In the charming little theatre of the Château de La Roche-Courbon... the mingled sounds of Elisabeth Chojnacka's harpsichord and Xavier Darasse's positive organ were in themselves enchanting; this unusual association and the engaging personalities of the two performers had, moreover, captured the imagination of the composers... A perfect little piece by François-Bernard Mâche, Solstice, evoked balafon concerts, with its beautiful, stubborn formula, constantly broadening and deepening.

                                Jacques Longchampt, Le Monde 31 March 1975

Mâche's Solstice remains fixed in our memory, like a sun spinning in a thousand little wheels in stopped time.

                       Martine Cadieu, Nouvelles littéraires 7 April 1975

...in the chapel of the marvellous château de La Rochecourbon, there was a curious combination of positive organ - Xavier Darasse - and harpsichord - Elisabeth Chojnacka. What an idea! On the whole, they weren't very successful, and for good reason: there are two instruments here which, in terms of sound, far from complementing each other, actually kill each other off.

                              Antoine Goléa, Carrefour 24 April 1975

François-Bernard Mâche's Solstice finds its fulfilment in the regular yet irregular interplay of superimpositions.
      
                                   Jean Roy, Diapason December 1979

...Chojnacka is her heiress: as lively, as bold, as impetuous as the great Wanda, but playing today's musicians, some of whom, on the harpsichord, are undoubtedly masters, tomorrow's classics: Mâche and Xenakis in any case.

       André Tubeuf, Musiques 40 rue du Cherche-Midi, Paris February 1980

The recital here favours...the modal-repetitive charm of F.B.Mâche (Solstice).

         Philippe Albera, Révolution 15 rue Montmartre, Paris 2 May 1980

...The last piece is more relaxed. Solstice finds the company dressed in tights ranging from grey to yellow. It's a gentle, almost joyful dance, and we barely have time to share it, surprised by the brevity of the pieces, since we're almost used to the usual format of an hour, an hour and a half.
These three women, each just as personal as the next, brought the sometimes heavy air of Avignon to life. This evening devoted to art, not spectacle, was a feast for the eyes and ears. This Parcours, which also owes a great deal to the dancers of Lucinda Childs' company, will go down in history as a flawless performance...

                   Marie-Christine Vernay, Libération 29-30 July 1995

The evening ended with Solstice for harpsichord (live) and organ (on tape), a piece dating from 1975. The vocabulary of the choreography is limited to the same eight or ten repeated figures, and the shirts that mould the dancers' bodies are hardly flattering. Solstice lacks the sparkle and originality to bring this brief Parcours and the Avignon Festival to a fitting close in the Cour d'Honneur of the Popes' Palace. Nonetheless, the audience was unanimous in its warm applause for the three ladies of the night - Lucinda, Elisabeth and Françoise - and the twelve artists of the Lucinda Childs Dance Company.

                                         René Sirvin, Le Figaro 30 July 1995

Prima la musica
Although quite different from the Parcours offered by the choreographer this summer at the Avignon Festival, the Paris programme by the Lucinda Childs Dance Company is also distinguished by its high musical value. The American choreographer has shown great taste in her choice of contemporary composers and performers, in this case harpsichordist Elisabeth Chojnacka and soprano Françoise Kubler, who premiered François-Bernard Mâche's Kengir in Avignon, opening the evening at the Théâtre de la Ville.
...In the dazzling Solstice for harpsichord and tape by the same composer, the dancers continue to move back and forth between the garden and the courtyard, insensitively escaping in twos and fours. The choreographic vocabulary is limited to the same ten or twelve steps and figures, giving the work the pared-down look of an architect's blueprint.

                               René Sirvin, Le Figaro 23 November 1995

...the spirit of play never leaves Mâche's world, paradoxically coexisting with the desire to recreate a ritual based on archaeological study or philosophical reflection. A fertile combination, whose metamorphoses we were able to follow throughout the day.
First, under the fingers of the royal Chojnacka, who, in Solstice (1975), sounded a heady ostinato on her double keyboard, echoing a pre-recorded electronic organ.

      Christian Fruchart, Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace 28 January 2004

Elisabeth Chojnacka, Françoise Kubler and Accroche-Note, the voices of Musicatreize, then the Percussions de Strasbourg were the experienced and efficient craftsmen of the François-Bernard Mâche day at Musica.
In the presence of the composer, of course, the event produced an elegant monograph on this musician born in 1935, now a member of the Institut, a scholar and musicologist who was also an academic in Strasbourg. His entire body of work, spanning more than thirty years, nourishes, through infinite reflections on the relationship between language and music, a contemporary meditation on the universal archetypes of culture, and on nature as a model.
And his original approach has always resulted in pages of the utmost finesse, in which sonority plays the leading role, but does not shy away from sometimes highly advanced technologies. These are always lively pieces, with a dramatic structure. Mâche takes us on astonishing planetary journeys, in which he draws on the deep historical and cultural strata of vanished civilisations as much as on the sounds of the natural elements.
A thousand imaginary worlds
Elisabeth Chojnacka, the famous pioneer of contemporary harpsichord playing, whose return to Musica was hailed here, uses the ancient timbre, in perpetual movement of impeccable regularity, or in polyrhythmic hand movements, to produce unusual effects in confrontation with other instruments. In Solstice, with the recorded organ, in Korwar, with the tape, in Anaphores with the percussion of Emmanuel Séjourné.

        Marc Munch, Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace 23 September 2004

.....Solstice for modern harpsichord and positive organ - here also recorded on tape -, given at the start of the concert, is infinitely more engaging. This rigorous use of a few musical cells to develop a kind of grand variation has an irresistible fascination for the listener. "The solstice is the time of year when the sun seems to come to rest on the ecliptic. The music symbolically evokes this illusion".

Gabriel Andrès, L'ami du peuple hebdo, 3 October 2004