JOHN CROFT MALÉDICTIONS D`UNE FURIE

JOHN CROFT
T E X T
B Y
J E A N
T A R D I E U
MALÉDICTIONS D’UNE FURIE
A
F U R Y ’ S
C U R S E S
MALÉDICTIONS D’UNE FURIE
A MONODRAMA BY JOHN CROFT
TEXT BY JEAN TARDIEU
FILM BY RICHARD CRAIG
Lore Lixenberg – voice
Richard Craig – bass and contrabass flutes
Robin Michael – cello
Simon Limbrick – percussion
John Croft – conductor
Carl Faia – live electronics
I.
Par la libation mince et noire…
Voice, ensemble, live electronics and fixed sounds
II.
Intermedio
Bass flute solo — ensemble and live electronics
III.
ô phosphorescence
Voice and live electronics
IV.
Ah par le poing, par la griffe et la dent…
Voice, ensemble, live electronics and fixed sounds
V.
par cette vie infirme et vacillante…
Voice and bass flute
VI.
Par tout ce qui fuit…
Voice, ensemble and live electronics
VII.
Je te maudis, temps insondable…
Voice, ensemble and live electronics
VIII. Je ris avec toi
Voice, ensemble and live electronics
10 May 2012, 20:00, Turner Contemporary, Margate
In association with Brunel University, London
Malédictions d’une furie takes Jean Tardieu’s short one-woman theatre piece of the same
title as the basis for a 45-minute opera-monodrama for female voice, bass and contrabass
flutes, cello, percussion, live electronics and electroacoustic sounds. In Tardieu’s work,
dating from the late 1950s, a Fury – one of the chthonic deities charged with the pursuit or
wrong-doers and punishment of unavenged crimes – turns her wrath against Chronos,
god of time; the Fury curses the god who from a position of aloof timelessness oversees
the endless and pointless torrent of birth and destruction that is human history. She
laments the condition of those whom she is required to pursue and torment.
The music sets the ostensible message of the text (that impermanence is a travesty and
something to rage against) against the opposite perspective, namely that there is
consolation and beauty to be found in the universal necessity of constant change. This is
achieved by taking the few brief moments in which the Fury seems to evoke this
perspective, and drawing these out into extended meditations, giving them more time to
resonate, relative to the whole, than they receive in the original text.
The work, heard this evening in a concert version with film projection, is in eight sections,
which fall roughly into two types (perhaps distantly evocative of the distinction between
recitative and aria): some movements reflect the relentless fulmination that is the most
readily apparent aspect of Tardieu's text (I, IV), while others (II, III, V) are meditations on a
short fragment of text, sometimes hovering, sometimes combining wavering
ornamentation with a vacillating ‘florid’ style distantly indebted to early baroque vocal and
flute music. Starting with Movement VI, which culminates in the pivotal curse, these two
styles begin to merge.
With the exception of Movements I and IV, which contain some pre-composed
electroacoustic sounds, the electronic sounds heard are all real-time transformations of
the live vocal and instrumental sound. These treatments have been created and
programmed by the composer and are controlled in performance by a MIDI percussion
controller. Versions of Movements II (Intermedio), III (ô phosophorescence) and V (par
cette vie infirme et vacillante) also exist as independent pieces.
Jean Tardieu
Malédictions d’une Furie
SOLILOQUE TRAGIQUE
Il n’y a pas de scène, mais une sorte de lieu vague, sans âge, sans forme et sans limite, à la fois
obscur et fascinant où passent les couleurs fugitives d’un univers en fusion, plein de flammes et
de cendres, sans cesse agité d’enfantements et de désastres.
LA FURIE, belle, frénétique et blanche, sortant des ténèbres. D’abord à voix basse et sifflante.
Par la libation mince et noire, par le sang,
par l’odeur fade et écœurante de la bête égorgée,
par la blessure et par la colère, par le galop et par le cri,
par la fièvre, par la folie,
par toutes les races dont la chair morte
nourrit la terre et porte la vie,
ô pourriture, ô phosphorescence couleur de la nuit sidérale,
Comme une plainte, qui se termine par un cri.
