creation : 21 June 1984 – Festival d’Angers (France)
composition : 1982
commission : Ministère de la Culture (Direction de la Musique)
musicians : 6 percussionists
duration : 16′
Propositions 3 for six groups of percussion instruments, is the third piece in a series of compositions all bearing the same title, and each in its own way, attempts to explore a specific sound territory, in relation to a research more particularly focused on the question of timbres.
The work is presented in the form of a vast dynamic curve of four linked sections that are played in one piece. Each of these sections corresponds to the use of a figure of unique intensity (fortissimo, diminuendo, pianissimo, crescendo), the exclusive priority given to one of the four major families of percussion instruments (skins, metals, keyboards, woods), and the use of a particular type of musical writing, organically linked to the intensity and instrumental color chosen for each section : Thus, for example, in the first section – fortissimo, entrusted to the skins – it is the rhythmic aspect that predominates, thanks to the presence of a counterpoint of four rhythmic themes played several times in superimpositions and successions of different times.
The second section – diminuendo, entrusted to the metals – could be defined as a series of color and timbre variations on a musical idea that remains invariable and always uses the same instruments (cymbals and tam-tams) for its sound realization. The third section – pianissimo, entrusted to the keyboards – is characterized by the creation of a new harmonic and expressive climate, made possible by the constantly attenuated dynamic nuance of the passage and the exclusive use of instruments with specific pitches. As for the fourth and last section – crescendo, entrusted to the woodwinds – it rests entirely on the gradual and continuous acceleration of a rhythmic ostinato within which other sound figures, sometimes new, sometimes already heard, attempt to incorporate themselves in turn.
Francis Bayer