Pour Luigi (1994), for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano
Commissioned by Barbara Polla

This piece is clearly both the composer’s assessment of his own compositional work (composition so extremely rigorous that it seems to leave no place to contigency), and the place where a new more flexible manner emerges. On of the most pregnant auditory consequences is the veritable rhythmic « motifs », inspired by Afro-american musics which, while flagrantly contradicting the spectral notion of time (conceived of as permanent flux rather than a discreet figures), don’t cohabit any less with the harmonicals associated with spectral composition. The immediate plesure procured by the Hurelian groove doesn’t assimilate, for all that, these « motifs » with elements of a « collage » following postmodern tenets. As for the work’s overall form, it is still structured by processes, but can be understood as a modified form in sections, with devlopment and reprise, as confirmed by the composer’s description : « The listener will perceive (from the beginning of the piece) the progressive establishment of a rigorous writing opening into a polyphony which, as it slows down, undergoes bit by bit a slow process of erosion. The progressive disappearance of the rythmic ans melodic elements of this polyphony leaves room for an essentially harmonic composition arising from calculating spectra (…) .
Through a long, non-linear process of acceleration, the central portion of the piece brings back the contitutive elements of the work’s beginning. This is the most complex section harmonically (extensive use of micro-intervals) and rhithmically (tempo modulations) ; it can be understood as a development section. Finally, the last section is related to the first, but contains within itself the divers elements which appeared in the course of its progress. These elements interrupt the rhytmic discourse ans act like signals which make it possible to play on the listener’s memory. »

This piece is dedicated to Barbara & Luigi Polla

Eric Denut