Notice
For Daniel Charles
Our paths have crossed many times over the last half-century. We first met at the GRM in 1958. Together we met Varèse, who was presenting his Poème électronique to a small circle of guests, including Calder and Madeleine Malraux. That same year, we discovered and admired Xenakis’ Diamorphoses together; and at the Musée Guimet, we met up at Indian music concerts such as that of Ustad Vilayat Khan.
I composed a short piece in his memory, in which I tried to let the tender and ironic interrogations of an Australian bird, the black-throated cassican, emerge over a slow meditative descent, sometimes doubled, sometimes replaced by instruments, and repeating its ever-varying ritornello like an unanswered question. By entitling it Sèma, I wanted to mark what, by a philosopher as familiar with Plato as Daniel, would have been immediately decoded as a Tomb, but also as a friendly Sign, and the omen of a Star…