Cult.news reviews the premiere of Ses purs ongles très hauts

The world premiere of Geoffrey Gordon's Ses purs ongles très haut

Born in 1968, American composer Geoffrey Gordon has written over a hundred orchestral and chamber works, as well as scores for theater, dance, and film. His intense and rich music has been praised by the New York Times as "dark and seductive . "

In Ses purs ongles très haut, a poetic concerto for clarinet and choir, Gordon achieves one of his most ambitious works. Commissioned by Radio France, Ses purs ongles très haut is inspired by the expressionist poem Sonnet en X by Stéphane Mallarmé. A Francophile and lover of poetry, Gordon was "immediately fascinated by Mallarmé" and seduced by "the extraordinary contrast between a very rich language and the desolation it describes."

In this 23-minute work, Gordon highlights the solo clarinet of the Philharmonique de Radio France, Jérôme Voisin, for whom the work was written. "The particularity of this concerto," explains Voisin, "is that it integrates the choir. The sound world of the poem is presented by the orchestra and the clarinet and then the choir sings Mallarmé's verses . "

The work then presents an original form: it is a clarinet concerto in the first two movements and a double concerto for clarinet and choir in the third movement. The score opens with a calm introduction of the strings, punctuated by a clarinet that is both feverish and mysterious. Like a lone warrior, the clarinet skillfully makes its way through the jungle of Gordon's abundant and iridescent sonorities, until reaching the clearing where all is silent.

A superb cadenza, full of virtuosity, multiphonics up to the high notes, then resounds in the auditorium of Radio France and we understand that Geoffrey Gordon wanted to exploit "without restriction ... the marvelous talent of Jérôme Voisin." After this second movement which intervenes as a variation on the initial gesture, the third movement brings out the choir. Mallarmé's verses then rise from this sound mass of horns, trumpets, percussion, harp, double bass and tubular bells.

At the conductor's desk, Roland Hayrabedian conducts the Philharmonique remarkably, considering the fact that "he recovered a score, which no one has yet played, yesterday afternoon to conduct it this evening in creation,"  as Clément Rochefort explains to us. Specialist in contemporary creation and founder of Musicatreize, Hayrabedian knew how to sculpt Gordon's sound material, exploit the tensions and the impulses of his writing, to produce a beautiful creation of Ses purs ongles très haut.

(TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH)