To Évelyne

Through the play of opposites and the confrontation of unique forms, the piece develops the evolving discourse of this combination to the detriment of the evocative power of the sounds themselves. These ‘painted’ forms (more pictorial than musical in their conception) are a means of integrating the sound colours (a non-synæsthetic perception) with the quasi-plastic gestures of their temporal disposition. However, the sonorities are employed less for their semantic value than as a pretext for the elaboration of characteristic formal metamorphoses whose function is to imprint, upon their return, a role and a unity, an accent particular to these sounds. A crossing which symbolizes the obscurity to be overcome, the successive stages of fascination; incomplete poles of illusion or of reason.

Lune noire (Black Moon) is composed of two almost equal parts punctuated by Thème de Lilith (Theme of Lilith), a short isolating movement or interlude. Each of these two parts treat the two contradictory poles of this great astrological subject: the first, Lac noir (Black Lake), of the transmutation towards disintegration; the second, La porte étroite (The Narrow Door), of the transmutation towards a state of freedom.

Lune noire was commissioned by the Ina-GRM and was realized in 1987 at the Ina-GRM studios. The work premiered on February 15, 1988 at the Grand Auditorium of Maison de Radio France during the Cycle acousmatique series. It was selected for the 1st Prix international Noroit-Léonce Petitot (Arras, France, 1989) and, for that occasion, was recorded on the compact disc Prix international Noroit-Léonce Petitot (NOR 1) in 1990.

Composition

• August 1987, Groupe de recherches musicales – Institut national de l’audiovisuel (Ina-GRM), Paris (France)

Revision

• 1989

Premiere

• February 15, 1988, Cycle acousmatique 1988: Concert 4, Grand Auditorium — Maison de Radio France, Paris (France)