Commissioned by the French Flute Orchestra (OFF)

Dedicated to its artistic director, Pierre-Yves Artaud

Created on February 14, 2008, Salle Cortot in Paris, under the direction of Pierre-Alain Biguet

Editions Francois Dhalmann

Duration : 13' ca.

At the request of Pierre-Yves Artaud, artistic director of the OFF, for several combined reasons, I gladly agreed to write for his flute ensemble. First, the flute is my instrument that I continue to practice today. Then, I wrote several works for or with the flute, one of which, Ubuhuha for solo flute, is played all over the world. Finally, his commitment to contemporary music has prompted the writing of numerous works which have profoundly renewed the approach to this instrument and developed its technical possibilities. It was therefore for me the guarantee of a total understanding of my writing. Composing for a flute orchestra offered me the possibility of developing on a larger scale certain potentialities contained in my various works for flutes.

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In a discussion forum on the Internet, the various topics or matters covered are called topics and give rise to numerous exchanges between Internet users.

The writing and the poetic project of this composition, that is to say its topic, is mainly technical : it is a challenge of orchestration. How to make an ensemble sound particularly homogeneous in terms of timbre, unbalanced in terms of the power of the various flutes and imprecise in terms of group attacks and articulations. How to find, beyond this sound mass, the sensuality and the brilliance which make the charm of this instrument.

I opted for a subdivision of the orchestra into three equal subsets in order to create a spatial arrangement (near/distant and left/right/middle). I have also subdivided these subgroups in order to lighten the sound material (tutti/small ensembles/solos). Finally, in a recurrent way, one of the motifs borrows from astronomy the notion of albedo : the same musical gesture is reproduced three times identically, but slightly shifted in time and possibly less and less loud, in order to create " phantom images " as on a poorly tuned television.

The form in one movement without interruption, as well as the formal unfolding " en spiral " -  that is to say constantly withdrawing into itself - are reminiscent of the associations of ideas in psychoanalytical work : these are the same motifs that come back constantly but always varied, in always different contexts, and enriched or modified by what has been heard beforehand.

A lively and light sound world is then created, made up of contrasts, rapid changes of climate, extremely varied sound plans as well as a multitude of sounds recalling that the flute is one of the oldest instruments in the world, practiced in all cultures, and that contemporary techniques are, in fact, ancestral.

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