Awards

- Victoires de la Musique Classique: Recording of the year
- Diapason d'or

Recorded: March 25, 26, 27th 2016 at Théâtre de Hautepierre in Strasbourg
Les Percussions de Strasbourg: Raphaël Aggery, Arnaud Lassus, Minh-Tâm Nguyen, François Papirer, Enrico Pedicone, Galdric Subirana
Artistic director: Jean Geoffroy
Sound engineer and mix: Franck Rossi
Label: www.percussionsdestrasbourg.com
Cover picture: © Thomas Jorion
Physical distribution (Europe): L'Autre Distribution
Digital distribution: Believe Digital

First record entirely produced within our new label Percussions de Strasbourg, Burning Bright is a « masterpiece that after the now classic Erewhon and Sombre Journée, marks the top of a cooperation started four decades ago* » between Hugues Dufourt and the Percussions de Strasbourg.
Commissioned by the French state and Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Burning Bright was first performed on 25th of September 2014 in Strasbourg at the Théâtre National de Strasbourg, as part of the Musica Festival.
« Written to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Burning Bright borrows its title from William Blake's famous poem The Tyger, published in 1794. This incandescent poem celebrates the collision of opposites which gives the truest representation of the world and is the source of all creative power. The age-old conflict between "innocence" and those "two contrary states of the human soul", courses through all of Blake's work, lending his poetry both its tragic aspect "experience", and its visionary tone.
Composed as one single piece, like an immense adagio in the manner of Bruckner, Burning Bright's poetic vision breaks with the traditional techniques of demarcation, with all its contours and closures. The music rises in layers, or unfolds in abundant and meandering surges. The varying depths of the timbres, fading towards an indeterminate horizon, create their own resonant space. Sounds - swelling, diffusing, writhing - blend like fluids or gases. Working on timbre is but the art of retouching. The drift of coloured masses replaces the interplay of formal arrangements beloved of the last century. Friction takes over from customary percussion techniques. Following Blake's example, Burning Bright rallies elementary energies: a drama with neither narrative nor anecdote, its unity emerges through telluric rumblings. Not unlike the films of Stanley Kubrick, it uncovers a vast space, which could well become, despite the hopes of our times, a space of eternal confinement. »
Hugues Dufourt

* Pierre Rigaudière, Diapason (Oct 2016)

Created in 1959, Les Percussions de Strasbourg very quickly inspired the creation of new works by composers such as Messiaen, Stockhausen, Serocki, Kabelac, Ohana, Xenakis, Mâche and Dufourt. A new repertoire for percussion took shape. As Pierre Boulez later said: « A repertoire was necessary for the Groupe, but the Groupe has made the repertoire necessary. »
Les Percussions de Strasbourg has, and continues to, actively commission and innovate, travelling all around the world to perform at major international festivals, performing more than 1600 concerts in 70 countries with a repertoire of more than 300 original works written for them. It has developed one of the most unique "instrumentarium" in the world (+500 instruments), has published over 30 recordings, and been awarded more than 30 international prizes.