Igor au Cymbalum

It was in the Swiss canton of Vaud, in his bedroom, with only the company of an old piano and a cymbalum cymbalum that Stravinsky began writing his Histoire du soldat.
In these 5 pieces, each about 2 minutes long, I try to imagine what he might have done in contact with this instrument, so unique in its sonority.
unique in its sonority and poetry, but also in its internal organization. Striked with
the cymbalum’s strings are organized into four distinct zones: the first is purely chromatic
chromatic, a second in fifths, a third chromatic again, and finally a last (the highest on the instrument) with a third chromatic zone.
of the instrument) with a very particular logic, which is impossible to classify.
These pieces are commentaries, improvisations or period dances that Stravinsky could have played
in front of his cymbalum, in search of what would later become one of his most emblematic works of his catalog.
They were conceived as part of the performance by the French ensemble L’instant Donné Histoire d’une Histoire.
Tomás Bordalejo