...Jusqu'à l'afflux...

Jusqu’à l’afflux…. (2016) explores the possible interactions between air, sound and gesture. Here, the afflux (flow) of air is not only understood as a possible way to (re)create a form of harmony, with its own texture and timbre, but also developed as a moving and fluctuating element. The work consequently explores the multiple technical and instrumental possibilities that may recreate a pathway through air, sound and timbre.

These possibilities are almost infinite. Multiple combinations of air, multiphonics, additional noises or frequencies can be achieved through the combination of various instrumental techniques. An exploration of the playing on or with the different parts of the instrument, the combination syllables, voice, and air, but also the inclusion of human voice are some of the elements developed through the piece. Several specific instrumental gestures, such as repeated “spazzolato” (brushed) motion on strings, the use of the clarinet as an “amplification” of voice and breathings contribute to the general flow. Thus the performers are considered as a whole “corps sonore”, participating with their technique, with their gesture, with their voice in the general musical poetics of the piece.

Textures formed by multiphonic and harmonic sonorities tend to compose a response to this. They represent an additional form of air/sound interaction, complex mix air and additional frequencies themselves.

The work ultimately addresses the poetic and aesthetic question of what precedes the sound and what continues the sound, as the piece starts as it ends, in a vanishing flow of air and (human) respiration…