Otra noche (recordando a Manuel de Falla)
for piano and orchestra
for piano and orchestra
It is a new version of « In Memoriam Manuel de Falla », a chamber concerto for piano and five instruments written in 1996 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Spanish master’s death.(The score took up the same number of instruments as in the «Harpsichord Concerto ».)
After reading « Love the Magician » (El amor brujo) the main ideas had sprung out, pregnant with a strange symbiosis made up of certain elements of style from Manuel de Falla and from my own language. The outcome was a contrasted score conjuring up one after another crepuscular litanies, frenzied dances and nocturnal spells. This poetics constituted of typically French moderation and of that immoderateness in Hispanic culture that keeps fascinating me, is undoubtedly an illustration of what the musicologist Sylviane Falcinelli, called "the fecundity of contradictions" when speaking about my music.
« Otra noche », whose title (Another night) hints at « Nights in the Gardens of Spain » by Falla, was created on June 27th 2007 at Palacio de Carlos V (Alhambra), not far from the house in which Falla lived, as part of the Granada Festival which had commissioned the work. The score is dedicated to Yvan Nommick, who after conducting the premiere of « In Memoriam » in Madrid in 1996 had the idea which led to its orchestration, as well as to the performers of the premiere : Jonathan Waleson (piano) and Jean-Jacques Kantorow who conducted the Granada orchestra.
In the concert programme of the premiere, Yvan Nommick stated the following precisions : the score is divided into five movements : introduction and « Letania » (Litany), « Danza » (Dance), «Noche » (Night), « Adios » (Adieu). Its obviously symmetrical formal structure matches the pattern A-B-C-B-D, a very succinct melodic and harmonic material displayed over the first measures and developped all along the work thanks to a consumate skill of variation, maintains its unity. Falla’s presence, brought to mind by the melismatic turn of the different themes and motifs, and by the build up of certain chords based on superimposed fifths, reveals itself fully in the last movement (« Adios »), with the quotation of the first chord of the passage of « Love the Magician » entitled «Medianoche » (« Midnight »). The repetition of this chord, interslaced with fragments of the preceding movements, creates an atmosphere of far-off bells which little by little induces in the listener a drowsiness where all notion of time is lost.
Juan Maria Rodriguez (El Mundo), himself evokes "a rare and fascinating nocturnal poetics, assailed with broken and frenzied parts. A work of a thematic economy skillfully used to advantage and of an ecstatic beauty both sober and morbid, which recalls Falla, of course, but also Dutilleux and other great contemporaries who, on the verge of the tonal abyss, never fall into it."
Vincent Paulet
2.2.2.2./2.2.0.0./2perc./strings
composed in : 2007
commissioned work for the Granada Festival
premiered in : 2007, Granada, Palacio de Carlo V (Alhambra), by Jonatahan Waleson, piano and the orchestra Ciudad de Granada, Jean-Jacques Kantorow cond.
duration : 18’30
publisher : Jobert
After reading « Love the Magician » (El amor brujo) the main ideas had sprung out, pregnant with a strange symbiosis made up of certain elements of style from Manuel de Falla and from my own language. The outcome was a contrasted score conjuring up one after another crepuscular litanies, frenzied dances and nocturnal spells. This poetics constituted of typically French moderation and of that immoderateness in Hispanic culture that keeps fascinating me, is undoubtedly an illustration of what the musicologist Sylviane Falcinelli, called "the fecundity of contradictions" when speaking about my music.
« Otra noche », whose title (Another night) hints at « Nights in the Gardens of Spain » by Falla, was created on June 27th 2007 at Palacio de Carlos V (Alhambra), not far from the house in which Falla lived, as part of the Granada Festival which had commissioned the work. The score is dedicated to Yvan Nommick, who after conducting the premiere of « In Memoriam » in Madrid in 1996 had the idea which led to its orchestration, as well as to the performers of the premiere : Jonathan Waleson (piano) and Jean-Jacques Kantorow who conducted the Granada orchestra.
In the concert programme of the premiere, Yvan Nommick stated the following precisions : the score is divided into five movements : introduction and « Letania » (Litany), « Danza » (Dance), «Noche » (Night), « Adios » (Adieu). Its obviously symmetrical formal structure matches the pattern A-B-C-B-D, a very succinct melodic and harmonic material displayed over the first measures and developped all along the work thanks to a consumate skill of variation, maintains its unity. Falla’s presence, brought to mind by the melismatic turn of the different themes and motifs, and by the build up of certain chords based on superimposed fifths, reveals itself fully in the last movement (« Adios »), with the quotation of the first chord of the passage of « Love the Magician » entitled «Medianoche » (« Midnight »). The repetition of this chord, interslaced with fragments of the preceding movements, creates an atmosphere of far-off bells which little by little induces in the listener a drowsiness where all notion of time is lost.
Juan Maria Rodriguez (El Mundo), himself evokes "a rare and fascinating nocturnal poetics, assailed with broken and frenzied parts. A work of a thematic economy skillfully used to advantage and of an ecstatic beauty both sober and morbid, which recalls Falla, of course, but also Dutilleux and other great contemporaries who, on the verge of the tonal abyss, never fall into it."
Vincent Paulet
2.2.2.2./2.2.0.0./2perc./strings
composed in : 2007
commissioned work for the Granada Festival
premiered in : 2007, Granada, Palacio de Carlo V (Alhambra), by Jonatahan Waleson, piano and the orchestra Ciudad de Granada, Jean-Jacques Kantorow cond.
duration : 18’30
publisher : Jobert