Parfums
(short version of the 2e piece of “Figures”)

for mixed choir and piano
(2010)
Duration : 4’30

First performance in 2010 at the Tolosa’s competition by the Mikrokosmos choir directed by Loïc Pierre

Publisher:Editions A Coeur Joie

The short version of “Parfums” was written at the request of Loïc Pierre for his chamber choir Mikrokosmos

Notice of the cycle “Figures”
The movement of the grass swaying in the wind: the cinema has frequently delighted in this sensual and captivating image ; but it is also a powerfully musical image as the surging or gentle waves are shaped into rippling musical sounds. If we close our eyes, only the whispering of the wind blending with the gentle rustling of the stalks remains.

All these visual and acoustic impressions fire the inspiration for a work where the choir, in fact an actual orchestra of voices, represents the multiple converging sounds which are buffeted in the blustery wind – that’s to say here the piano. Sometimes the grasses are crushed or broken by a being whose print is saved; this being is also the piano. It doesn’t accompany the choir ; it is the protagonist, the grass is crushed by its breath or its footsteps, and in return it is enraptured by a thousand caresses.

The music which, in some sorts, is a concerto for piano and mixed choir, brings to life the words of the recently deceased poet Jean-Pierre Caumeil who, for more than 40 years, wrote poetic texts in the greatest secrecy, without trying to publish them. Some of them are now found in the collection “Contre-Feux” published after his death.

Patrick Burgan