Instrumentation

fl(=picc+afl+bfl) – trbn(=oriental drum).tuba(=wdbl) -perc(1): bongos/tom-t/oriental drum/tabla/BD/tamb/mcas/guero/tam-t – synth (Yamaha SY77 – 1 player) – harp – vln(=crot).vlc(=cabaca).db electronics: 2 harmonisers and compressors, 7 microphones, mixing desk (1 operator), amplification and speakers for stereo diffusion

Availability

Score, synthesizer diskettes and parts for hire

Programme Notes

As its title implies, this work is based on an exploration of a duality. On the one side there is Europe, with its fascination with darkness, melancholy and madness. I read Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalytic study of Gérard de Nerval’s El Desdichado in her book on melancholy, Soleil Noir, with its penetrating insights into Nerval’s insanity, melancholy and suicide. On the other side there is India with its radiance, its naivety (there was no Indian Freud), its nostalgia for the divine presence and its mysteriously inviting profundity. (Chitra is a female character from the Mahabharata about whom Tagore wrote an enchanting play). Heaviness/lightness, power/delicacy, slow/fast, statement/dance: these are some of the contrasts whose juxtaposition I explore as two aspects of one consciousness.

Soleil Noir/Chitra

+ radio broadcast

Mozart-Saal, Alte Oper (Frankfurt am Main, Hessen, Germany)

Ensemble Modern Frankfurt/Stefan Asbury

Soleil Noir/Chitra

No Venue (Kraków, Poland)

Ensemble Intercontemporain

Soleil Noir/Chitra

Temple of Peace (Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom)

Michael Rafferty/RWCMD Millennium Ensemble

Soleil Noir/Chitra

No Venue (Vienna, Austria)

Champ d'Action/Luc Brewaeys

Soleil Noir/Chitra

Adrian Boult Hall, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (Birmingham, United Kingdom)

Lionel Friend/Thallein Ensemble