Premiere of the new orchestral work by Baptiste Trotignon, Anima, by the Orchestre de Pau Pays de Béarn :
What better way to enter the world of Baptiste Trotignon's new symphonic piece than with the composer himself and one of his most inspired texts:
Anima… A psychological notion made famous by the work of Carl Gustav Jung. The term evokes the feminine representation within the imagination of man. The term encouraged me to dig more than usual into my own "masculine-feminine" imagination.
The analysis of musical language throughout history has often dissected the masculine or feminine aspect of this or that composer or of this or that musical passage (Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Ravel, Dutilleux ... to name but a few), and this dialectic lead me to question my own identity as to the masculine and feminine parts of my creative possibilities, and to seek out how to express them in terms of writing, since instrumental music is very exciting in my opinion in that it allows a great freedom of interpretation of the "substance" expressed beyond the "form".
Like my previous works, this latest piece will not be a “symphonic jazz” work. I have always had dual inspirations with, on one side, a love of the African-American tradition that I use in jazz and improvisation, and on the other side a deeply European identity through my genetic culture and aesthetic that I apply to my work as a composer.
However, Anima will be made up of harmonic colours shared by the two universes, because this is where the two worlds are able to speak the same language, more than in the melody or the rhythm. Moreover, my career as a jazzman - and therefore a rhythmist - has often led me to write very rhythmically talkative music, perpetual in motion and it is entirely in this spirit that I wish to compose Anima, to play with tension and relaxation like the two sides of the same coin.
There exists a duality in the artistic approach both in terms of its intent but also in its desire to break down certain boundaries between so-called “scholarly” music and so-called “popular” music, as I have always been fascinated by the music that manages to come together in both a real sophistication of the musical language AND an intelligibility and sufficient melodic and/or rhythmic clarity to speak to a listener who may not have all the necessary keys to understand the language.
The idea of pleasure and enjoyment (the one who creates and the one who receives the creation) has always been vital in my work as a composer.
Baptiste Trotignon- Anima
for orchestra
World premiere: April 21, 22 and 23, 2022
Palais Beaumont (Pau)
Orchestre de Pau Pays de Béarn
Fayçal Karoui, conductor
More information...
Watch the composer at work in this video:
Click here for more information on the release of the recording Anima, L'air de rien and Hiatus et Turbulences on January 14, 2022 at Alpha classics :
