The composer states:'The term 'oblique strategies? was coined jointly by British musician Brian Eno and German-born British visual artist Peter Schmidt to describe a series of printed cards they developed throughout the 1970's. The cards had their origins in sets of uncannily similar working principles that both artists had established independently, and featured aphorisms intended as a means of triggering inspiration or providing useful stimulus during the creative process, particularly when encountering difficulties of fatigue or time constraint.As Eno and Schmidt wrote in their introduction to the first edition in 1975: 'They can be used as a pack (a set of possibilities being continuously reviewed in the mind) or by drawing a single card from the shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation. In this case, the card is trusted even if its appropriateness is quite unclear. They are not final, as new ideas will present themselves, and others will become self-evident?.I chose eleven of Eno and Schmidt's strategies, ordering them in a way that revealed to me a logic and potential inter-relatedness within a hitherto disparate set of single ideas I had assembled for solo cello, each of them in turn a reflection upon the commission's initial purpose of creating a test piece for the 2014 Emanuel Feuermann cello competition.It's my hope then that the resultant composition may provide not only an interesting test of the competitors' talents but also offer the interpreter an opportunity to reflect upon the delights and pitfalls of creativity as he or she comes to terms with the various musical and technical challenges to be found within these ten minutes of music for solo cello.? / Violoncelle

Born in South Africa, but now an Irish citizen, Kevin Volans' musical idiom has been shaped by an unusually diverse range of experiences, including studies with Stockhausen in Cologne, field trips to South Africa to study traditional music, his own involvement with the New Simplicity movement, his collection of contemporary art and African textiles, friendships with composers like Morton Feldman and Gerald Barry, as well as a love of virtuoso piano music which he performs, broadcasts and records. While having an easily recognised, unique voice, Volans' music resists compartmentalisation. He is as comfortable working in conventional genres as embarking on innovative collaborations with artists of other disciplines.String Quartet #1 (White Man Sleeps) was written for the Kronos Quartet and was first performed by them in July 1986, London.The title 'White Man Sleeps' comes from a moment in nyanga Panpipe music where the performers leave off playing their loud pipes for a few cycles and dance only to the sound of their ankle rattles, to let the white landowner sleep - for a minute or two.'In composing this piece I drew from the following sources: the first movement owes something to the style of Basotho concertina music - the second and fourth movements are drawn from traditional Nyungwe music played by Makina Chirenje and his Nyanga panpipe group at Nsava, Tete, Mozambique, recorded and transcribed by Andrew Tracey (to be found in an article entitled 'The nyanga Panpipe dance' in African Music, Vol.5, #1 (1971) - the third movement derives from the San bow music (recorded by Tony Traill of the University of Witwatersrand) and from Basotho lesiba music, transcribed by myself - in the fifth movement I added my own invented folklore. My approach to the original music was anything but purist - it is played in Western tuning, filtered, slowed down by a few 'time-octaves?, cast into non-African metres (like the 13-beat pattern of the first dance) and redistributed between the players in several ways. I also used interlocking techniques where they were absent in the original models and vice versa' - Kevin VolansDuration 24 minutes. Parts available: CH61205. / Quatuor A Cordes (Conducteur)

