… melting, vertical crepuscles (2023)

World premiere: 13 July 2023, ARCo (Art, Research and Creation), Marseille, France
GMEM — Centre national de création musicale de Marseille, Friche La belle de Mai

Composed for and premiered by Ensemble Multilatérale and Les Métaboles

duration: ca. 9′

instrumentation: vocal sextet (soprano, contralto, mezzosoprano, tenor, baritone, bass); flute, bass clarinet, and cello

Léo Warynski Conductor

Program note
A whisper grazes a horizontal wall of ice separating two rooms. Cracks begin to grow slowly and simultaneously. In the upper room, suspended time is illuminated by a glow of lava in the sky, which gradually melts and expands. Regardless of that temporality, whispers persistently caress the wall. In the lower room, time is stretched, dilated, and gelatinous; everything is dark except for a spherical light radiating from the ceiling as a reflection of the lava above.

From here, whispers sound like murmurs stirring the dark water. As cracks reach the peak of tension and the collapse occurs, water and suspended time mix in a multidirectional expansion. Both temporalities converge, and the water faces the whispers of the other side head-on.

The work is structured in five movements:

I. luminous frictions II. disolvence III. melting IV. vertical crepuscles V. murmurs and dark sighs / caresses on the ice wall