PHÉNIX

Notice

Phénix was written for Sylvio Gualda, who premiered it in Beijing and Shanghai in September 1982. It was probably the first time a European work had been premiered in China. Similar to Anaphores for harpsichord and percussion, Phénix uses a chromatic mode spread over two octaves, and a rhythmic pattern partly inspired by Pindar. Only two families of timbres are used, the vibraphone and the 9 staggered toms. The opening solo is conceived, rather like an Indian âlap, as an exploration of the successive degrees of the scale, each time recapitulating the degrees already traversed. In the following sections, the melody of this introduction is occasionally evoked by the imprecise but differentiated pitches of the skins, which are complemented fragmentarily by the vibraphone.