se sont penchés dessus

The study in synchronicity, « se sont penchés dessus » first achieved its final scoring after many changes. It was first composed as music to a choreography by Gabriel Hernández: Le (!). eh ? Zovotrimaserovmeravmerouvian (dmzn !) se sont penchés dessus, which is based on the letters of a fragment translated into French that appears in James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. The short, static piece has existed in three versions: 1. - « sspd », electronic music (normal version, a glissando from one chord of four sounds to another, employed in the electronics of No. 3) 2. - « sspd » saturé, electronic music (intentionally distorted version of No. 1) 3. - « se sont penchés dessus » forviolin, alto flute and electronics, in which the flutist had to sing one tone of a diad It turns out that a version for two equal string instruments can better render the harmony of the piece (a tone sung simultaneously with a tone that is played on the flute yields a ring-modulated mixture of sound which is too indistinct), and thus the duo version for 2 violins was composed. A collaboration with the Kairos Quartet, Berlin, (le second tour du noyé, 3rd String Quartet) led me to smuggle a viola and cello into the piece as background, in order to glue the abrupt harmonic changes discretely together. The Duo and the Quartet are definitive and equally valid versions, both of which are available separately: Duo (Carus 16.327/10), Quartet (Carus 16.327). « se sont penchés dessus » is now literally the transposition of the translated quotation from James Joyce, in which the letters of the text se sont penchés dessus establish the basic structure of the piece (the rhythmic standstill denotes the vowels of the 4 words), the letters of Zovotrimaserovmeravmerouvian indicate the fine rhythmic structure and the manner of playing (e.g., sul ponticello). Walter Feldmann