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KENGIR: ENLIL(Opus 68B)
April 19912'30Musique vocale, Mixed music
Aperçu partitionNotice
Kengir is the name the Sumerians gave themselves in their language. This language, which was probably the first in the world to be written, is not related to any other, apart from its structure, which is agglutinative like that of Eskimo or Turkish.
The five texts sung in this language are the earliest known love poems. More than a millennium before King David and the Song of Songs, they exalt the sacred power of desire, without reticence or vulgarity. The sequence chosen for the five pieces more or less retraces the amorous episodes of expectation, adoration, enjoyment, joy and remembrance.
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King Shusin, who reigned from 2036 to 2028, and his lukur or sacred parèdre Kubatum are historical. The jewel alluded to in the 4th song, a pendant given by Shusin to Kubatum as a reward for her singing, has even been found. The other three titles refer to deities: Inanna (like Aphrodite in Greek) is the goddess of desire, not fertility. Enlil, the “Lord Wind”, is the great celestial god. And Inanna’s lover Dumuzi, inherited by the Assyrians under the name of Tammuz, is the prototype of the young sacrificial god, found in different forms, such as Adonis, Attis or Christ.
Each of the songs shows a different face of love, and calls for a different use of sampling techniques. Enlil, for example, mobilizes some thirty percussion timbres; Shusin makes the text speak syllabically, as if by sound ideograms, while the singer vocalizes before articulating it in turn. Kubatum has the color of an Indonesian slendro mode, but a rhythm and lyricism unrelated to this reference. Finally, Dumuzi combines sampled vocal elements with the singer’s live voice.
Comment
Kengir belongs to a line of research that can be described as imaginary archaeology. It began in 1959 with Safous Mélè and continued with Rituel pour les Mangeurs d’ombre and Trois chants sacrés. Every era redefines its own past, even when the strictest historical rules are observed, and the difference between Michelet’s Middle Ages and Leroy-Ladurie’s is not only due to advances in information. What’s more, anachronism is much more of a problem in scientific than in aesthetic terms. In art, anachronism is often the most interesting aspect, as it exposes the permanence of archetypes beneath the fluctuations of history. In music, references to popular traditions only become convincing when they achieve the status of imaginary folklore. All these considerations explain why, by making Sumerian poems sing, I seek to remain a composer of my century, but also to make people forget this contingency, and deny history as pure obsolescence.
Some elements can be interpreted as a little more archaeological than imaginary: the sampling of an archlute for Kubatum revives sounds that may have existed in Sumer. The use of an equi-pentatonic mode analogous to the Javanese slendro also refers in the same piece to a possible antiquity and to five-string lyres. The combination of voice and small percussion instruments, as in Enlil, is itself a very ancient survival, still common in the Middle East. The titles I have given are names of gods (Inanna, Enlil, Dumuzi) or royal personages (Shusin, Kubatum) from the Sumerian world.
Each of the songs shows a different face of love, and calls for a different use of sampling techniques. Enlil, for example, mobilizes some thirty percussion timbres; Shusin makes the text speak syllabically, as if by sound ideograms, while the singer vocalizes before articulating it in turn. Kubatum has the color of an Indonesian slendro mode, but a rhythm and lyricism unrelated to this reference. Finally, Dumuzi combines sampled vocal elements with the singer’s live voice.
Comment
Kengir belongs to a line of research that can be described as imaginary archaeology. It began in 1959 with Safous Mélè and continued with Rituel pour les Mangeurs d’ombre and Trois chants sacrés. Every era redefines its own past, even when the strictest historical rules are observed, and the difference between Michelet’s Middle Ages and Leroy-Ladurie’s is not only due to advances in information. What’s more, anachronism is much more of a problem in scientific than in aesthetic terms. In art, anachronism is often the most interesting aspect, as it exposes the permanence of archetypes beneath the fluctuations of history. In music, references to popular traditions only become convincing when they achieve the status of imaginary folklore. All these considerations explain why, by making Sumerian poems sing, I seek to remain a composer of my century, but also to make people forget this contingency, and deny history as pure obsolescence.
Some elements can be interpreted as a little more archaeological than imaginary: the sampling of an archlute for Kubatum revives sounds that may have existed in Sumer. The use of an equi-pentatonic mode analogous to the Javanese slendro also refers in the same piece to a possible antiquity and to five-string lyres. The combination of voice and small percussion instruments, as in Enlil, is itself a very ancient survival, still common in the Middle East. The titles I have given are names of gods (Inanna, Enlil, Dumuzi) or royal personages (Shusin, Kubatum) from the Sumerian world.
Instrumentation
soprano and sampler (or fixed sounds)First performance
6.19.91, Paris, Centre Pompidou (F.Kubler & F.Tanada)
