Previously released in 2000 on label Vand'Oeuvre (VDO 0018)

D’une Lumière
« I apologise for my obscurity, i hope it may gradually become clearer »
Michel Leiris writing to Francis Bacon

While I was writing d'une lumière for the Quatuor Helios, I asked myself the following /question : what does sound hierarchy mean and how does percussion fit into this hierarchy ?
/ In our minds we tend to associate the world of percussion with that of rhythm but, although rhythm does play a primary role in percussion, it is in fact an integral part of the temporal semantic construction of all kinds of music. Rhythm is what enables us to apprehend and to articulate time.
Among the most unique features of percussion are the freedom and inventiveness its tone (the same can be said for electronic or electroacoustic music in its initial stages). Percussion has enabled us to free tone from classical aesthetic constraints and to consider a noise as viable sound matter: henceforth the sound of a piano has neither more nor less importance than the rustling of a plastic bag or the crunching of an aluminium drinks can. However, whereas for a string quartet tone preexists (although arguably in the music of Helmut Lachenmann this definition reaches its limits), it simply does not for percussion.
All it requires is an instrumentalist's unique imagination to create, literally, a musical utopia i.e. to invent a universe that has no precedent.
In d'une lumière the pictorial presence and the distortion associated with the work of Francis Bacon is an important recurring image. The piece is dominated by an identifiable note (E flat) or image, around which further structural elements conglomerate, distorting, amplifying and blurring, filtering and reflecting this note/body of sound, before propelling it into a chaos of convulsive sonority.
Jean-Christophe Feldandler.


Oscille is a piece for lithophones and virtual instruments (Don Buchla's Lightnings, movement detectors which enable sounds to be played and maniputated at distance by infrared remote control). These instruments serve a personal metaphor which draws its images from a real-life cross culture experience. Based on an ancient Vietnamese text, the piece attempts to convex the virtuality of a territory, which would, at one and the same time, belong two cultures, both of which are, not with standing the self, deeply ingrained. By interrogating the poetic force of a re-discovered language, the musicians/archeologists through the lithophones and lightnings gradually uncover different ways of extracting sound and meaning, staying between ancient poetry and the poetry of sound, between culturally aquired gestures and those which must be invented, between primitive acoustics and digital synthesis, without favouring one or the other, thus constructing a word which is the oscillation between these poles. Contrary to what one might imagine, Oscille does not use any form of prerecorded sound (tapes, CDs etc). In this recording, everything we hear Is live and is the result of the instrumentalists' treatment and manipulation of sound with the Lightnings. The piece is sequence-free and is therefore completely interactive.
Oscille is the natural follow-up to Initiale(s) which was premiered in May 1997 by the Quatuor Hêlios at the Center of Research in Computing and the Arts at the University of San Diego in California. The piece was created at the La Tenaille/La Flibuste studio in Toulouse. The voice belongs to the actor Ly Thanh Tiên who is part of the Flibuste artistic team and was recorded by Marc Pichelin at the Groupe de Musique Electroacoustique in Albi-Tarn.
Lê Quan Ninh

Kvadrat
4 percussionists are seated back to back each facing a table, on it a selection of objects which have been chosen according to the following set of instructions: 4 musical instruments which can be blown into, beaten, shaken and rubbed. 4 stimuli, objects which must be geometric, plant-like, mobile and coloured. The percussionists must abide by 4 behavioural rules: they must disregard the rest of the group and may neither imitate those sitting to their left, to their right or behind them. The music must keep to 4 different rhythmical structures (complex, periodic, sporadic and static). The score itself will be divided into 2 times 4 sections. The rhythmical structure will be given by the stimuli which should in turn influence the tempo and the intensity of the music. At the end of each section each musician must move round one place clockwise, thus finding themselves confronted with someone else's chosen objects. it is within this precarious balance between following one's own personal desires and a precise set of rules that the instrumentalists must try to communicate.
This work allows us to reflect on different forms of improvisation: should we react to what another is playing ? Or should individual players follow their own personal direction?
What compels us to play and what not to play ? How do external factors affect us? Should we follow one lead rather than another? And finally, do we really succeed in communicating with one another ?
The concluding chorus sums up these ideas with the words tolerance, independence, creativity and utopia, which are sung, needless to say, at quarter intervals.

Seasons illustrates the natural gentle variation of the seasons in Japan, a change can feel but one which is so subtle it is invisible to the human eye. it is expressed in this piece by the different tones of the musical instruments and in the way the initial delicate variation suddenly gives way to a succession of contrasting sounds, until the cycle is complete.
The first performance was given by Michael Ranta and Yasunori Yamaguchi in August 1970. It was then revised and interpreted by Stomu Yamashta in Paris at the Journées de Musique Contemporaine in 1971.
Toru Takemitsu