Symphony n°3, a sinfonietta, dedicated to Jérôme Gay

 

This work is a commission of the Toulon Opera house. Jerome Gay asked me for a short symphonic piece. I wanted to continue developing my thoughts on symphony and form. Our point of agreement was for a third symphony, a short format so a sinfonietta … It’s a work of 20 minutes.
For this symphony, I wanted to work on the form in three movements, quick-slow-quick. I imposed an equal time between each movement (five / six minutes).

I only wanted to use one musical idea for each movement. Each idea is developed by superposition, stacking, suppression … The rhythmic work and the pulse are very present in this partition (and in my partitions in general). The modality too. I use for a few years very freely and without complex, consonance, melody, repetition … The thread is for me the expression, the search for musical intensity, lyricism and musical dramaturgy.

Through this score I conceived a music where each family of instruments (wood, strings, brass) have their own story, their own life. At times, the three families speak together. They go in the same musical sense. At other times they follow parallel and independent paths. A little like our society where everyone goes at their own speed, takes their own way, but where, in the end, the global and diversity of the courses makes a coherent and a unique whole …

instrumentation

2 flutes (with one piccolo)
2 oboes
2 clarinets in Bb (with one bass clarinet) 
2 bassoons (with one contrabassoon)
2 french horns in F
2 trumpets in Bb
1 tenor trombon with barillet 
timpani
violins I
violins II
altos
cellos
doublebasses

details

duration 20′

premiere 22 february 2020, Toulon Opera House, Toulon Symphony Orchestra, conductor Lio Kuokman

published by Note en bulle Editions

commissionned by Toulon Symphony Orchestra