SOLEIL RUGUEUX

SOLEIL RUGUEUX(Opus 13)

April 19656'36Electroacoustic

Fixed sounds

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Practical necessities as much as theoretical curiosity have led me to ask myself this fundamental problem: in the current state of electro-acoustic music techniques, is it possible to conceive a work mentally, down to the smallest detail, without having any surprises after its completion other than those produced by hearing an orchestral score, and which depend solely on the skill of those responsible? In other words, has the time come to reduce ‘concrete’ music to the abstract approach, which is not necessarily more authentic, but which is the true test of a certain mastery in the use of ‘new’ sound materials?

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It was to answer this question that I wrote and produced the score for Soleil rugueux. Conceived in terms of duration according to a single proportion, repeated on three different scales, the work comprises seven sequences of unequal dimensions, the first two of which are respectively the longest and shortest in the work, and the following ones constitute a gradual return to an average duration. Each sequence is internally divided into seven sections in the same proportion as the sequences are to the work as a whole; and each section consists of seven sounds, also measured in the same proportion. (Extract from the article Einige konkrete Probleme in the Gravesaner Blätter No. 48).

Commentaire
Here we can speak of experimental music, precisely because the experiment more or less failed and was bound to fail.
As for the title Soleil rugueux (Rough Sun), it has had a much more marked fortune than the work itself: I found it on four amateur writers’ websites, and the great poet André du Bouchet himself incorporated it into the poem Le révolu (The Revolted) in the collection Laisses (Leaves) in 1979.

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