After working with a number of things – since I am down to number 6 – the Anecdotals illustrate a concept I had first approached in Hétérozygote (1963), composition I happened to “anecdotal music” with an intentional touch of derision.
So this preoccupation can be found in a significant part of my work.

The project was to seize the opportunity offered by a number of travels, mostly professional trips, allowing me to visit other countries.

I recorded what I found interesting.

Using these recordings – the successful ones – I composed short sequencers, each one dedicated to a specific place, i.e.: each one is made from sounds taken from a single place, more or less a representation of reality, but in any case, more or less a representation of reality, but in any case using that particular reality. These sequences are portraits that can be seen like sound riddles since these places are seldom identified, except when I remembered to do so on the spot.

The sequences are one of the plans. There are three of them.

For the second one, while going through my archives I kept founding electronic sounds that were never used, to figure why, and that I thought would provide interesting bridges between the sequences. So here we have a perpetual balance between the « concrete » and the «abstract ».

For the third plan, I was thinking about interviews I had made with young women a long time ago. I was calling them “Word of Women” but they too ended up untouched. Spontaneous and intimate words. They have found a home in this composition, creating a parallel discourse that hat nothing to do with either the sequences or the electronic sound, but introduces a new form of balance in the discourse.

These three plans alter the perception of time; each one renews the sensation and shape of time, from the most stale to the most active. Furthermore, a seemingly systemic structure is established right from the start, but it will eventually fall out of sync.

Finally, if I have worked a lot on the anecdotal or the narrative, which are also time-related subjects, I have used this data in an intuitive way. The exploitation of concepts is my way of being more… “conceptual”. And so I show how “Les Anecdotiques” have nothing to do with the narrative and how this work is explicit in fact, in the difference between narrative and anecdotal.

And so time continues its course, renewed every time.

October, 2002

Not to remain in the riddle and for those who that interests, here the title of the sequences:

1 – Numero quatro, Ronda Spain, June 2001. A group of Spanish tourist in a museum.

2 – Plaza de toros, Ronda. The arena is under restoration.

3 – Fitting, Saint Jean d’ Angélys, France. July 2001 During a rehearsal, the actors try their costumes.

4 – Sky of Tuscany, Italy. August 2001

5 – Superstrada n°2. Tuscany.

6 – A cypress in sunset. Tuscany.

7 – Sea of Eze. France. September 2001.

8 – Grape harvest. St. Lawrence d’ Eze, France.

9 – The Ranch. Texas, USA, October 2001

10 – Chicago, USA. October 2001. Rehearsal for a concert.

11 – Harley Davidson. Texas. Sunday walk in a village.

12 – Red shoes. Estaque, France. July 2002. Visit to the Lafarge cement factory.

13 – Hole of sea, Estaque. July 2002

14 – Joliette. Docks of Marseilles. France. Loading of the containers.

15 – Doors of Rove. Estaque, same period.

Rove is a maritime tunnel reaching a creek to the east of Estaque

Recorded by Brunhild Meyer and Luc Ferrari, cut, mixed and composed at the Atelier post-billig by Luc Ferrari (between June 2001 and October 2002).

German translation and voice: Brunhild Meyer Ferrari

Commissioned by DeutschlandRadio Berlin, Dr. Götz Naleppa