This piece is based on the opera “Pelleas et Melisande” by Debussy and Maeterlinck. music, atmosphere and symbols are quoted in this new work as if they were elements coming from a dream. It is Melisande’s inner world which speaks in the language of the subconscious: the perception of reality is distorted like the sound of the instruments playing under the water. Many voices are speaking through Melisande: the husband, the lover and her own voice, coming from a restless dream with a concealed meaning.
Coached improvisation - real time composition
This work was part of a one year workshop with Pierre Audi at the AHK, Amsterdam. During the whole year people from different disciplines were discussing different approaches and “re-inventions” of the Debussy’s opera Pelleas et Melisande with text by Maeterlinck.
The outcome of the workshop was a presentation were different installations, projections, readings and concerts were shown in different rooms of the building.
My work was a piece in the form of a coached improvisation.I worked with four musicians: voice, clarinet, trumpet, percussion. I chose them as well and I find that the decision about who was going to play was part of the composition. It was not the same to play with one clarinet player or another. I presented a general structure and musical materials on top of which they could improvise. I used many of the resources they brought, organizing and framing them in a general structure.
I should say that the result was related to a long process of “researching around” the opera for one year, but at the same time it had the fragility of the moment. I do not feel comfortable with this kind of experiences. I realize that I like to explore all the instances beforehand and make my decisions by writing down what I want on a score. It seems to me in relation to my ideas and my musical language, that this coached improvisation is like building a very complex sand castle, having the engineering of a real one, but the futility of the moment. The musicians and their own talents are part of this construction.
I personally prefer to face another kind of “fragility”, that is the one of the sound, the one of the instruments, and mainly the fragility of the score itself, something that can be extremely imprecise and open to the moment as well.
