ANALYSIS / THOUGHTS

Visage II  (1955 – 1956) – 14’

For brasses and Percussions

Small chronicle of old times

The 5 Visages is the first series in which I expressed myself at the beginning of my life of a composer. One would have understood, it is not a question of series to the serial direction of the term, but rather of the compositions that have to do with the image or realism.

However since the word is employed, it is actually question of serialism in this score. It should be recalled that in the Fifties it was an adventure for many young people who attended inter alia Darmstadt, kind of temple of the chromatic total according to the pompous term employed at the time.

I was in this movement, but a slightly odd.

 

In fact Visage for me represented a physical reality.

If in Visage 1, I explored what occurred of the accumulation of the cycles, in Visage 2, I worked out a physical confrontation of 2 sexed bodies. To tell a gestural movement with notes, rhythms and instruments seemed interesting to me. This completely foreign idea in this time, seemed to me relevant to insert an incongruous concept in the organization of the sounds.

There was no need that it was known, but it was essential that this vital image makes raise my imagination.

 

The result is a kind of pointillism and to accentuate the image of the body, these points had to be dispersed in space. This is why the musicians had to be dispersed in the room and that the conductor was alone or almost alone on stage.

Only, that was not a use at this time, it was far too inappropriate, this is why this score remained unperformed failing to be unplayable.

 

February 2005