Cris
2016
Oratorio
39 mn
• Text : after Cris, novel by Laurent Gaudé.
• World premiere: 17/06/2016, Théâtre, Verdun (France), as part of the centenary celebrations of the Battle of Verdun – Pierre Val (narrator), Les Cris de Paris (chamber choir), Trio KDM (Anthony Millet, accordion – Jean-Baptiste Bonnard & Adélaïde Ferrière, percussions), Nomos (cello ensemble), Geoffroy Jourdain (cond.).
• American premiere: 10/11/2018, Church of St. Luke-in-the-Fields, New York City – Philip Stoddard (narrator), Cantori New York, Mark Shapiro (cond.), Hanzhi Wang (accordion) – translated by Mark Shapiro..
• Scoring: narrator, chamber choir, 8 cellos, 2 percussions, accordion.
• Publisher: Gérard Billaudot.
[ programme notes of the World premiere]
Commemorating a battle is not necessarily easy to do musically, but the poetic richness and diversity of these soldiers' words, reinvented by Laurent Gaudé, are a fantastic asset for tackling a subject like this.
Relying on the variety of the work's poetic atmospheres, ranging from fright to gallows humour or even dream, my aim was to recreate an itinerary through this text, invent a musical form that would link these different atmospheres in a dialogue, even an intertwining, between spoken voice and sung voice. I therefore proposed a narrator to carry on a dialogue with a chamber chorus, blending the original text and its more symbolic transformations.
The orchestral basis is an ensemble made up of two percussionists and an accordion, an ensemble allowing for establishing the rhythmic or harmonic base of this structure as well as the creation of combinations of sounds appropriate to transcribing the tragic aspect of the subject along with its more dreamlike, sometimes timeless, side. The presence of a group of cellos responding to the narrator, and the possibility of a dark lyricism likely to ensue from them, imposed itself on me as the reading progressed.”
Thierry Escaich
Translated by John Tyler Tuttle
- Aria (piano)
- Cantus I (cello)
- Cantus II (harp)
- Cantus III (oboe)
- City Lights (clarinet or saxophone)
- Étude flash-back (piano)
- Étude jazz (piano)
- Études baroques (piano)
- Études impressionnistes (piano)
- Jeux de doubles (piano)
- Les Litanies de l'ombre (piano)
- Lutte (saxophone)
- Nun komm (violin)
- Prélude et Fugue (accordion)
- Vers les cimes
- Après l’Aurore
- Capriccios (clarinet/accordion)
- Cérémonial
- Choral’s Dream
- Comme l’écho d’une fantaisie
- Ground I
- Ground II
- Ground III
- Ground IV
- Ground V
- Ground VI
- Introït à l’Office des ténèbres
- Le Bal
- Lettres mêlées
- Psalmodie à l’Office des ténèbres
- Scènes de bal
- Scènes d’enfant au crépuscule
- Short Stories
- Sopra la Folia
- Spring’s Dance
- Tango virtuoso (arr. for clarinets)
- Tango virtuoso
- Tanz-Fantasie trp & organ
- Tanz-Fantasie trp & piano
- Trio américain (“Suppliques”)
- Trois Intermezzi
- Variations gothiques
- Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra
- Concerto for guitar and string orchestra
- Concerto for Flute and Orchestra
- Concerto for Organ No. 1
- Concerto for Organ No. 2
- Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
- Concerto for Violin, Oboe and Orchestra
- Concerto for Cello and Orchestra
- Élégie
- Fantaisie concertante
- La Nuit des Chants (Concerto for viola)
- Le Chant des ténèbres (clar. & strings)
- Le Chant des ténèbres (solo sax & 12 sax)
- Miroir d’ombres
- Quatre Visages du temps (Concerto for Organ No. 3)
- Résurgences
- Scherzo fantasque