VENT SOLAIRE (1974)

to Robert DELPRAT - Unpublished
solo soprano, narrator, mixed choir (100 mini) brass (3.3.3.0.) 3 perc and piano - duration : 24'
poem of Allain Gaussin excerpt from L'attente... L'absolu, Allain Gaussin, Editions d’écarts, Paris, 2004
premiere : May 21st, 1976, France, Paris, Radio France
Stéphane CAILLAT (conductor) Christine DEFRESSINE (soprano), Pierre ROUSSEAU (narrator)

 

Programme note

This work talks about the death under its sharpest and its most meditative aspects, deliberatly avoiding religious references.

Vent solaire is divided in three parts :
The first one describes an inner and simultaneous confrontation of two contradictory thougths about death :
- the first onethougth is the image of death, distressing, revolting, irreversible...
- the second one idealize the dead person ; this evocation is here materialized by two words « transfigured light » and then by a long choral, sung by the choir at the unison.

The second part invites the listener to a long meditation on death. The text expressed by a narrator, as well as the very long sung phrase allow at every moment to maintain this meditative state.

The third part develops the two first ones and this time proceeds in successive states. It is first an extension of the meditative state of the second part, and then the description most developed of the heartrending cry of the separation.
Finally, the last state projects, by the crushing strengh of the memory, the definitive setting in dust in the incredible space.

3A

→ Poems Vent Solaire I and Vent Solaire II published in L'attente… L'absolu, éditions d'écarts, 2013.

 

Listen
CNSM of Paris Ensemble, Stéphane CAILLAT (conductor), Christine DEFRESSINE (soprano), Pierre ROUSSEAU (narrator) – May 21st, 1976

 

Press article

Jacques CASTEREDE, compositeur, concert du 21 mai 1976

" Vent Solaire, œuvre de vastes dimensions avec déchaînements cataclysmiques, paroxysmes sonores, mais aussi de remarquables moments de plénitude, et de précieux instants de musique, telle cette magnifique, cette admirable partie centrale où alternent le récitant et la voix soliste, sur fond de chœur : ambiance envoûtante, d'une rare qualité musicale et poétique... "

 

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