Duration: 8 min.

Any musical work has to struggle against two extinctions : the one of sound, which energy is dissipated down to the silence, and the one of perception, which fades if it is not properly stimulated. Instrumental techniques and musical forms contribute to the emergence of the vitality and unity which allow the music, for a short time, to avoid this double erosion.

In Champ libre, the composition has been reduced to its simple necessity of surviving, and the piece sounds like an exploration. With two strings stretched in the void, the erhu plays with the fragility of the sound that every tiny gesture drives to unexpected directions. Through the composition, the transient noises become a foreground material and are then combined with the idiomatic gestures of the instrument and the multiple modulations of its timbre. Nothing, not even the silence, seems to limit this sound territory.

champ libre is dedicated to Ying-Chieh Wang