LDV16

Gérard Pesson En haut du mât (une chanson de marin) (2009) Duration: 2’40 Commissioned by the City of Paris This piece, ‘At the mast top (a sailor’s song)’, comes from a set of collections intended for teaching the piano, Musica Fiça , which are punctuated by homages to a number of composers (Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Ravel, Schoenberg, Webern, Nono, Stockhausen, etc.) in the form of quotations, allusions, or filtrations. The present piece pays tribute to Richard Wagner by quoting the Young Sailor’s song heard at the very opening of the first scene of Act I of Tristan und Isolde . The moment is a striking one, since it is for voice alone in a work that elsewhere features a sumptuous orchestra. This theme, which I chose for its bareness and its character as invented folklore, is perfectly recognisable here, but elongated and as if caught up in a calm swaying movement. It is harmonised, given rhythm, loosely ornamented, as if reaching us through an effort of memory retrieval, deformed like a reminiscence that has crossed space and time. As is suggested by the last chords, calmand transparent, this lamenting cradle-songmight also be thememory of the sailor himself, evoking a child’s sighs in his singing: 24 EXTASE MAXIMA