Prelude

2011-06-23T15:27:59.378Z

This could have been called "Towards Scriabin" ("Vers Scriabin") given that Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven's improvisation on Scriabin's Prelude Opus 11 Nº 4 states the theme near the end of the piece.
It could also have been called "Scriabin Salvaged" ("Scriabin rescapé") as the quality of the audio, recorded during our concert "From Frescobaldi to Pollock, from Rembrandt to Steve Reich" ("De Frescobaldi à Pollock, de Rembrandt à Steve Reich") during the "Festival du nouveau cinéma" in Montréal, in October 2009, is indeed fairly poor.
But that was a very special moment (video excerpt available here: http://www.vimeo.com/9330345) and the emotions brought to life by Jean-Philippe's playing made me want to revisit the piece.
Again, the intention is not to wow anybody, it is not to show off technical "stuff" but rather, to try to find ways by which the images dialog with and serve the music, not trying to gain the upper hand.
There's no intention to "add" anything to the music, it obviously can stand on its own very well.
Yet, the music touches me in ways I am trying to make visible, however elusive that may be.
T. S. Eliot said it so well:
"Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to
conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot
hope
To emulate--but there is no competition--
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under
conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."
(East Coker, excerpt from part IV)

Improvisation on Scriabin at the FNC '09

2010-02-09T21:54:57.000Z

Pianist Jean-Phllippe Collard-Neven and painter-filmmaker Jean Detheux improvise on Alexander Scriabin's Prelude Op. 11 No 4 during a live performance presented at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in Montréal, on October 15 2009

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Prelude

Improvisation on Scriabin at the FNC '09