The Messiaen festival in La Meije belongs to the small circle of renowned destinations amongst lovers of musical creation. The programme presented this year for the summer of 2021 promises to be a "summer of liberation" for the forces of art and culture after the global health crisis, strengthening this privileged place in the hearts of festival-goers in touch with the alpine peaks. 

One of this year’s highpoints will be the premiere by the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain (conducted by the multitalented composer and conductor Bruno Mantovani) of the new ensemble work by Philippe Manoury, Mouvements. The original and fertile idea of Bruno Messina, director of the Messiaen festival (and of the Berlioz festival in Côte-Saint-André), is to present a two-season retrospective of Philippe Manoury's repertoire over the two festivals - a unique opportunity for the public to understand the affinities that these different works can maintain between them and to discover something akin to a "Manoury style". A magnificent programme in perspective, which will begin on 28 July with the premiere of Mouvements, of which the salient points are explained by the composer himself: 

"The instrumental ensemble will be composed of four trios (strings, wind, brass and a trio composed of percussion, harp and double bass). There are in total ten movements with four interludes: during these, the piano played by Ancuza Aprodu will exchange with a particular trio in forms similar to chamber music - that is to say, these moments will often not be conducted. The other movements are more concerto in form and involve the entire ensemble. As these movements unfold, the piano is more and more 'fitted' into the ensemble until it loses completely its independence. 

As opposed to my Passacaille pour Tokyo, a one-movement work and extremely virtuosic for the soloist, which revolves around an unchanging note played from start to finish, the Movements are works of a different character which are not connected to one another, except by a small cell which appears at the beginning, like a foreign body, which can be found in certain movements thereafter, each time in larger proportions until making up the last movement in its entirety. For that I used golden ratio to calculate the durations of each of these appearances." 

Philippe Manoury - Mouvements (2020)
for piano & 12 instruments
World premiere: 28 July 2021 
Festival Messiaen Pays de la Meije (Salle du Dôme - Le Monêtier-les-Bains)
Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain
Ancuza Aprodu, piano
Bruno Mantovani, conductor
Information...

Consult the score on ISSUU : 

The ensemble will also perform B-Partita by Philippe Manoury, you can hear an extract here: