En cours de traduction. Voir la version anglaise.
My Fantasy for piano solo borrows a name from Schumann, but very little from his language. It does, however, trace the Schumann Fantasie’s formal arc: a first movement spun out of a tiny fragment of quoted song, which refuses to cadence until its closing phrase; a roving, easily- distracted second movement, which reaches manic levels of activity before shattering; and finally —out of the aftermath—a somnolent, dream-world final movement which, weaving together fragments, finds hard-earned peace. The Fantasy was written for the fantastic Bertrand Chamayou, who premiered it at the Venice Biennale 68th International Festival of Contemporary Music in late 2024.
The first movement is built in long spans which refuse to cadence, but gradually trace the outlines of a pitch-world, folding into a hazily-recognizable form. The figuration is constant and watery. (I wrote this movement with Bertrand’s playing especially in mind—in great admiration of his Ravel recordings.) The movement ends elliptically, having set forth centricities and formal phenomena which will have ramifications throughout the piece.
The second movement, “Dances”, features different kind of dance clamoring to interrupt and interact with each other—different ways of animating very similar pitch spheres. Abstract jittery music feints in the direction of dance, followed by a sort of arhythmic soft-shoe, before direct stylistic nods come into play—a fast, lilting waltz; bit of New Orleans stride with unpredictable accent patterns; a rapid, raucous salsa with prominent clave. The interruptions are playful, but the pacing is ferociously controlled: in the end, everything careens into a climax which encompasses the whole keyboard.*
The final movement, “Lullabies”, finds peace. To weave its way, it borrows some tunes from my alter-ego project, Ave redactor. Each borrowed fragment originally bore words of some peculiar meaning (to me); each is in a sense a lullaby, and one of them, indeed, refracts a very, very famous lullaby. None of these cradle-songs end conclusively: through them, though, there is a new synthesis of the pitch languages of the piece, and a pathway toward the beginnings of some fresh dream: a gently-rocking, misty stasis.