for solo cello. Par LARCHER THOMAS. I do not compose my pieces for a certain voice range or orchestration, but for musicians, for people. It is almost impossible for me to produce a piece without having a particular person in mind or to hear him/her inwardly. No matter how standardized the interpretation of classical music is, and no matter how many coordinates have been fixed and defined, I do not want to have them seen (and therewith the notation) as determining and limiting signs, but rather as guideposts towards the creation of vital, organic music. In differentiated music, two participants are necessary in order for a piece to evolve-- the composer and the musician. Just as there is no one way for a composer to express himself or to notate music, etc., neither is there one way for a musician to read the notation, to interpret, or to live. We find ourselves, for this reason, in a network of meanings, gestures, and signs which have to be fathomed and expanded together. The tone, the breath, the gestures, the dedication, and the potentialities of a musician were also ultimately decisive for the form of this piece. It is music which pushes the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument to its very limits. It is music in which the musician has to transport the contexts and expression over and above the notation. It was not necessary for me to find a new form for this piece; it is a work which can and should be performed in a ‘normal’ concert situation. I deliberately wanted to integrate the perhaps new and unusual content into a familiar form (thus the title ‘Sonata’) And I also wanted to embed the aforementioned extreme situations (in which the technical extremes are synonyms for tension, isolation, loss or tenderness) in an organic process in order for the listener to be able to empathize with and comprehend what is expressed in the piece. I would like to thank Natalie Clein, to whom the Sonata is dedicated, for inspiring this piece and for the path that led to the realization of the music. Thomas Larcher/ Répertoire / Violoncelle

Par SCHLEE THOMAS DANIEL. For composer Thomas Daniel Schlee, the 'intimate sound possibilities of the string quartet” have the potential 'to formulate an, albeit 'only' individual, solution to the somewhat forlorn condition of new art music within society that we are unfortunately experiencing today.” Schlee's Fourth String Quartet opens with a pure C major sound, out of which he develops a harmonically free band of voices: 'The pure as a source, not pleasing”! After a melodically dominating episode and a continuation of the 'swinging tone-motion from the beginning”, a thematically solidified section follows. It is met by a second, more extensive melodic episode, followed by a 'nightly scene”. Coming full circle, the opening music of the piece finds its continuation, leading into a lament – first articulated by the ensemble, then finally as 'the viola's long, forlorn search for the melody symbolizing a farewell.”/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Par PEPIN CAMILLE. Lorsque l'on m'a proposé de mettre en musique ce recueil de poèmes de James Joyce (1882-1941), j'ai été immédiatement séduite par l'idée. Il s'agissait de mettre en musique ces poèmes en respectant l'ordre original selon lequel ils ont été conçus par James Joyce lui-même lors de la première édition de 1905 [1]. Avec la précieuse aide de Philippe Blanchon [2], j'ai choisi de mettre en musique dix-huit poèmes, conservant ainsi les épisodes incontournables, la trame dramaturgique et l'essence de l'univers Joycien. Ce qui m'a attirée d'emblée, c'est qu'il s'agit d'une véritable histoire : de la naissance de l'amour à la passion déclinante, menant à une éventuelle et tendre amitié entre les deux amants. J'ai donc conçu Chamber Music d'un seul tenant. Au-delà des nombreuses références à la musique et aux sons de la nature - déjà 'musique' en eux-mêmes - l'oeuvre littéraire appelle à la mise en musique par sa forme. En effet, elle est déjà musicale dans sa construction. Les trois premiers poèmes constituent le prélude exprimant la solitude du poète. Nous assistons dans la première partie - crescendo - à la naissance de l'amour entre les deux amants, menant au poème central et point culminant de l'oeuvre : 'My Dove, my beautiful one'. La seconde partie - diminuendo - raconte la passion déclinante des amants qui nous conduit au finale, écho du premier poème et à la solitude du poète. Le prélude musical illustre le paysage - tant visuel que sonore - décrit par James Joyce : 'Strings in the earth and air make music sweet', 'There's music along the river', 'The sighs of harps', 'Soft sweet music in the air'. Inspirées de sonorités traditionnelles irlandaises, les mélodies de la première partie présentent un aspect populaire issu du folklore, comme une ode au monde de la danse - prégnant en Irlande. Ces mélodies modales et mélismatiques semblent improvisées, à la manière du chant gaélique irlandais. Elles se transforment au fur et à mesure en une véritable épopée romantique, expression de la relation passionnelle et charnelle des deux amants : 'Hurry over the dark lands and run upon the sea for seas and land shall not divide us my love and me', 'The odorous