Dedicated to : Percussions de Strasbourg
creation : 1er juillet 1978, Italie, Rome, Villa Médicis, by Les Percussions de Strasbourg, direction : Allain Gaussin
musicians : 6 percussionists
duration : 20′
publishing : Salabert, Paris
It was during my stay at the Villa Medicis (77 – 79) in Rome that I composed Colosseo. The Colosseum had impressed me greatly at that time with its extraordinary dimensions, its elliptical construction and its relatively satisfactory state of preservation compared to its 19 centuries earlier. The choice of percussion instruments was immediately obvious in order to convey the image of the ancient battles and struggles that were taking place; but with Colosseo it is neither programme music nor descriptive music, at most it is a personal musical metaphorical evocation.
As far as the instrumental treatment is concerned, I wanted to give clear and sharp colours, essentially using a principle of writing by tone families.
Composed in a single piece, this work is made up of five parts which are fused into each other, except between the second and third parts:
1 Moving metal mass.
Here the image of the Coliseum is particularly sensitive:
unique material: metals (tams tams, gongs, cymbals)
writing in curved space (elliptical shape of the Colosseum)
intensity of nuances (blood play, earthly hell)
2 Keyboard counterpoint.
Cohabitation of three distinct musics :
expanding harmony with the three vibraphones,
counterpoint of xylorimba and marimba,
long sentences with Tibetan rattlesnakes.
3 Fractures.
(Skins, cymbal pizzas, skins)
4 Ascent of distant bells.
5 Ritual.
Rhythmic exuberance and abundance composed of short repetitive cells (wood, metal) against a background of mobile skin bearings.
Alain Gaussin