O, ohé, ohi, ah, aha, ahé, ahi, ahiii!
Elle s’arrête. Elle reprend son souffle un instant. Le crescendo va commencer par un
trépignement rythmé.
Ah par le poing, ah par la griffe et la dent, ah par la corne et le sabot,
par cette vie infirme et vacillante,
ô lampe creuse, ô flamme qui se meurt à tout moment!
Par cette race que je guette et que je torture et que j’incarne
jusqu’à prendre sa forme et sa voix quand je remonte de l’Érèbe
et que j’ai cent mille ans de cris amassés dans ma gorge…
Elle reprend souffle encore une fois, plus profondément, comme parvenue à un nouveau palier,
avant la dernière montée jusqu’à la malédiction furibonde.
Par tout ce qui fuit et rampe et s’accroit et dépérit,
par le tumulte du désordre à chaque instant du fond des ombres secoué,
terre, terre, terre, terre, sifflement
de tous les serpents de tous les ouragans dans ma chevelure,
de tous les sillages de toutes les ailes,
Jean Tardieu
A Fury’s Curses
A TRAGIC SOLILOQUY
Translated by Colin Duckworth
There is no precise setting, just a vague sort of place, ageless, formless, limitless, both obscure
and fascinating. The fleeting colours of a molten universe flicker over it, full of flames and ash,
ceaselessly agitated by giving birth and disasters.
THE FURY comes out of the shadows. She is beautiful, frenetic and all white. Her voice to start
with is low and hissing.
By thin black libation, by blood,
by the slaughtered beast’s stale sickening smell,
by wound and temper, gallop and cry,
by fever, by stark madness,
by bodies whose dead flesh
nourishes the earth and brings forth life,
O putrescence, O phosphorescence colour of sidereal night,
Like a lament ending with a cry.
O, o-ay, o-ee, ah, a-ay, a-ee, a-heee!
She stops. Gets her breath back for a moment. The crescendo begins with a rhythmic stamping.
Ah, by fist and claw and tooth, ah, by horn and hoof,
by this ailing and vacillating life,
O empty lamp, O suddenly extinguished flame !
By the human race that I hunt and torture, that I embody
Taking on its form and voice when I ascend from the dark underworld
With the cries of a hundred thousand years surging in my throat…
She gets her breath back again, more deeply this time, as if she has reached a new level before
rising to the final climactic and fierce curse.
By all that flees and crawls and grows and wastes away,
by the frenzy and disorder unleashed in deepest darkness,
earth, earth, earth, earth,
hiss of serpents and wild winds writhing in my hair,
the furrows cut by myriad wings,
de toutes les démences de toutes les vagues,
de tous les chariots grinçant dans le ciel,
terre, océan, azur, abîme,
astres, astres, poussière d’astres, ah! pluie, ah! délire, ah!
ah, ahé, ahi, ahiii,
JE TE MAUDIS, TEMPS INSONDABLE!…
Elle s’arrête, comme égarée, puis reprend, encore haletante, un ton plus bas.
Je te maudis, temps insondable et monotone,
je sors pour cela des ténèbres,
hors de moi, blanche et noire comme la fumée du sacrifice,
je te maudis, Temps nourricier des siècles ronds,
empereur le pied posé sur le globe,
silence peuplé de tous les souffles d’agonie,
silence à ta hauteur, à ta distance immémoriale,
mais vacarme et tonnerre, et plainte et hurlement lorsqu’on écoute de plus près,
je te maudis, Père et Dévorateur de ce qui est, Chronos,
mâchoire horrible, dégoulinant du sang de tes propres enfants
et l’œil fou là-haut sous la broussaille des sourcils,
je maudis le torrent des créatures dans ta bouche
et la vaine circulation de toutes choses sous ton front,
danse cruelle, danse fatale, danse hagarde qui te fait rire!…
Sur le « i » qui la secoue tout entière, renversée en arrière comme en proie à l’amour et à la mort,
elle se rassemble soudain, devient droite, grande, majestueuse, lente, solennelle — presque
humaine.
