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- Betsy Jolas
Quatuor VIII à cordes "Topeng" (2019)
- Alphonse Leduc (World)
Commissioned by Philharmonie de Paris, Proquartet, Southbank Centre London and Berliner Philharmoniker. The world premiere was given at Philharmonie de Paris performed by Arditti Quartet on January 14 2020.
Programme Note
Almost half a century after B for sonata, here is another musical evocation of my intriguing trip to Bali. Iannis Xenakis and Tōru Takemitsu were there, among others, and we were walking around in the dark one evening when a Topeng appeared to us, in full action: Balinese musical theatre with one actor successively playing several legendary characters by means of mask changes carried out in extreme agitation behind a curtain, accompanied by a raging gamelan.
The memory of these little dramas has naturally lost much of its violence when it is evoked today in my Quartet VIII.
So we shall hear it here as if in a dream...
– BETSY JOLAS