Program
- Claude Debussy : Quatuor à cordes opus 10
- Charles David Wajnberg : Au plus près du silence, pour guitare, cordes et électronique
- Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco : Quintette pour guitare et cordes op. 143
au plus près du silence
for guitar, string quartet, and electronics (2025)
Despite their proximity in classical organology, the guitar and string quartet rarely produce obvious fusions. It is from this distance and the need to bridge it—not by more sound, but by more silence—that the challenges of the composition arose.
One must listen to silence and its qualities: while it initially marks the ruptures, the transitions between otherwise irreconcilable sound forms, it then becomes a music in itself, one that can be approached and detailed through progressive sound movements. The electronics that join the instrumental ensemble act like a microscope, at times spatial, through amplification, and at other times temporal, through slowing down. Au plus près du silence, a fusion occurs that is conducive to the continuity of multiple ways of listening.
Then comes the plucking of a string. Like the sound of a bell or gong, it is never approached except through silence, or the crescendo of a bow orchestration. As delicate as it may be, the guitar is antagonistic to silence, sounding the call to music and occupying a singular place in this configuration—inevitably solo. The cello accompanies it, meaning it precedes it from the silence, carrying its resonances towards the harmonic timbres of the two violins and the viola, placed well in the background to add a halo to the silence.
Au plus près du silence is dedicated to Isabelle Chomet, in memory of her teacher Oscar Cáceres.
Stanislas Quartet
- Laurent Causse, violin
- Bertrand Menut, violin
- Marie Triplet, viola
- Jean de Spengler, cello
Isabelle Chomet, guitar
