« Le souffle de l'aurore»

The breath of the dawn
for twelve solo flûtes

Composer: Edith Lejet
Commissionned by the "Turbulences Sonores" festival
Duration: 8 mn
Nomenclature: 1 piccolo, 4 flutes in C, 4 altos flutes in G, 3 bass flutes
Creation: Friday, November 23, 2018
Montpellier
La Vignette Theater, avenue du Val de Montferrand, 34000 Montpellier
Opening concert of the festival "Turbulences Sonores"
New French Flute Orchestra (NOFF), conducted by Marc Hajjar

Comment:

Two quotations will introduce this comment:

1) Charles Koechlin in his Treatise on Orchestration (1954) says of the flute that he feels this is "the happy instrument of light and dream".

2) In the April 1979 issue of the Zodiaque magazine (issue 120), devoted to the painter Maurice Estève (1904-2001), we read: "In truth, a painting is for me a sum of incessant modifications that lasts until the moment when I face an organism that I feel alive. Only my sensitivity can tell me whether I have achieved this recognition or not. "

From the wide variety of textures that a group of twelve solo flutes can offer, fragments of melodies with a lyrical character emerge and disturb a sound material that is at first neutral and without particular brilliance, to pierce it and project their subtle and shimmering colors. These short melodies respond to each other, intersect and make their way spontaneously.
It is a sort of nocturnal painting that gradually reveals spots of light whose multiple hues intertwine as if by magic.
Some paintings by the painter Zao Wou-Ki (1920-2013) whose immaterial forms seem to float in the universe might give the impression of being in phase with this music.