Michael Jarrell

Instantanés

His Instantanés are thus his way of saying, like Augustine: 'Present time cries that it cannot last long'. Here, the same figures unravel, each claiming its Present: in the first piece, in the urgency of the repeated notes - in the second, in the slow mysterious horizon lines which so often orientate his music (they are poles which tauten lines from a distance) - in the third, in flashes, upward beats... But I cease, for even an instant is never simple, can never be held. Now the instants and the 'instantanés' (snapshots, transl. note) merge, the horizons and poles reappear unexpectedly, already into the third, fourth, fifth, sixth snapshot. And in the seventh, which for the moment, will be the last. And once again I count. Though this is futile in 'double image country' - to quote from the text to Trei, by Patrick Weidmann, whose poem Essaims-Cribles, inspired this 'chamber ballet for bass clarinet and instrumental ensemble'.Peter Szendy, translated by Anne Hanson-de Dadelsen