Je ris avec toi, du rire de l’épouvante et de la honte et du dégoût,
car il est inutile et dérisoire, le sacrifice éternel des vivants
et lorsque l’urne abominable dans le gouffre
verse le flot épais de toutes les douleurs,
elle ne comble pas les déserts de l’espace
plus que ne le ferait dans ta coupe tremblante,
ô sacrificateur, une goutte de sang!
Text © Copyright 1969 by Éditions Gallimard. Used with the kind permission of
Éditions Gallimard and of the estate of Jean Tardieu.
the lunacy of waves created
by chariots grating across the sky,
earth, ocean, azure, abyss,
stars, stars, stardust, ah! deluge, ah! delirium, ah!
ah, a-ay, a-ee, a-heee,
I CURSE YOU, UNFATHOMABLE TIME! …
She stops as if bewildered. Then resumes, still panting for breath, in a lower voice.
I curse you, unfathomable and monotonous time,
for this I seep out from the shadows,
Out of myself, black and white like the smoke of sacrifice,
I curse you, foster-father of the rounded centuries,
an emperor one foot placed upon the globe,
silence full of cries of agony,
a silence worthy of you, of your immemorial aloofness,
but uproar and thunder, sobs and howling when one listens closely,
I curse you, Chronos, Father and Devourer of all that is,
with your grisly maw dripping with the blood of your children
topped by crazy eyes under bushy brows,
I curse the stream of creatures in your mouth,
and in your head the senseless whirling of all things
cavorting in a wild cruel dance of death under your mocking gaze! …
Her whole body shudders as she utters “gaze”, and she arches her back as if in ecstasy or deaththroes. Then she suddenly pulls herself together and stands straight, becoming majestic, almost
human, with slow and solemn delivery.
My laughter joins with yours. A laugh of fear, shame, and disgust.
For the endless sacrifice of living beings is pointless and derisory.
The thick stream of universal suffering pours into the abyss
from your abominable urn, but never floods the deserts of space.
One more drop of sacrificial blood never overfills your trembling cup.
Translation Copyright © Colin Duckworth 2009
John Croft (b. 1971) studied philosophy and music at the Victoria University of Wellington,
and composition and music cognition at the University of Sheffield. He has a PhD from the
University of Manchester, where he studied with John Casken. He is currently Senior
Lecturer at Brunel University, West London. His music draws on the spectral properties of
sounds as the basis for harmonic and temporal structures, and recent work focusses on the
use of live electronics in ways that extend rather than obscure the bodily relationship
between performer and instrument; examples include la terra lagrimosa...una luce
vermiglia (2006), for cello and live electronics, ...ne l'aura che trema (2007) for alto flute and
live electronics and Intermedio III for bass clarinet and live electronics (2012). His music has
been played by many ensembles and soloists, including the BBC Philharmonic, the London
Sinfonietta, the Arditti String Quartet, Ensemble Exposé, Studiya Novoi Muzyki, 175 East,
Stroma, Philip Thomas, Matthew Barley, Richard Craig, Marij van Gorkom, Barbara
Lüneburg, and Xenia Pestova. He received First Prize in the 2001 Jurgenson International
Composers' Competition for his String Quartet and the 2011 ICMA European Regional
Award for ...ne l'aura che trema. He also writes on the philosophy of music.
The French poet and dramatist Jean Tardieu (1903–1995) is known for his many
collections of poetry and his highly experimental theatre pieces, as well as his translations
of Hölderlin and Goethe. In the early 1930s he began publishing collections of poetry,
reminiscent of surrealist verse in its combination of dark imagery and focussed lyricism
(examples include le Fleuve caché of 1933, Accents of 1939, and le Témoin invisible of 1943).
During the German occupation of France he published in various underground journals.
