INVOCATIONS

Notice

Quite a few papyri from Egypt in the early centuries of our era include vowel sequences in their texts, which are generally interpreted as magical chanting formulae. The seven vowels of Greek were supposed to correspond to the seven notes of a melodic scale, the seven planets known at the time, the seven days of the week, and so on. The transcriptions of melodies derived from them are rarely interesting. What would happen if, instead of seeing them as notations of pitches, we assumed that they might be notations of vowel timbres, as with the Mongolian xöömi, the “harmonic song” that is also associated with mystical reveries? French is exceptionally rich with its fourteen or sixteen vowels, whose forms characterise as many timbres. I had the idea of exploring this avenue of Klangfarbenmelodie and imaginary archaeology in the main part of the piece that the CIRM commissioned from me for the Musicatreize vocal ensemble. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to collaborate again with these two remarkable institutions.