The symphony N ° 1 is a symphony in one movement of 40 minutes. A long movement where the different musical ideas are connected. The name is classic, the form is not. The structure was revealed during the composition. No schema pre-established, but rather the idea to be inspire by a choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui “In Mémoriam”. I drew my musical inspiration on the movement of the bodies and on the stage space of this ballet. I had the idea to think a music of the body and not a music of the intellect. Start from the movement of the dance with the intention to find another breath and another energy in my music. It is also enriching the music of the visual dimension and of the movement of the bodies.

In “In Mémoriam”, the notion of magnetism is a strong notion. The dancers attract, repel themselves, sometimes without touching … The movements can be sensual … they can be violent too. The red line of the score is a reflection on manipulation. Without physical contact, a person can act on us, without we really realize it. A manipulation by attitudes, by words … In the orchestral writing, the notion of magnetism and manipulation is present and re-emerges with solo. In this symphony every musical element is an individuality, and it is the individual who influences the orchestral mass.

it is sumptuous!

The first symphony of Lionel Ginoux marks the mind when it was created at the Opera Grand Avignon (Jacques Freschel)

Press quote

Corps accords symphoniques !

The piece ends in an atmosphere that is at once sober, sweet and painful : a string fabric led by the alti which is forgotten in a final chord, a reminiscence « picarde », neo baroque, a modern symphony tail! The First Symphony called “Dualities” by Lionel Ginoux has just been created at the Opera Grand Avignon : it is January 15, 2016. And the work is both pointed and attractive: swarming, contemporary with its language, but quite accessible to the ears of the common music lovers. The new opus, as specified by its author, oscillates between “tradition and modernity” … and it is sumptuous!

Conceived in periods that fit into a vast and unique movement, music emerges, from desk to desk in the orchestral space, over a long continuous theme, mingled with harmonic frames, textures playing dissonance and consonance, stretched clusters, animated pulsations, haunting, even sarcastic, percussive solos, and cleverly passes from a sound tension in luminous climax to suave sounds distilled at the border of silence …

Lionel Ginoux explains that he drew his inspiration from the movements of the ballet In Memoriam by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, created for the Monte-Carlo Ballets on Corsican polyphonies (A Fileta). In fact, one can imagine, through attentive listening, the games of the bodies that attract and brush against one another, the arabesques, oscillations and turns of spring flowing dresses … or, in the coda, when the dancers stand up on points, a lyrical, funereal, hypnotic ritual … Superb! And one agrees fully with the words of the conductor Samuel Jean, head of the Avignon Symphonic Orchestra (who commissioned the symphony) which affirms that Lionel Ginoux is “one of the best young composers present” (living In Marseille and originating in Châteaurenard). To be continued!

Jacques Freschel