Le Phénix

For several years now, I’ve been lucky enough to collaborate regularly with cellist Emmanuelle Bertrand. This led to the works Iroise, for solo cello, and Caraïbes, for two cellos, both featured on my monographic album Les Îles (Harmonia Mundi, 2020). The following year, Emmanuelle Bertrand premiered Souvenirs de Così, for two cellos,
commissioned by the Beauvais International Cello Festival.
Together, we wanted to explore writing for cello and orchestra with a concerto. Entitled Le Phénix, it was inspired by a poem by Paul Eluard (1895-1952), written a year before his death in an eponymous collection.
As is often the case in my work, the music and structure of the piece are inspired by a text, a poem, by the music of words, their architecture, their rhythm, their harmony. We chose this poem, Emmanuelle and I, in agreement on the subject of the piece’s “poetic space”.
This work is intensely lyrical, and at times «cello augmented» with the orchestra. The love narrated here is the poet’s last, the twilight one, and I wanted, in my own way, to “model” the music on its six stanzas.
Le Phénix is also an intimate song, borne of the love I experience.