Gerard Pesson

Bruissant divisé

This work was composed for a documentary film made by Maurice Rabinovisz on Proust and music, A la recherche de la sonate de Vinteuil. The producer Guy Darbois had invited four composers, (Régis Campo, Marius Constant, Philippe Hersant and myself) to imagine what their own 'petite phrase' or 'little phrase' would be. Rather than writing a hypothesis on Vinteuil's F sharp sonata, I decided to write in homage to him, as he was my teacher. I borrowed the title from a description of the 'petite phrase' (intercalée, épisodique, bruissante (meaning 'rustling' or 'humming' and divisée) and the music follows Proust's highly detailed description of Vinteuil's music, including the Septet from the 'purple fog' of his final period, especially the 'constant recall' of two notes, the 'melancholy, unceasingly rapid movement', the 'motifs that briefly emerge from time to time, barely identifiable, before diving down again and disappearing' - the 'liquidity', the 'melting', 'bitter silence', 'infinitely empty', 'sweet but not peaceful', 'withdrawn and chilly', 'the sounds that can change in a moment, dying down to become a shadow', right up to the 'gentle background of silence that can calm some of Schumann's réveries'.