Denis Dufour | Composer’s notes

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Spiritus / Stella

2007 | 09’22 | opus 138 | Maison Ona publishers

for two bass viols

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• Cycle Le Livre des désordres

• Commande pédagogique du CNSMD de Lyon

• Création à Lyon, salle Varèse du CNSMD, le 14 juin 2007 lors de l’examen du Certificat d’études complémentaires spécialisées et du Certificat d’études supérieures des classes de viola de gambas, flute, baroque trumpet, par Myriam Rignol et Malu Gabard

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Started on 2007, Le Livre des désordres is a suite of acousmatic, instrumental and mixed works inspired by disturbed mood cycles of bipolar people, alternating the abysses of the deepest depression and the culminating euphoria of an invincible and solar omnipotence. The second work in this cycle – that includes eight pieces to date – Spiritus / Stella echoes the XVIIth century fondness for melancholy (which is also expressed in its literature, philosophy and painting) as well as references to Marin Marais and Sainte-Colombe. Detailed and animated with many expressive figures, the writing is modelled by this abstract, a psychological and eventful pattern that alternates between excitement and dejection, eloquence and retraction, to highlight that a so-called distortion of the thought is actually the symptom of a star-shaped spirit. [Jérôme Nylon, translated by Hamish Hossain]