I tend to work in layers, like in counterpoint, and I try to make each layer as autonomous as possible. Then I stack them, one on top of the other, and this occasionally makes for stunning pairings that will turn meanings upside down. Lily is the result of that process.

Layer #1: Lily, a courtesan who randomly intersected my life and who became an instant friend. Lily, generously telling confidences to the microphone without holding anything back.

Layer #2: the actress Simone Chartrand reacting to Lily’s confessions, feeling them, living them in her heart and soul.

My first job as a composer consisted in articulating the material, which consisted mostly of Simone Chartrand’s voice. Nothing too complicated. Most of all I wanted to respect Lily’s testimony.

Those first two layers form the 2011-12 stereo, fixed media version of Lily.

Layer #3: in October 2013, Lily was turned into a stage performance entitled Misère et splendeur d’une courtisane, performed by Sylvie Chartrand, directed by Jean Asselin, and produced by Omnibus in Montréal.

Finally, layer #4: Lily [mixed version], for violin, accordion and fixed media, completed in 2017-18. This mixed version was commissioned by accordionist Joseph Petric with support from the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA).

— Yves Daoust [English translation: François Couture, ii-22]

Lily was realized in 2011-12 at the composer’s studio in Montréal (Québec) and premiered on March 15, 2012 during the concert Électrochoc 6 at the Studio multimédia of the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal (Québec).

Composition

• 2011 – 2012, Personal studio, Montréal (Québec)
• 2014, Personal studio, Montréal (Québec)

Premiere

• March 15, 2012, Électrochoc 2011-12: Électrochoc 6: Hommage à Yves Daoust, Studio multimédia — Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, Montréal (Québec)

Lily [mixed version] came to be when the accordionist Joseph Petric asked me for a new piece (I had already composed L’Entrevue for him in 1991).

I proposed that I work from the confidences of a courtesan that I had collected some time before. He liked the idea, and suggested that I add a part for violinist Lynn Kuo, a duet being more suited to the subject matter.

First, I composed a fixed media version that I entitled Lily (2011-12). Then, I started working on the mixed music version, which was developed in several stages between 2014 and ’18: back and forth with the musicians (improvisation sessions in reaction to the fixed media version); notation of the instrumental parts; revision of the electroacoustic part to make room for the instruments.

— Yves Daoust [English translation: François Couture, ii-22]

Lily [mixed version] was realized in 2014-18 at the composer’s studio in Montréal (Québec) and premiered on March 23, 2018 by Joseph Petric and Lynn Kuo during the concert Série Hommage José Evangelista: Par 5 chemins… at Studio-théâtre Alfred-Laliberté of UQAM in Montréal (Québec). This mixed version was commissioned by Joseph Petric with support from the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA).

Composition

• 2014 – 2018, Personal studio, Montréal (Québec)

Premiere

• March 23, 2018, Joseph Petric, accordion; Lynn Kuo, violin • Homage Series José Evangelista: Par 5 chemins…, Studio-théâtre Alfred-Laliberté — UQAM, Montréal (Québec)

About this sound recording

The present recording of Lily [mixed version] was performed by Joseph Petric, accordion, and Lynn Kuo, violin, at Studio Minerve in Laval (Québec) in October 2021, and in Toronto (Ontario) in November 2021, and was mixed at the composer’s studio.

Recording

• October 21, 2021, Yves Daoust • Studio Minerve, Laval (Québec)
• November 7 – 8, 2021, Yves Daoust • Toronto (Ontario, Canada)

Mixing

• November – December 2021, Yves Daoust • Personal studio, Montréal (Québec)

Performers

• Lynn Kuo, violin
• Joseph Petric, accordion

Intermède is born out of the Symphonie du millénaire, a collective work by 19 composers for 19 ensembles. One of the movements of this collective work consists in a series of 19 three-minute segments, one per composer, with only one rule to follow: the beginning of one’s segment had to segue well with the end of the previous segment. For my “three minutes of fame,” I integrated some of the thematic elements of the Symphonie du millénaire — bells, Gregorian chant Ave Maris Stella… — with environmental sounds.

I wanted to give that solo moment a life of its own. That’s why I reworked it in my studio for a concert in London (UK) in 2017. That is when I gave the piece its title.

— Yves Daoust [English translation: François Couture, ii-22]

Intermède was realized in 2017 at the composer’s studio in Montréal (Québec) and was premiered on November 11, 2017 as part of the 2017 Sound / Image Festival at the University of Greenwich in London (UK). Intermède was revised in November 2021 at the composer’s studio in Montréal. The source segment, for two samplers, integrated to Symphonie du millénaire was composed in 2000 at the composer’s studio in Montréal and was premiered on June 3, 2000 by Lorena Corradi and Reggi Ettore of L’Arsenal à musique as part of the event Symphonie du millénaire attended by over 40,000 people outside the Saint-Joseph du Mont-Royal Oratory in Montréal. The event was produced by Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ). That segment was commissioned by the SMCQ.

