Nocturnal Exegesis

Instrumentation:
Flute, Clarinet, Percussion, Harp, Piano, Violin, Viola

Year of composition: 2024
Duration: 12 minutes
Commission: Ensemble Multilatérale

Premiere:
Ensemble Multilatérale - 13.07.2024 @ ARCo Festival,
Mozarteum University, Salzburg

Conductor: Léo Warynski
Flute: Matteo Cesari
Clarinets: Alain Billard
Percussion: Hélène Colombotti
Harp: Aurélie Saraf
Piano: Lise Baudouin
Violin: Ivan Lebrun
Viola: Maxime Desert

For years I was tormented by a growing awareness of the influences shaping my music. Every idea seemed to echo something familiar: a bit of Bartók from childhood, a formal habit from a professor in Budapest, a harmonic turn that belonged to Schoenberg, Barry Harris or Lisa Streich. Nothing felt entirely mine.

I tried to resist by cursing the great composers, chasing unfamiliar genres, insisting that everyone steals. But the awareness only grew heavier and my own voice seemed to dissolve.

Then one snowy Saturday, while playing Chopin for my beautiful wife, I caught myself intruding on the music by adding counterpoint, stretching cadences, shifting registers and being silly. Even in those small improvisations the ghosts returned: Shai Maestro, Feldman, the cantor from Vienna’s Great Synagogue. Even my improvisations were not fully mine.

In that moment, as I was dismantling Chopin, I learned something that changed my life:

Maybe not every note can be mine. But I can still be a crossroads for every note a singular and unrepeatable intersection of the worlds that shaped me.