Maurice Ohana, "Silenciaire"

-- Liner Notes Continued --
Silenciaire
(Editions SALABERT, Paris)

Percussions de Strasbourg

Jean Batigne _ Gabriel Bouchet
Jean-Paul Finkbeing _ Detlef Kieffer
Georges Van Gucht _ Claude Ricou

Ensemble Instrumental
direction
Daniel CHABRUN

Silenciaire is a meditation on one of the most precious commodities of our civilisation. It is a cluster of ideas for string orchestra and percussion instruments, which stems from a personal concept of silence. The work was composed for the Lucerne Festival Strings, who gave the first performance in September 1969, along with the Strasbourg Percussion group. It is a synthesis of colours. Two worlds of sound are compared and contrasted with each other. Within a largely contrapuntal framework, they clash with each other or melt and blend. The work is made up of 4 episodes, called "adventures". Each forms a frame within which the various groups of players can choose freely the moment at which they will enter, and play with the others. Waves of sound grow out of the silence and dwindle back into it, seemingly governed by a magnetic force, rendered, relentless by a series of strident chords used to open and close the work. This also occur at two other points. An inner landscape of tangible irridescence, and palpable rhythms, arises from the "pointillist" percussion texture and the third-tones used in the string parts. This evokes the stony silence of underground caves, where, in the flame of a torch, a petrified landscape lights up, frozen stars sparkle and a strange flickering rebounds. Here and there, out of distance, comes the sound of bells, and birds singing, as if they were shreds from another world...maybe that wonderland of our childhood.