ALCYONE

ALCYONE(Opus 112)

June 201610'15Solo music, Mixed music

Maki Belkin

Notice

At the beginning of 2016, the Fondation Cartier asked me to write a text for the catalogue of its exhibition “Le grand orchestre des animaux”, which ran from June to December. This first collaboration prompted me to suggest organising a concert illustrating the musicality of certain animals. The foundation then programmed a monographic concert for one of its ‘Soirées nomades’, during which, on 13 December 2016, Alcyone, which had been commissioned, was premiered along with three other of my pieces.
The venue for the concert was most unusual, the Grand Galerie de l’Évolution at the Museum of Natural History. It was there that pianist Maki Belkin brilliantly presented this new piece for piano and African cossyph songs.

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In 1974, Messiaen paid a magnificent tribute to Heuglin’s cossyphe in the first part of his work Des canyons aux étoiles, even though this bird is absent from the United States. Almost half a century later, I have used four other species of the same genus. Polioptera, cyanocampter, albicapilla and semirufa inhabit Kenya, Congo, Gabon, Ethiopia and Chad, among other places. I have combined the recordings of their songs with transcriptions and variations written for the piano, in a playful spirit in which I have tried to reflect their incredible virtuosity. No less virtuosity is required of the performer: whether she is commenting on the bird or merging with its rockets, she has to live at the same, sometimes frenetic, pace.

Instrumentation

piano and African cossyph songs

First performance

Paris, Museum of Natural History, 13 December 2016 Maki Belkin

Publisher

Commissioned by

Commande de la Fondation Cartier

Dedicated to

Records

Texts

Alcyone