L’Ombre des Reflets

Composed for the Johannes Quartet and programmed as part of the Festival de Sainte-Croix-en-Jarez, by its director, François Sauzeau.
I imagined a string quartet as a single instrument, but enlarged in size.
The first movement, L’ombre, is very dense. The quartet is in a state of fusion, the tempo quite slow, dreamlike in character, referring to the motionless shadow of an inanimate object stretching slowly under the natural course of the sun.
The second movement, Les Reflets, on the other hand, is tumultuous and virtuosic, with a multitude of ricochets and chases between the voices.
Reflections emerge from the massive shadows of the first movement, with a central moment of suspension that plunges the listener into the world of shadows, before resuming the initial rapid movement to finish.
Both the shadow and the reflections project an image reflected by the light.
The shadow gives an impression of slowness, almost motionless, and exudes a melancholy of the things hidden within it, while the reflections are very much in motion, full of life, playing virtuoso at projecting bits of shadow and cheerful light.