06/02/2021 - Paris, Festival Présences, Radio France - Quatuor Diotima
The confinement period in France that began in March 2020, provided the chance to reflect on the directions that I hoped to pursue in the coming years, and to give myself several small writing challenges. Among them, I decided to begin composing two pieces for the same instrumentation, in this case a string quartet, to specifically test my ability to renew myself. Whereas Quartet N.5 is an abstract and continuous work (it is actually a strict canon between the four instruments), Quartet N.7 is a less linear piece, or rather, a piece with successive and clashing linearities. It actually consists of a work where the initial idea undergoes several processes of deformation, giving rhythm to the form. The notion of periodicity is omnipresent, starting with a chord at the beginning of the piece that is repeated every several seconds, with the interval of silence gradually being usurped by increasingly continuous textures. Midway through the piece, the four instruments incorporate a global texture made up of superimposed periodicities, as if metronomes with different tempi begin beating at the same time. I would qualify this quartet as a "mechanical" work. It was composed with the idea of becoming part of an orchestral concertante piece, Cadenza N.4, which I have already written. It is dedicated to the members of the Diotima Quartet.
Bruno Mantovani
