Photo : Signature de l'armistice le 11 novembre 1918 à Compiègne dans un wagon - Anonymous painting
Intended to commemorate the 1918 armistice, this double concerto for violin, cello and orchestra is, in the words of the composer, “[…] written in homage to two infantrymen, two musicians who knew the horror of the trenches: the violinist and composer Lucien Durosoir and the cellist Maurice Maréchal. I added a third First World War veteran to these two names, the writer André Pézard, translator of Dante and author of a university thesis, Dante sous la pluie de feu. It is from him that I borrowed the title of my concerto.”
Auditorium de Radio France’s listeners will enjoy recognising numerous musical quotations, a process that Philippe Hersant particularly likes. According to him, “[…] the short prologue twice echoes the chorale Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein, which Mozart used at the end of The Magic Flute (Two Men in Armour). It’s one of the themes that runs throughout the concerto. The central episode includes elements from À l’est, the last of my Cinq poèmes de Trakl – an apocalyptic description of the fighting and massacres.”
The dramaturgy of the piece ultimately reconnects with a more classical formalism, where games of symmetry or development are self-sufficient: “After the cataclysm, the very long postlude that follows introduces very few new elements. They are merely recollections of everything before it. The orchestra only plays muffled, fragmented, obsessive echoes from the war episode, from which emerge the voices of the soloists, more and more expressive and intense: Hélène Collerette on the violin and Nadine Pierre on the cello.”
World premiere
Pascal Rophé (cond.), Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Hélène Collerette (violin), Nadine Pierre (cello)
16 November 2018, Maison de Radio France, Paris
Fayçal Karoui (cond.), Orchestre national de Metz, Hélène Collerette (violin), Nadine Pierre (cello)
17 November 2018, Arsenal, Metz
Fayçal Karoui (cond.), Orchestre de Pau Pays de Béarn, Raphaëlle Moreau (violin), Edgar Moreau (cello)
13,14 & 15 December 2018, Palais Beaumont, Pau