winds are weaving a music of sighs'. Ces mélodies extatiques, à la fois tendres et fragiles, tentent d'exprimer cette ivresse, cet état extatique - véritable état de 'transe' qui nous submerge lorsque l'amour envahit notre âme sans que l'on s'en aperçoive. La deuxième partie reprend ces divers éléments musicaux dans leur cheminement inverse. Passés par le filtre de la mélancolie de l'amour déclinant au fil du temps, ils témoignent de la perte de repères après la séparation avec l'être aimé : 'Lay aside sadness and sing how love that passes is enough', 'Love came to us in time gone by'. Enfin, le finale exprime le retour à la solitude du poète, comme une résonance du début de l'oeuvre : 'The voice of the winter is heard at the door', 'My kiss will give peace now and quiet to your heart'. Sans cesse en écho les unes des autres, les mélodies s'entremêlent dans un contrepoint lyrique et sensuel. En effet, le titre même du recueil m'a inspiré une oeuvre où chaque instrument serait d'égale importance. Le lyrisme de l'un ne peut exister sans l'autre. Ainsi, le rôle du quintette n'est pas seulement un accompagnement de la voix soliste. Leurs lignes d'amour se mêlent avec volupté les unes aux autres. Plonger dans l'univers Joycien a impliqué mon immersion totale dans l'oeuvre. Lire ses mots, penser ses images, imaginer ses sonorités, a été un travail passionnant et c'est avec nostalgie que je referme ce recueil aujourd'hui. J'espère cependant avoir su retranscrire son univers poétique au plus proche. Je profite de cette note pour remercier Philippe Blanchon pour son aide précieuse et Claire Bodin [3] pour sa confiance. C'est à la fois un grand honneur et un plaisir immense de rendre hommage à si grand artiste et de voir ce chef d'oeuvre littéraire naître une seconde fois en musique. / Contemporain / Répertoire / Sextuor

Par FREEMAN ALEX. Alex Freeman found initial inspiration for his string quartet (2015) in a series of photographs a geologist friend showed him of en échelon veins in rock formations. The open strings punctuated with pizzicato unisons that begin the single-movement work call to mind something crystalline and shimmering, which is immediately infused with tumbling lyrical lines in something of a rapid caccia technique throughout. The middle of the work becomes more suspended in slower material loosely based on a technique of prolation canon, comprises layers of free, expressive, lyrical, and even elegiac music moving at different speeds. As the work concludes, the materials converge in a rhythmically pulsating stasis and an almost chorale-like statement. Duration: c. 13' This product includes the score and the parts (A4 sized). American-Finnish composer Alex Freeman (b.1972) has established himself among the foremost composers of choral music in Finland. A dedicated citizen of his musical community, a teacher, and a choral singer himself, he composes music that reflects an appreciation for a wide range of aesthetics and a passion for communicating with listeners and performers. In his choral works, in particular, we find music that aims to be sonorous, melodic, and resonant, but is always crafted to carefully avoid the cliches that can burden conventional tonality. His instrumental works run the gamut: a cantata with orchestra based on poetry of Whitman; a significant body of solo piano works that reveal deep roots in everything from austere absolute music to soaring elegaic rhetoric (see Albany Records, Inner Voice); his chamber work Blueshift (Navona Records), which is a kind of paean to Reich and Adams in miniature; open-ended modular works, like various iterations of his Slow All Clocks for electronic media, solo clarinet, and mixed choirs of kanteles; and, recently, some new directions in microtonal music. / Date parution : 2022-05-31/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Par PART ARVO. 'I have developed a highly formalised compositional system, which I have been using to write my music for twenty years. Summa is the most strict and enigmatic work in this series'', said Arvo Pärt in 1994. The neutral title itself embodies the essence of the content as the work is based on the text of the Latin Credo. The great simplicity of the piece masks its complexity. The underlying rules ensure that on the surface a cycle of continuous change is created while the deep structure possesses an order of stillness. (Saale Kareda) Originally written for four a cappella voices in 1977, the string quartet version dates from 1991. This edition adds a further version for 8 (4) Cellos./ Répertoire / 8 [4] Violoncelles