Depuis le Rivage

For some years now, the Trio Karénine and I have wanted to create a piece for piano trio and ensemble. The kindness of conductor Vahan Mardirossian has enabled us to bring it to life on March 31, 2022 with the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Mons. For this piece, I was inspired by an eponymous poem by Finnish poet Pentti Holappa, whose meaning in French would be something like this:

Semant ses bienfaits un nuage vole
puis l’aigle, messager.
Seules les îles gémissent vers le rivage à leur départ,
quand le vent sous le gel se fige, pleurant sur leur sort.
Et la mort du nuage
et la fin de l’aigle
et le dernier cri sont une suffisante genèse.
Les lueurs de l’Est ne dorent pas les eaux du rivage,
et les lumières de l’Ouest ne recouvrent pas l’homme qui regarde.
Seul jusqu’au destin du rivage résonne le chant de ceux qui s’en vont :
Adieu, étranger aux visages enfouis.

The interplay between the soloists and the orchestra, combined with the timbres and melodic lines, is intended to translate the spirit of the poem into sound. I thought of a lullaby on a carpet of strings, full of false harmonic relationships, as a prolegomena to the quotation of a traditional British theme entitled Lowlands Away. The starting point is the shoreline, perhaps Frodo’s at the end of Tolkien’s work; perhaps the one left by sailors on fishing trips; perhaps the symbolic one left behind by loved ones who have left… Depuis le rivage is a meditation, an illumination of the inspiring text. A quarter of an hour, between land and sea.
Benoît Menut