followed by a long improvisation, before a return to the initial theme between the gongs and cymbals.

The score of this piece was discovered in Pierre Béluse's archives at the Marvin Duchow Library of the Schulich School of Music at McGill University.