- Ciné-concerts
Music by Yan Maresz (2005)
Lenght: 75 minutes
Instrumentation : fl, cl, vc, tbn, acc, perc, clavier and electronics
Work realised at IRCAM, musical assistant : Benoît Meudic
Commission : Auditorium du Louvre
Premiere : june 3-4-5 2005,uditorium du Louvre, Agora Festival by Ensemble Court-circuit
Following experiments by a mad professor the entire population of the French capital falls asleep. The magic streets and cafés of Paris sink into deep silence, only six people who are not affected by the rays of the mysterious scientist remain awake: the guard on top of the Eiffel Tower and five passengers on a plane. In René Clair’s film, the mad scholar who has decided to freeze the city’s movements doubles as an incarnation of the film-maker during the editing phase: the images gaining their sense and speed from arbitrary choices and inventive decisions.wbr>
To this is added the other "time-movement" art, music: in 2005 the composer Yan Mareszwas commissioned by the Musée du Louvre to write music to the film by René Clair. His work for chamber ensemble and live electronics simultaneously comments minutely on the film and serves as psychologising incidental music
Historique des représentations avec Court-circuit:
08/03/2008 direction : Guillaume Bourgogne / MaerzMusik / Berlin
15/10/2007 direction : Daniel Kawka / Festival d’Automne de Budapest
27/10:2006 direction : Pierre-André Valade / Gaida Festival, Vilnius
26/09/2006 direction : Pierre-André Valade / New Music Festival Arena, Riga
24/06/2006 direction : Pierre-André Valade / Auditorium Maurice Ravel, Lyon
03-04-05/06/2005 direction : Jean Deroyer / Auditorium du louvre, Festival Agora, Paris
To download the dossier : Paris qui dort
musique de Alexandro Markeas (2000)
durée: 75 minutes
Effectif: hautbois, clarinette, violon, violoncelle, piano, percussion et pianiste-improvisateur
Création : 13 novembre 2000 par l’ensemble Court-Circuit à l'auditorium du musée du Louvre - commande du musée du Louvre
Texte d'introduction: Commande de l’auditorium du Louvre, la musique d’Alexandros Markeas pour Les hommes le dimanche a été créée le 14 Octobre 2000 par l’ensemble Court-circuit dirigé par Pierre-André Valade. Elle est écrite pour sextuor (hautbois, clarinette, violon, violoncelle, piano, percussion) et un pianiste-improvisateur (dans le « rôle » du musicien qui aurait accompagné le film à l’époque de sa sortie). La partition est complétée par des enregistrements sur CD qui donnent vie aux musiques d’un gramophone présent à certaines séquences du film.
La composition d’Alexandros Markeas intègre l’univers musical des années 20 et crée des passages, des dialogues et des fusions entre ces mélodies et l’expression musicale contemporaine.
To download the dossier : Les hommes le dimanche
Music by Martin Malalon (1995 et 2007)
Lenght : 145 minutes
Instrumentation: 16 instruments et électronique
Electronics: Ircam
Commission : Ircam
Premiere : may 30 1995, Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris by Ensemble instrumental, conductor : Ernesto Martinez-Izquierdo
Metropolis is a silent science fiction film directed by a German filmmaker
Fritz Lang and written by himself and his wife, Thea von Harbou. The expressionist
film Is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and examines a common science fiction
thcme of the day, the social crisis between workers and capitalist owners. The
~lory takes place in 2026 in Metropolis, a cold industrial city. Vast numbers of the
lower class live underground to run machines, but the machines eventually run
the lives of the workers. Lang portrays monotonous drives ofworkers with a montage
of cattle-ltke herds of people, grinding machinery, and docks. ln contrast, the
privileged class of Metropolis enjoys races, gardens and stadiums.
Metropolis features special effects and set designs that still impress with their
visual impact. Innovative visual displays have been widely acdaimed in the fol-
lowing years. Among the effects used are miniatures of the city, a camera on a
swing, and most notably, the effect in which mirrors are used to place actors in-
side miniature sets. The robot was created by using brand new "plastic wood': a
\ pliable substance designed as wood-filler. It was used to sculpt the costume like
a suit of armour over a plaster cast of the actress. Spraypainted, it helped create
some of the film's most memorable moments.
The film stars Alfred Abel as the leader of the city, Gustav Fr6hlich as his son, who
tries to mediate between the elite caste and the workers, Brigitte Helm as both
the pure-at-heart worker Maria and the debased robot version of her, and Rudolf
Klein-Rogge as the mad scientist who creates the robot.
When composing music for Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Martin Matalon mainly concentrated not on the plot, but rather its visual aspects - rhythm of the image, interplay of shadow and light, composition of the plastic and the painting. He was concerned with atmosphere - tension,
intensity, its ebb and Flow. The composer triedto find the balance between the music and the visual. The first scene introduces a setting of a mechanical village: mechanical
movement back ad forth, big equipments, axes, levers and cirdes forming composition of a cube. Transferred into space with the help of electronics music becomes an incontestable copy of the visual making it tangible in sound and space. Every moving object is given sound analogue moulded from real figures present in the audio space: crossed axes, which digress from each ot-
her and approach each other in different speed. He takes original approach to stormy dynamic scene of the tide - the action is taking place in an unexpectedly static and claustrophobic musical space, while the most chaotic moment is mar- ked with deafening silence.
