... to pass the border!

Visualization of "Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil" by Gerard Grisey

A video of the "Berceuse" from the "Quatre Chants pour franchir le Seuil" - composed by Gérard Grisey shortly before his death in 1998. Klangforum Wien, Catherine Dubosc, soprano, Sylvain Cambrelain, cond.

"Quatre Chants pour franchir le seuil" - the "Four Songs to Cross the Threshold" - was composed by Gerard Grisey in 1998 shortly before his death. In the last of the four songs - entitled "Berceuse" - the text from the Gilgamesh epic describes the world after the Flood: Silence reigns! All people are transformed into clay again; and the liquid plain appears like a terrace. I open the window, the epic continues, and the day touches my cheeks. I fall on my knees, motionless and crying ... I look at the horizon of the sea, the world ...

After almost 5 minutes, this video features another excerpt from a work by Olivier Messiaen, one of Gérard Grisey's teachers. From his Quatuor pour la fin du temps the clarinet solo "Les Abîmes des Oiseaux".

Together with Gisela Nauck and Ludger Kisters, inpetto filmproduktion is pursuing the plan to perform this work in the eastern part of the former sewage fields near Hobrechtsfelde, north of Berlin - in the basin of the so-called Chateau d'eau, a collection basin into which Berlin's sewage was discharged for around 100 years, to be subsequently distributed into the surrounding fields. Although the fields have not been operated since the mid-1970s, the soil is still so contaminated that almost all the trees will not grow taller than a Christmas fir tree after 40 years. The site offers a glimpse of what man will leave behind if he continues to manage nature in the same way as before - in other words, as if the environment has infinite resources that forgive man for everything he does to it. The concert is to take place with the Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin on June 8, 2019.

On the subject of the mutual influence of nature, perception of nature and music, Uli Aumüller wrote a 5-part radio program for SWR, the manuscript of which can be read here (in German only):

SWR2 Musikstunde

The MP3 of the 5 episodes can be heard here:

SWR2 Musikstunde 01 Natura Naturata
{SWR2 Musikstunde 02 Natura Naturans]inpetto-filmproduktion.de/de_D...
SWR2 Musikstunde 03 De Natura Sonoris
SWR2 Musikstunde 04 De Natura Auris
SWR2 Musikstunde 05 Adoratio Naturae

Cast & Crew

Director
Uli Aumüller
Director of photography
Sebastian Rausch
Original Score
Grisey Gerard, Klangforum Wien