Commissioned by the Lorraine flute orchestra

Duration: 12'.

Awaiting creation

Like so many geological strata, this work conceals several levels of interpretation.

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First of all, I owe the title to the engraver and painter Geneviève Asse whose work, all in finesse and sensitivity, is remarkable. No thunder, no sleeve effect. No watchword. This is a real line of conduct on his part.

“Inside this cave (Ile de Gravinis, Gulf of Morbilhan), in underground corridors, stand tall stones bearing abstract, mysterious inscriptions of great beauty. The lines turn around the lines, from top to bottom of the stones, without crossing, like those of a vertical maze. (…) The mystery of these silent inscriptions resembles that which surrounds the work of the engraver”. (in, Geneviève Asse, the tip of the eye – Edition BNF).

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She said of her work in multiple shades of blue and gray: “First the engraving then the painting” - “The black and white engravings, where the line plays with the light, remain the purest. - "Studies of transparency" - "The line as an exercise in light" - "The sharp side of engraving which attracts me so much" - "Sharp stone = precision of writing: reason why I love engraving » - « The space is composed of summary and sensitive forms which are balanced by the mass and by the light, a secret architecture is created. »

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This precision so characteristic of engraving is reflected in my work by the great care given to details and tones, to color (more or less patterns) and to texture (more or less saturated/dense). There is a whole range of sounds: noises, breaths, "sandy", to the purest sounds...

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Then, I like to think that a work of art develops organically and conceals, without the composer's knowledge, something secret which first of all speaks to our sensibility. Thus, like a memory that haunts our inner world, various ghostly moments surface in filigree: the chromatic motif and the first chords of the final variation of Robert Schumann's Geistervariationen , his last work for piano before being definitively interned. This cycle is the extremely dark echo of what he was, and the even more disturbing echo, the shadow of what were his great works. This something behind appearances seems to tell us the “unreality” of reality and what we are, which Schumann and his double personality probably translated musically in some of his works.

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My silent inscriptions are music where the moments of shadows and whispers, the companions of my daydreams, are the trace of what was.

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Finally, at the level of form, this work of memory joins the work of the painter Anselm Kiefer and the idea of disintegration/annihilation that is specific to him, as if these silent inscriptions were saying the unspeakable. Long outfits, soundtracks animated from the inside, are cut by dazzling moments, like so many patterns emerging from the painting. Momentum movements are followed by freeze frames (suspended time), eruptive motifs (deafly violent) open onto flight motifs, a very distinct sound signal emerges very distinct, like breathing, from moments of sound confusion.

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In the depths of the work, short fragments, traces of other of my music appear, as if echoing: memory of the past or "memory of the future", traces of what I was, have been and will be. Time fluctuates, tightens or stretches, between concern and serenity. Towards the end, the form condenses, as a darker stain would enhance a work  In adorable blue (Hölderlin).

“The blues differ, the material is not the same. Blue as an inner call,” says Geneviève Asse.

The ancient Greeks saw death in blue.