After the war he began working for French Radio, eventually becoming Director of
Programmes at Radio France-Musique. A concern with the irreducibly musical level of
language forms a connection between his early poetry and the outwardly more
experimental word-play of his post-war theatre pieces, which often work with explicitly
musical forms, as well as with highly circumscribed word-play in the manner of Oulipo (he
counted Raymond Queneau among his friends). Much of this work, which is also often
regarded as an anticipation of later ‘absurdist’ theatre by Ionesco and Becket, is collected in
Théâtre de chambre (1955) and Poèmes à jouer (1960). ‘Malédictions d’une furie’ was added
to a later edition of the latter volume, and recalls, to a greater extent than the other pieces
therein, the bleakly obsessive qualities of his earlier poetry. In his later years Tardieu
continued to write poetry, often focussing on the relation of poetic text to painting and
music; his last collection, Da Capo, was published in the year of his death.
Lore Lixenberg has performed widely in opera, concert repertoire and music-theatre, and
has worked with many leading composers. She is renowned for the warmth, range and
agility of her voice as well as her total absorption in any role. Loré has performed
throughout Europe at numerous festivals such as Wien Modern, Oslo’s Ultima and the
festivals in Salzburg, Lucerne, Edinburgh, Witten, Huddersfield, Donaueschingen and
Aldeburgh. Her rich experience in the area of music theatre includes performing the lead
role in Bent Sørensen’s opera Under Himlen at the Royal Opera House in Copenhagen as
well as performing in many projects with Théâtre de Complicité. Loré sang the roles of
Peaches and Baby Jane in the award-winning Jerry Springer - The Opera at the Edinburgh
Festival, the National Theatre and in London’s West End as well as on the subsequently
released CD. In 2011 Loré sang the role of Cousin Shelley in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s opera
Anna Nicole at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. Loré has performed as soloist with
many distinguished orchestras and ensembles including BBC Symphony Orchestra, Hallé
Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Icelandic
Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble InterContemporain, London Sinfonietta, Klangforum
Wien, BCMG, Cikada, Northern Sinfonia, Ensemble Aventure and Apartment House. Recent
engagement include singing the role of Anna in Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins as well as a
recital of music from the Weimar Republic with the Aurora Orchestra; performing roles in
Gerald Barry’s opera The Intelligence Park in Dublin, and in Nigel Osborne’s Difference in
Demolition with Opera Circus in Leeds, Edinburgh, Bridport and London.
Richard Craig was born in Glasgow, studied flute at the RSAMD with Richard Blake and
Sheena Gordon, continuing his studies with Mario Caroli at the CNR Strasbourg, where he
attained his spécialisation diplome with unanimité et félicitations du jury. Formative
experiences include working with composers Brian Ferneyhough, James Dillon, Helmut
Lachenmann and musicians Roberto Fabricciani and Pierre-Yves Artaud. He has been
invited to perform with groups such as musikFabrik, Klangforum Wien and ELISION,
embarking on several tours around Europe. He has recorded and broadcast for the BBC,
WDR Cologne, YLE Finland, Radio France, Radio Nacional de España, Swedish Radio, ARTE,
and Icelandic RUV. In April 2011 his solo disc, INWARD, was released on the metier label,
featuring works by Ferneyhough, Barrett and Sciarrino alongside premieres recordings of
Barrett, Bång, Karski, Johnson and Croft. It has since been received to critical acclaim and
nominated for the Scottish Album of the Year 2011. He currently resides in Aberdeenshire
where he works in varied artistic mediums alongside music, such as assemblage and video.
Born in 1976, Robin Michael studied at the the Royal Academy of Music with David
Strange and Colin Carr and subsequently with Truls Mork, Steven Isserlis and Ferenc Rados.
Robin is principal cello of the Orchestra Révolutionnaire et Romantique and regular guest
principal of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Academy of
Ancient Music, ENO, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Les Siècles and Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment. Recent premiers include Joe Cutler's cello concerto, the U.K premier of
Steve Reich's Cello Counterpoint as well as concertos by Roxburgh and Finnissy. Robin will
premiere a concerto by Philip Cashian with the Trondheim soloists in the 11/12 season.
