VA - Dominique Lemaître: Laps (2021)

This present album gathers works written by Dominique Lemaître in the 2010’s. Recorded live, the selection of opuses summons formations from quintet to sextet. Nomenclatures leading to the threshold of an « extended » chamber music give the discographic unit a paradoxical feeling of heightened intimacy. Composed in memory of Félix Lechevalier, Stèle (2018) for two sopranos, bass clarinet, percussion and guitar refers to the symbolic image of a « talking stone ». Relating to the kingdom of Mnemosyne and Thanatos, the piece skillfully mingles voice and instruments. With five patterns linked together, the score originates from an exerpt of a text by Simonide de Céos (greek poet from the VIth and Vth century BC) and on the incipit of the famous Mille regrets by Josquin des Prés (polyphonic song from the Renaissance published in 1549). Like a chorus with a ghostly appearance, the josquinian variation gradually reveals itself when finishing each pattern, giving this « musical stele » the formal appearance of a rondo. Khronos, hommage à Stephen Hawking (2019) is writtenfor guitar and six instruments: flute, clarinet, percussion, violin, viola and cello. Like Orange and yellow, hommage à Morton Feldman (2009) for two violas, Séléné, homage à Maurice Ohana (2014) for two guitars or Stances, hommage à Henri Dutilleux (2015) for cello and piano, this septet is indeed paying tribute to the famous British physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking (deceased in 2018). In the Greek Antiquity, scientists used to distinguish three different kinds of time: « Kairos » the appropriate time, « Aiôn » the time of long cycles or of eternity, and « Khronos » the physical time, the quantitative and linear time that can be divided in seconds, minutes, hours, etc. Here, the music with changeable contours alternately unfurls through a smooth time, a streaked time, a suspended time… In this composition that folds into five panels, displayed end to end, without challenging the six strings instrument, doesn’t the percussion seem to reflect the expression of Zeus or even of Thor, two deities related to thunder? Conceived for soprano, alto flute, English horn, cello and piano, Laps (2015) is made up of three uninterrupted « periods » during which wind instruments and cello combined with voice (using phonems), are entwined to overlap or fade out. Draped with smooth sonorities and tinged with warm tones, the music course is wreathed by pianistic interventions used as «beacons ». Like an initiator scouting around, the keyboard player galvanizes the whole, systematically smashing the sustaining pedal. We should bear in mind that the lapsus temporis meant, in the IVth century, « any movement gliding, flowing fast ». Later, only the notion of « space of time » will be reminded. Reminiscent of the instrumental layout of Novae (2002) for eight instruments, Liens d’espace (2011) spatially stages a central clarinet and, on both sides of the soloist, two trios: vibraphone, marimba, harp and viola, cello, double bass. Resonance games, overlapping shifts, transmitted polarities or energy exchanges nourish six connected patterns. The clarinet, caressing at times, awaiting at other times, can be outstandingly eloquent thanks to a propulsive outburst of virtuosity. It can even embrace some solo cadenzas within a sound dramaturgy with sometimes abrupt caesuras. Four lines by Paul Valery spangle the score with an exclamatory tint: « Patient, patience, / Patience in azure skies! / Each atom of silence / Is the good fortune of a ripe fruit! ». Presented as a monodrama originating from a poem by Alexis Pelletier Les Moires (2017) score is written for a narrator, three sopranos (choristers) and six instruments: flute(s), clarinet(s), percussion, harp, viola and cello. What do these creatures that Latins called the Fates foment? United under the domino of the one and the multiple, the Moires are three sisters: Clôthô, Lachésis and Atropos. They have the ability to grant each mortal with a measure of life which precarious duration they decide on. The first one spinning the wool (this is birth), the second one winding the thread (this is the course of life), the third one cutting it (this is death). Sometimes blurred by soft timpani rolls, sometimes illuminated by brilliant harp glissandos, the music is used as a colourful background to the contemporary tale. Like an inexpressibly discreet scenery, incarnated by the right balance of the pairs flute/clarinet and viola/cello, it helps bending the word and curbing the phrase (unless it could be the opposite). In these five pieces, soprano and narrator voices, rubbed and plucked strings, woods, piano and percussion are meant – as Dominique Lemaître always does – to serve a sensitive poetry with an inspired structure. In Les Moires and in Laps, instruments and voices mingle to merge into an incredible morphing, ceaselessly providing a feeling of indefinable mystery (as Paul Valery would say it). Sometimes, visiting the many folds of a « sound archeology » (be it imaginary or not like in Stèle), snatches of antique songs, forgotten or lost, seem to emerge from the moving sound matter (Laps). In this trail, shall we note this archaic scent of greek music that is constantly fragrant throughout all the introductory bars of Les Moires? Besides, apart from a few affective intentions respectively adressed to Simonide de Céos, Stephen Hawking, Félix Lechevalier, Alexis Pelletier… the conoisseur will notice the special « offering gesture » aimed at the two soloists (the guitar player Isabelle Chomet and the clarinet player Armand Angster), a praiseworthy and generous attitude that endows the scores of Khronos and Liens d’espace with an actual « concertante » outline. Finally, metaphorically speaking, if the link with the time apparatus is fundamentally endorsed by Khronos, by Laps and by Les Moires, on the other hand, the angels’share relating to the space parameter is represented in various ways by Stèle and by Liens d’espace. As Paul Valery would put it in his Cahiers, music remains a « series of bridges flung over time ».