Creation: 19 January 2002, La Laiterie, Strasbourg, France
Musicians: 6 percussionnistes
Duration: 6′
Publishing: Cerise Music
“Mort et transfiguration pour 40 balais is a piece that reacts to the previously written pieces of this collective commission. My piece followed that of Philipe Leroux, and the end of this score was undoubtedly the detonator of this work. The “percussion” remains a difficulty for me. Writing for percussion implies either working on rhythm or on timbre and thus exposes me to a redundancy of the already heard, or at least confirms my difficulty in dominating these instruments without being in the repetition. It is for this reason that my first piece for percussion was with dx pianos (“musiques en boite à retour à…”), that the second – solo for Jean Pierre Drouet – with electronics and stage (“tapotages et exutoires”), and the third – for the Percussions de Strasbourg – exploited new instruments with sensors (Bibilolo). For this anniversary homage, I wanted to avoid what was said before in the plays that preceded me, starting from Leroux’s idea of mechanical noise (drill) and amplifying it in a dramaturgy: a percussionist dies, resuscitates, the others die using various noises, and the text of Psalm 48, diverted from its believing will in favour of pure poetry, accentuates the staging of these noises. The text of the psalm favours the gap between the percussionists who indulge in the sadomasochism of percussive playing and the imprecise effect of it, a text that poorly disguises a desire for human domination. Thus, to sublimate these 40 years, percussionists have the choice between dying or rising again. They can develop their own concept of “group of percussionists” without taking themselves too seriously. »