Employing instruments associated with jazz (saxophone, double bass playing piz- zicato, electric qultar), the composer cushions the expressive atmosphere. Rich orchestration of this soundtrack is enhanced by non-European percussion instruments -Indian table, Afro-Cuban conga, timbales and Caribbean steel drum. The characters are given musical characterisation: bass guitar sometimes is associated with Freder, while solo electric guitar - with Maria. An important role is given to
electronics - it extends instrumental possibilities, enriches sound with space and colour.
to download the dossier : Metropolis
- Concert-conversation
Conception and musique : Jacques Rebotier
Texts : Ernst Herbeck et Jacques Rebotier
Costumes : Virginie Rochetti
Electronics : Nicolas Déflache (Césaré)
Stage manager : Vincent Baltz
Music performed by Ensemble Court-circuit :
Pierre Dutrieu, clarinet
Mélanie Brégant, accordeon
Eve Payeur, percussion
Adeline Lecce, cello
Didier Meu, doublebass
and Jacques Rebotier
* Commande de l’Etat
Production : Ensemble Court-circuit
Partners : Coproduction Cie voQue/Jacques Rebotier – Césaré-Centre National de Création Musicale de Reims.
Whise the support of la Muse en circuit - Ctre National de Création Musicale, Ircam, Adami, FCM and Centquatrel’étranger.
Jacques Rebotier has been steering a course between words and music for nearly fifteen
years. His ‘multilingual’ world, full of ellipses and good humour, is completely barmy. When he
received a commission from a short-circuit loving ensemble, he delved into his catalogue as
well as composing several new works, and now it’s anchors aweigh! A rather Dadaist captain
recounts the story of his life, or rather lives, instructing and amusing the passengers while the
ship’s crew plays, sings and carries on. Accelerated voice aging and a live sex-change operation
are part of the programme. A conversation in almost-French and practically-music takes place,
as well as in ‘Austrian’, due to the presence on board of the honoured poet Ernst Herbeck...»
Programm : 47 Autobiographies, Weiss ist beau, un bouquet de Brèves, des petits
chœurs de parlé-désenchanté, les poésies « brutes » de Herbeck.
The musicians get a chance to speak up in ‘Vous Avez La Parole, Vous Avez Ma Parole!”, a
piece written in three languages: French, Austrian German and the language of music. Texts
and music are performed by speaker-musicians, whose speech undergoes Real Time electro-
nic modification. The percussions, cello, double bass, clarinet and accordion converse with
each other and with themselves. The work is a first-ever transposition into the musical sphere
of theatrical dexterity.
Mirrors, games and words: everyday language is shaped upon the instrumental music, into-
nation, articulation and phrasing. Unisons, breakings apart, choruses, solos and tuttis. There are no singers or narrators; the text is delivered by non-specialists of the voice and the spoken word.
Bilingualism: another mirror. Simultaneous, successive, overlapping or fleeing translations in
which Austrian German and French create their own fugitive and mutual shadows, which are
multiplied by electronic treatment of speech (Ircam). And music, too, as a cross-current.
The textual material I selected comes from the poems of Ernst Herbeck. These fleeting, enig-
matic, terse texts were written by a psychotic to his (anti-)analyst, Leo Navratil, active in the
1950s and whose method consisted of soliciting a poem per day from his patients, based on
a single word such as ‘yellow’, ‘woman’ or ‘glasses’. The resulting 5000 poems are of the kind
known as ‘raw’ poetry.
See the videoarte LIVE WEB
To download the dossier : Vous avez la parole vous avez ma parole
- Spectacle musical
Ogive est un spectacle musical autour de la parution de la 2e édition du recueil de poèmes d’Allain Gaussin «L’attente... L’absolu»
L’idée de ce spectacle est de faire se rencontrer la musique, la poésie et l’art de la scène, autour du compositeur Allain Gaussin, dont la spécificité est d’avoir toujours mis en relation (mise en abyme) la production de ses œuvres musicales avec celle de son écriture poétique. Cinq œuvres musicales, écrites entre 1987 et 2008 (avec leurs poèmes éponymes) ont été sélectionnées pour ce spectacle. La mise en scène et les installations sont réalisées par Franck Mas. chatoyante, parfois puissante jusqu’à une exaltante violence, qui cependant jamais ne dégénère en brutalité »
Allain Gaussin : compositeur, poète
Oeuvres choisies: Tokyo-City pour piano - Jardin Zen pour clarinette et sons électroniques (2 pistes) - Ogive pour flûte et piano - Satori pour clarinette - Arcane pour piano
Franck Mas : comédien, metteur en scène
Avec les musiciens de l’Ensemble Court-circuit
To download the dossier : Ogive