Ensemble

«La chambre claire»
(1998) for 15 players

1 (picc).1.2(cl basse, Es-cl). 1. / 1.1.1.0. / 2 Perc. / 1.1.1.1.1.


Musik-Biennale Berlin 99 Commission
Première: March 20, 1999,  Philharmonie, Berlin
Klangforum Wien
Cond. Sylvain Cambreling
Duration: 13 minutes
Publisher : Breitkopf & Härtel

This piece is also based on a book by Roland Barthes, i.e. « La chambre claire », which is about photography. For him, photographs that « talk to »our imagination contail a duality which he calls studium and punctum. Studium defined as spatiality and extension and refers to « concentration on something, without a specific focus, a form of general interest ». Punctum means piercing, small opening, incision or riskness and introduces chance and the unexpected within the phenomenon of studium. My intention was to playfully work on this duality, as a cry in the midst of silence, and to do so by using concepts borrowed from the idiom of photography : the unlimited reproduction of a fleeting moment and the idea of a panorama which comes to life through the influence of light. I have chosen a set binary rhythm for the entirety of the piece, which is played in loops, juxtapositions and overlays of musical phrases. What is perspective and relief in the visual realm, is here translated through the work on timbres, on dynamic differentiation and the stratification of tempi.

Misato Mochizuki


La chambre claire