Recent concert highlights include touring South Africa with both Haydn concertos,
complete Bach and Britten suite cycles at Wilton's Hall, London, Beethoven sonata cycles in
London, Oxford, Paris and Brussels and the Korean premiere of Harvey's Advaya for cello
and electronics. Recent festival appearances include Regello (Italy), Ochrid (Macedonia),
Musica Contemporania (Buenos Aires), Spier (South Africa), Cheltenham, Aldeburgh, St
Magnus, Huddersfield Festivals and Library of Congress. Robin is the cellist in the Fidelio
trio with whom he has toured Europe, Asia and South Africa. They have premiered trios by
Sciarrino, Nyman, Takemitsu and Volans. They recently gave a critically acclaimed Wigmore
Hall debut and made their US debut in New York and Washington in the 2010/11 season.
Robin also regularly appears with chamber groups such as the Dante Quartet, Eroica
Quartet, Gemini and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Recordings include the
Cutler Concerto with the BBC Concert Orchestra (NMC), Ginastera complete cello works
(Lorelt), Trios by Schoenberg, Korngold, Zemlinsky (NAXOS) and the first recording of the
original version of the Mendelssohn Octet on period instruments. Robin plays on a cello
made for him by German luthier Stephan von Baehr, 2010.
Simon Limbrick's involvement in music embraces performance, composing and
education. He was a member of the cult systems orchestra The Lost Jockey and Man
Jumping, recording for EG Editions and creating scores for leading dance companies
Second Stride, London Contemporary Dance, Rosemary Lee and Sue MacLennan.
He has been in demand as a percussionist performing all over the world with the Nash
Ensemble, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Endymion Ensemble, Composers'
Ensemble and Fibonacci Sequence as well as recording with artists such as Alabama3,
Gavin Bryars Pete Lockett and for Blue Note Records. He has been guest principal with the
LSO and worked under conductors, Leonard Bernstein, Oliver Knussen, Simon Rattle and
Tom Ades. He has featured on film and television including documentaries about Steve
Reich and Kenneth MacMillan's award winning Judas Tree. Compositions created for him
include works by Javier Alvarez, Brian Elias (Kenneth MacMillan's last ballet The Judas Tree),
Vic Hoyland and Andrew Poppy.
Carl Faia (b. 1962) studied composition at the University of California, Santa Barbara,
Florida State University and the Royal Academy of Music in Denmark. Teachers included
Edward Applebaum, Peter Racine Fricker, Per Nørgård and Karl Aage Rasmussen. Later, he
participated in masterclasses with Tristan Murail, Philippe Manoury and Harrison Birtwistle.
Since 1995 he has been active as a live electronics designer working at IRCAM in Paris, at
the CIRM in Nice where he has also been studio manager and a freelancer. He has
collaborated with numerous composers including James Dillon, Jonathan Harvey, Harrison
Birtwistle, Fausto Romitelli, Luca Francesconi, Alejandro Viñao and Philippe Leroux. He has
collaborated with artists to present new works with computer electronics in various
festivals throughout Europe including Ars Musica (Brussels), Holland Festival (Amsterdam),
Musica (Strasbourg), Agora (Paris), Gaida (Vilnius), MaerzMusik (Berlin), Lille 2004 as well as
the Casa da Musica (Porto) et Lille 2004 and Queen Elizabeth Hall (London). He ported
several pieces from the analog world to the digital, including Luigi Nono's A Pierre and
Karlheinz Stockhausen's Solo. He has worked regularly with Studio Art Zoyd (France) and
the Forum Neues Musiktheater der Staatsoper Stuttgart (Germany) as a live electronics
designer with invited composers. In 2002, he founded the non-profit association Lieu,
based in Nice, to promote the creation and diffusion of contemporary music using
technology. Lieu has realized several projects in the development of new tools for sound
creation and has been present in the production of new works using technology. As a
teacher he has worked since 2005 with André Serre-Milan in the studios of Art Zoyd to
develop a unique pedagogical approach to electro-acoustic composition culminating each
year in the multimedia spectacle Sonoscopie. He is currently Lecturer in Sonic Arts at Brunel
University London.
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