for string quartet
Begun in 1989, this first string quartet piece is dedicated to the musicians of the Ravel Quartet, who premiered it in 1994 on the occasion of an artists’ residence at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Oullins. The idea underpinning the work is a mirroring of the here below and the hereafter, of the abyss – realm of the incomplete – and the absolute, the exile and paradise lost.
Whereas an unrestrained disquiet inhabits the first three movements (“Abîmes” – the Abysses –, “Exil” – Exile – and “Refrains”) under different forms, the fourth and last part (“Illumination”) brings salvation: it is the revelation, first contemplative then jubilatory, of an unsuspected “promised land”. While writing the transition which leads upwards from “Refrains” to “Illumination”, I couldn’t but think of Hieronymus Bosch’s “Ascension to Celestial Paradise”, where one can see weightless silhouettes hovering through the tunnel which takes them from a still dark world to the world of light.
Vincent Paulet
composed in : 1989-94
commissioned work for the State
premiered in : 1994, Oullins (Rhône), Théâtre de la Renaissance, by Quatuor Ravel
duration : 17’
also in the repertoire of Quatuor Sjöströmska