Boulez: Repons / Dialogue de l'ombre double

"Repons" uses a computer in real time to transform the sounds of the live performers and to position them in space around the orchestra in the centre.

From a musical point of view Boulez uses sound transformations as a means of taking a musical idea born and used in the instrumental realm and extending it into the world of electronics. In this way the coherence between the two worlds is maintained and the overall musical vocabulary is expanded. To take a very simple example, when the soloists enter for the very first time they all play arpeggiated chords together. The basic idea of an arpeggio is that one "rolls" the chord, that is, one plays the notes of the chord "smeared" out over time. Boulez takes this very simple idea and proceeds, when the soloists next enter, to have them come in one after another playing, again, the same arpeggiated chords. Each note of the chord is in turn transformed by the computer in such a way that the arpeggiated chords are themselves arpeggiated internally. The overall result of the soloists and the transformed sounds together is that of an arpeggio of an arpeggio of an arpeggio!

Expect a great deal of glittering, radiantly beautiful sound unlike anything else ever heard before!