Un éclair… puis la nuit ! (A lightning flash… then night!)
15 instruments : 1.1.1.1./ 1.1.1.0./ 2 perc./ Harp/ 2 Vl. Vla. Cello. Cb.
(1996)
Duration : 20’
First performance on november 18th 1997 in Angoulême by the Opus 16 ensemble conducted by Jacques Pesi
Publisher : Editions Hamelle (Leduc)
Extract :
« Un éclair… puis la nuit ! » has been written for the 80th birthday of the composer Henri Dutilleux to whom it is dedicated.
Poem (Charles Baudelaire) :
To a Passer-by
The deafening street around me roared.
Tall, slim, in deep mourning, majestic grief,
A woman passed, lifting and swinging
With a pompous gesture the hem and flounces of her skirt,
Swift and noble, with statuesque limb.
As for me, I drank, twitching like a crazy man,
From her eye, livid sky where the hurricane is born,
The softness that fascinates and the pleasure that kills,
A lightning flash… then night! O fleeting beauty,
By whose glance I was suddenly reborn,
Shall I see you again only in eternity?
Somewhere else, way too far from here! Too late! Perhaps never!
For I do not know where you flee, you don’t know where I go,
O you whom I would have loved, O you who knew it!