Fétiches

Feiticio: manufactured thing, amulet, artifact.

These ritual objects that accompany us, protect us, reassure us daily, shape our fears, our desires, our passions. But if we choose them sometimes, they can also choose us... Fetishes is made up of five whims for solo violin, magical utensils, which each contain their own magic, their own meaning.

Fetishes can be read at different levels: Noëmi Schindler, the violinist who inspired these pieces, is for me an instrumentalist fetish. She embodies a violin sound with which I grew up as a composer. The violin is, of course, a fetish instrument. Its material, its arabesques, its pegs, its balance : everything in it carries a force and a certain mysticism. A wooden assembly, almost magical.

Finally, each of the five movements that make up the work are, in themselves, objects of sound, five specific whims, temperamental, that one must know how to domesticate and educate:

I- L'énergique first, first whim, concentrate of dynamism, joy, emotion. A challenging instrumental technique to balance;

II- L'épaisseur, plastic work of the sound material. Austerity of expression, arid landscape, almost nothing itself;

III- La scherzando, light, airy but precise;

IV- La Lyrique, like a song in homage to Debussy and his Nuages, the also, fetish in my career as a composer. The richness of a full material.

V- L'étincelante, finally: An intense dialogue, between virtuosity, the full sound, the challenging, the brilliance.