Creation : 2 March 2010 at Théâtre d’Orléans, for the Orléans International Piano Competition
Commissioner : Orléans International Piano Competition and the Strasbourg Percussion Competition, 2009. With the support of the Conseil Régional du Centre and the Francis and Mica Salabert Foundation.
Duration : 14′
Musicians : piano solo and 3 percussionists
Publishing : Henry Lemoine 2011
Written for solo piano and three percussion instruments, Interstices is like a “mini concerto,” with the percussion instruments providing the orchestral part. Of course, the piano is not just a soloist, and in some places it can merge with the percussion to create a single timbre. As its title suggests, the piece is constructed in large sections interrupted by intervals of time during which highly identifiable elements appear. These elements, brief rhythmic events or real musical situations, may in turn give rise to a new intelligible discourse, itself interrupted by new events, and so on. For example, the piece ends with a “loop” whose main element had been inserted, as a parenthesis, in the previous section, itself composed of a short homorhythmic motif that had repeatedly interrupted the slow section of the work, placed just before it. As far as the instrumental treatment is concerned, I have retained here a relatively classical piano writing. As the piece was written for an international piano competition, I wanted the instrumentalists to be able to exploit all their technical resources. It is the blurring with percussion as well as the doublings with keyboards or instruments at relative pitches that make it possible to escape the too direct and codified perception of the piano. Interstices is a very energetic and rhythmic piece and the most static and poetic moments are also disturbed by the interventions of very incisive rhythmic motifs. Here, everything is tension and when, at rare moments, one could hope for a little peace and quiet, an event appears that calls into question the calm that one thought one had finally found. Interstices is dedicated to Françoise Thinat.
Philippe Hurel