Works » By Title » P » Les portes du sombre dis (25:00 / 1979)

Conceptually, this piece uses a single elementary sound with a symmetrical dynamic envelope. This elementary sound is activated in different duration scales: from a few minutes to a few milliseconds. In exploiting this range of durations, and controlling varied time densities of different sets of elementary sounds, one can cover a domain ranging from long pure sonorities to isolated punctual events, and encompassing more or less rough sounding noises as well as smooth continuous textures. The chronological evolution of the characteristics of the sets of elementary sounds (density, duration, timbre, intensity, pitch, spatialization) is distributed among three asynchronous parallel global cycles: two of minimal contrast, and one of maximal. This cyclical form enforces the freedom of choosing a starting/ending point for each performance of the piece; it also makes it possible, the elementary sound being symmetrical in time, to start “Les portes du sombre dis” in one direction or the other. Computer programs were used in some stages of the compositional processes, to assist in the manipulation of multidimensional graphs and to find solutions to the problem of building cycles of controlled global contrast in such structures. After completion of this macrostructure, the last stages of composition, and the sound synthesis, were performed by dedicated programs and Music V. “Les portes du sombre dis” was realized at IRCAM (Paris, France), and first performed in July 1979, during the Musiques-Multiples Festival of St-Rémy-de-Provence. DL