The performance takes place on a miniature theatre stage equipped with what machinery one would find in a theatre of the 18th century. In front of the stage, not only out of the pit, but as an authentic actor of the event, the composer-performer, with his violin and the electronic instruments he controls through his computer.
The exposition - or rather experimentation - of the system tells us
about a world both foreseeable and aleatoric, concentrated and in constant
dilation, chronological and timeless. A world enchanted, closed, unlimited,
irreversible.
It is beyond question that there are still planets, stars, and even galaxies
unseen to the day. But we will also see this microcosm go through all the great
families of celestial appearances in our cosmological fiction.
There are the Celestial Mechanics, great automates describing the universe as
an infinite clockwork. There are the Virtual Beings, existing only because we
name them. And the Aleatoric Bodies sowing disorder. We will also see the
Messenger Bodies, and the Metaphorical Bodies, all those animated beings of the
sky that - as we think - will tell our past and future. A world inhabited by
signs which we try to take into our service.
This experimentation of the World's System is not without risk, for the
celestial objects, in reality, are the actors of a permanent conflict. It will
soon become clear that neither the manipulator does master all the parameters
of the System of the World.
AN IMAGINARY COSMOLOGY
A flash lights up the hall.
The gigantic Eye opens, and - it is full of stars. A musician directs the
orchestra of time, while an invisible hand tries to shape the myriads of stars.
Dragon, Chariot, Great Bear ...
A majestic planetary describes the celestial orbits. Suddenly, a planet falls,
and the planetary goes crazy. The deciphering robot sets everything going
again. Phaeton crosses the sky, sumptuous in his fiery chariot. He falls. The
aster follows its route without him.
An electronic mini-laboratory meticulously follows the course of the
skies. Suddenly, an explosion. The universe has a breakdown. Alarm! The
musician resets the time ... Alarm again. The universe does not stop going
nuts.
The musician tries to remodel everything. In vain, the universe tumbles and
falls, the scales go flashing. The universe going nuts is driving the
experimenter crazy. So, where to live in this world changing more and more, the
more we explore it?
Serge Dutrieux / Jean-Pierre Larroche / MichelRostain
A PERFORMANCE OF THE MANIPULATION OF SONIC MATERIAL
As instrumentalist, I am fascinated by the spectacular progress of musical micro-informatics, where the production of the sound and its mastership are functions of the same attention - both in terms of craftsmanship and intimacy - I give to my violin. As a composer, I extend this sonic research up to the creation of a score. "Le Systèm du Monde" is one moment of this adventure.
Serge Dutrieux
