Beginning with Monteverdi

“A friend pointed out to me one day : actually, many of your artistic choices are linked to your personal history. I believe he was right and this record as well is born of this history. Born of my exploration of Monteverdi’s music, and in particular, my discovery of his duos. Duos whose harmonic modernity, sense of narration and of drama, completely overwhelmed me. I wanted to hear two cellos sing these lines, these harmonic shifts, these lamentos, and these nearly psalmodic passages. I immediately began working on transcribing, adapting these works. In some inexplicable and mysterious manner, this music then began resonating within me with a totally different universe, that of certain contemporary works. Works that have been part of my world for a long time and that, for me, already had a strong yet indefinable link between them. Could it be that what connects these so very different styles, what connects them and gives them such an emotional charge, is that at the source of each, there is a certain sensation of breath becoming voice or even, at times, speech (the words have gone away…)? Perhaps. And perhaps it is the same for Monteverdi, regardless of his four centuries of distance, which enables him to resonate with these works of contemporary music. The fact remains that I began to perceive that a journey from one work to another, from one universe to another, was being created. A journey like one long and unique breath.”

PROGRAMME
Claudio Monteverdi, Duo Seraphim
György Kurtag, Pilinszky Janos : Gérard de Nerval Op.5b
Luciano Berio, Les mots sont allés
Claudio Monteverdi, Ohime dov’e il mio ben 1^ere partie
Pascal Dusapin, Immer
Claudio Monteverdi, Ohime dov’e il mio ben 2^nd and 4^th parts
Pascal Dusapin, Invece
Claudio Monteverdi, Non vedro mai le stelle
Henri Dutilleux, Trois strophes sur le nom de Sacher
Claudio Monteverdi, Chiome d’oro
Claudio Monteverdi, Pur ti miro