Preparation

• 2000, Personal studio, Montréal (Québec)

Composition

• 2017, Personal studio, Montréal (Québec)

Revision

• November 2021, Personal studio, Montréal (Québec)

Premiere

• November 11, 2017, Under the title Solo, from “Symphonie du millénaire”: Sound / Image 2017: Session Six: Concert Yves Daoust, University of Greenwich, London (England, UK)

I completed this piece thanks to the help of Chopin who, for the occasion, loaned me his Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, opus 66 for piano. All the materials in my piece (aside from a brief allusion to Schumann) come from this work: the harmonic colours, the pitches, but also the agitation in the writing, the overly abundant energy, the tension. A sort of cry expressing the ‘tortures of the soul’ that continue to plague contemporary human beings, in spite of the myth of a liberating technology. We remain unabashed Romantics…

[i-01]

Impromptu 2 premiered on January 30, 1996 by Manuel Schweizer, piano, and Anne Gaudemer, keyboard both from the Ensemble Grame, during the concert Live from Lyon produced by SMCQ at Salle Pierre-Mercure in Montréal. Impromptu 2 was commissioned by the SMCQ with support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ).

Composition

• 1994, Personal studio, Montréal (Québec)

Premiere

• January 30, 1996, Manuel Schweizer, piano; Anne Gaudemer, keyboard • Live from Lyon, Salle Pierre-Mercure — Centre Pierre-Péladeau, Montréal (Québec)

About this sound recording

This version of Impromptu 2 was performed by Brigitte Poulin, piano, and David Cronkite, keyboard, recorded at the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur in July 2014, and remixed at the composer’s studio in November 2021.

Recording

• July 2014, Yves Daoust • Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur, Montréal (Québec)

Mixing

• August – October 2014, Yves Daoust • Personal studio, Montréal (Québec)
• November 4, 2014, Dominique Bassal • Studio Inverse, Montréal (Québec)

Remixing

• November 2021, Yves Daoust • Personal studio, Montréal (Québec)

Performers

• Brigitte Poulin, piano
• David Cronkite, keyboard

“How we tell recent History is akin to a grand concert where all of Beethoven’s one hundred and eight opuses would be presented in sequence, though by performing only the first eight bars of each work. Were we to present the same concert again ten years later, only the first note of each piece would get played […] And twenty years down the line, all the music composed by Beethoven would be reduced to a single, long, high-pitched note similar to the infinite one he started hearing the day he became deaf.”

— Milan Kundera, La lenteur [Slowness] (1995)

“The idea is to show History as something continuous while History’s insubstantiality is becoming obvious.”

— Philippe Muray, Après l’Histoire (1999)

Everything gets archived nowadays, the good and the bad, we don’t even question this anymore. We have access to everything, from the most distant past to this day, and yet we seem to have lost the thread. We seem to be outside the continuity, in total disarray.

Calme chaos — the title comes from Sandro Veronesi’s novel Caos calmo [Quiet Chaos] (2005) — is a metaphorical exploration of that loss of meaning, that collective amnesia.

The work is articulated around two poles.

On the one side, chaotic writing consisting of a flurry of traits (more than a thousand) taken from the classical repertoire of each musician, segued without any logic, like decontextualized bits of information from the past, with occasional short encounters as if our memory was being jogged awake.

On the other side, the expression of the resilience of the wonderful musicians of the Nouvel ensemble moderne (NEM) who are hanging on to History, to signs from the past, in order to bring meaning to their backward march into the future, looking back in order to understand what is coming. The NEM’s musicians and their conductor Lorraine Vaillancourt welcomed my strange proposition with generosity and an open mind.

— Yves Daoust [English translation: François Couture, ii-22]

Calme chaos was realized and composed in 2011-12 at the composer’s studio in Montréal (Québec) and was premiered on May 2, 2012 by the Nouvel ensemble moderne (NEM), under the musical direction of Lorraine Vaillancourt, during the Concert du printemps at the Salle Claude-Champagne of the Université de Montréal. The piece was commissioned by the NEM with support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ).

Composition

• 2011 – 2012, Personal studio, Montréal (Québec)

Premiere

• May 2, 2012, Nouvel ensemble moderne (NEM); Yves Daoust, diffusion • Concert du printemps, Salle Claude-Champagne — Université de Montréal, Montréal (Québec)

About this sound recording

The present performance of Calme chaos was recorded at its concert premiere on May 2, 2012 and was subsequently mixed in December 2021 at the composer’s studio.

Recording

• May 2, 2012, Salle Claude-Champagne – Université de Montréal, Montréal (Québec)

Mixing

• December 2021, Yves Daoust • Personal studio, Montréal (Québec)

Performers

• Nouvel ensemble moderne (NEM) (Jocelyne Roy, flute; Normand Forget, oboe; Simon Aldrich, clarinet; Martin Carpentier, clarinet; Michel Bettez, bassoon; Lise Bouchard, trumpet; Jocelyn Veilleux, horn; Angelo Muñoz, trombone; Julien Grégoire, percussion; Jacques Drouin, piano; Lorraine Vaillancourt, piano; Alain Giguère, violin; Johanne Morin, violin; François Vallières, viola; Julie Trudeau, cello; Yannick Chênevert, double bass)