creation : 1987
duration : 7′
Three percussionists each have a small table as their only instrument. The variety of tones is ensured by the different striking modes. The positions of the fingers and hands and the rhythmic figures are codified in a repertoire of original symbols used in the score.
“(…) My early pieces played rhythm in figures, each figure having a particular quality of movement, a kind of motor state of the body, or a dance step. This is particularly clear in Musique de Tables, written in 1987, which is a piece for percussion as much as a short choreography of hands. It is constructed as a baroque suite, with an overture, rondo, fugato, galop, recapitulation and coda. The whole rhythmic counterpoint uses a limited number of figures that are described precisely, but metaphorically as well, to the performers: both musicians/dancers […] in this piece, I was already using, more or less wildly, the notion of “rhythmic imprint” : I would replace the silences in a given figure with beats and vice versa, to create complementary rhythms that each hinted at the other. (…) »
(Thierry De Mey about Table Music in an interview conducted by Jean-Luc Plouvier, 2001)
Source: Charleroi danse.
The challenge of “Music of tables” is to approach the sensitive line between music and the gestures that produce sound, to put your finger on the line of demarcation between dance and music: the visual and choreographic aspect in perfect balance of importance with the sound and the musicality of the interpretation.
(excerpt from the sheet music note)