Musical works

À l’aventure!

In 1988, I composed the music of a documentary by Marie Décary; it was about the presence of two Canadian artists at the Venice Biennial, in this case Roland Brener of Vancouver and Michel Goulet of Montréal.

Fascinated by the images of the filmmaker, depicting «contemporary» works parachuted into a Renaissance decor, overflowing with history, I chose to use a basic material that was inspired by this era while «updating» it thanks to transformation techniques patiently developed over the years. I finally chose one of the 46 motets of the Spanish composer Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) who lived in Venise (!!!) and whose four voices responsory «Tradiderunt Me In Manus Impiorum» («They have delivered me into the hands of the ungodly») immediately charmed me. Later, I decided to orchestrate certain elements of this film soundtrack and to develop it independently.

What followed were six works, all based on the motet of Tomas Luis de Victoria for different instrumental ensembles, from a grand orchestra with soloist and choir (Le Voyage) to a string quartet (Le Grand Méridien), also including organ, narrator and percussions (Golgot(h)a). We find then, in chronological order:

1. Tradiderunt Me In Manus Impiorum 1 (1990)
2. Golgot(h)a (1991)
3. Encore ces questions sans réponse… (1991)
4. Tradiderunt Me In Manus Impiorum II (1992)
5. Le Voyage (1999-2002)
6. Le Grand Méridien (2002)

Le Grand Méridien, the grand central «nerve»…) closes (for now?) in a way this cycle of «baroque» works, through a process of «extreme» decantation where form and content not only join, but blend beyond the kaleidoscopic prism of historical references and psychedelic intoxication of pure invention, to create an unusual object, itself the carrier of a new «message» and that still remains to be decrypted.

Given this perspective, the «hard-core/heavy-metal» instrumental formation of the string quartet might have served me as an ideal distillation to «boil» all of this rich alchemical concoction, in the hope of finding Radium, or Nirvana, or Redemption.