Pantomimes (2022-2023)

Four hand piano and electronics

Commissioned by Fonds de dotation Galaxie-Y 

with the support of the Fondation Salabert

Dedication: Rosa Park and Françoise Thinat

Creation: February 18, 2024 

at the Seoul Art Center, Concert Hall,

Seoul, Korea

Eunji Han, piano

Hyunjeong Kim, piano

Duration: 17'30 c.a.

Publisher: Billaudot

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   Pantomimes, for piano four hands and stereo electronics, is conceived as a dream. Or rather a rambling promenade, an initiatory journey taking place between the moment when the child must go to bed and the moment of awakening. These nocturnal dreams, populated by diverse whimsical, grotesque, and poetic characters, evolve constantly, taking the child through sometimes marvelous and sometimes frightening lands, and through states of mind ranging from calm to passion, from joy to fear, and then, just when the dance reaches its most furious level, the moment arrives for returning to reality.

   Pantomimes is a suite of tableaux arranged following a pedagogical progression, accessible to students from the end of the first cycle of piano (about the fourth year according to the usual standards in French conservatories) and reaching pre-professional levels. The work is conceived as a single block, but of course sections may be performed as separate tableaux. In the case of a complete version, the four tableaux follow one another, with an electronic passage serving as a sonic bridge between each tableau, also allowing each pair of pianists to take their places in cases- as si the pedagogical goal of this collection - when each tableau is entrusted to separate pairs of students of different ages and levels.
   The pantomime of the title is not only a musical evocation, it is also perceptible in the staging and piano techniques required of the performers, since each tableau requires one pianist or the other, and sometimes both, to use the instrument in unconventional ways other than simply using the keyboard. Thus transformed into marionettes, the pianists occupy a total sound space, and yet one solely dedicated to the piano (without 'prepared piano' or other artifice), creating a universe echoed and developed by the electronic part with which they interact.