Folklore imaginaire

Traditional music is an ideal pretext for a discussion above and beyond centuries between the musicians of Les Arts Floissants, The Orchestre de Paris and the soloists of the Ensemble Interccontemporain…

The toing and froing between music and oral and written traditions is much more frequent than it might appear. Could baroque suites and partitas for example be nothing more than the exploitation by composers of popular suites and dances? And, what can be said of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances, which grasp so well the intrinsic spirit of this folk music? What of the ethnomusicology, which nourishes from beginning to end Bartók’s works? Little by little, as the world opened up, composers went searching for inspiration further and further away: Equatorial Africa and Balinese Gamelan for György Ligeti, the far reaches of Europe for Luciano Berio… sources which we make our own, we alter and which soon we will retain more of the essence than of the material, a model more than a substance, a question more than an affirmation…

Coproduction Orchestre de Paris, Ensemble intercontemporain, Les Arts Florissants, Philharmonie de Paris