plein-jeu – philippe hurel
plein-jeu (extrait)plein-jeu: piece composed by philippe hurel
computer music designer, electronic music: alexis baskind.
first performance on november 19, 2010 in manca new music festival (nice), performed by pascal contet.
a cirm production
a recording of this piece is a part of the cd “traits”.
programme notes (translation)
“plein-jeu (a term for the full registration of the pipe organ) belongs to a cycle of three pieces titled jeux (games) and comprising hors-jeu (“offside”), jeu and plein-jeu. hors-jeu for percussion and electronics was created in 2005 at ircam in paris, while “jeu” has not been written yet. in hors-jeu the performer’s gestures had little impact on the electronics, as implied by the title. in plein-jeu, on the contrary, every element of the electronics is the consequence and extension of an instrumental gesture even if delayed. interestingly, in 2009 i wrote a piece for organ and two trombones that left a trace in this work. plein-jeu‘s electronics take on the role of the organ, with the aim of generating a kind of meta-accordion sound which is, nonetheless at times closer to the sound of the former. from a formal perspective plein-jeu is in two main sections, in turn structured as a series of variations interspersed by parentheses where the music becomes noisier and more agressive. every parenthesis represents a release from the sonic tension accumulated in the piece so far, almost a kind of sonic climax mixing pleasure and pain. throughout the work gestures and sounds return obsessively and often in a diorderly manner, and end up contaminating each other to generate increasingly similar textures. the coda is made up of long threads , the final result the deterioration of the tension building gestures and multiple musical situations occuring from the start of the piece. philippe hurel