The Stages of Sleep

I’ve always been fascinated by this very special moment, which I’d describe as “letting go,” representing the very short space of time from consciousness to the beginning of that unconscious part of sleep. I read about it and became interested in it some ten years ago, and today I’m delighted to convey these sensations and scientific facts in music, in this work symbolically representing in its own way the stages of sleep.
I. Falling Asleep : The piano, played in the extreme low and high strings, represents the slowing down and regularity of breathing. A hiss of harmonics, a cello melody, adorns it, and sweet piano harmonies gradually take over the space.
II. Light Slow Sleep : A very short movement in which awareness of the moment is gradually lost.
III. Deep Slow Sleep : It’s a rhythmic march, repetitive yet in perpetual inner motion. Something deceptively simple, in which slight modal variations between rising scales and irregular descending movements follow one another and feed off one another, in a kaleidoscope that almost brings us back to the initial point, but not without a gradual bubbling, like a powerful tension, a race to the abyss.