TRAMES

It appears to me that there is a discrepancy in the situation created by the coexistence of a digital track and acoustic instruments, with its constraints on composition and performance, that can be a factor of inhibition or stimulation (for the composer). These two worlds of sound (electronic and instrumental) can not be thought of in the same manner, virtuoso and alive as for the instrumental side, at best complex for the digital track.
On the other hand, it is more interesting to look at them as parts of two similar procedures of composition, from which a certain unity can be expected.
In fact, this apparently irreducible duality (and why should it be reduced ?) is the reason why I chose as an instrumental ensemble the trio with piano that I find sufficiently heterogeneous (classical trios are an example, they hold together not because of their homogeneity or the contrasting development of their timbre, but by means of their musical grammar) to respond to two criteria :
1) The piece not be based on the more or less simplistic use of the contrast between sound track and instruments (the piano itself underlines this contrast within the trio).
2) The piano be the suspended bridge between two worlds of sound, notably by its characteristic, though not exclusive, gestures (that is, the percussive phrasing of the piano and the simple or « Bartok » pizzicatos of the cords).
Moreover, it is possible to identify common gestures between what can be called three worlds of sound : for example, towards the middle of the piece, the two ponticello chords are organized in phrases of duration and pitch, respectively upper (violin) and lower (cello) levels of the mobile harmonic framework of the track, with the piano intervening to conclude this sequence and overlap the following one (mini-form in the general development).
When listening to this trio, one realizes how well the timbres of the « classical » instruments fit in with the synthetic texture. It is the spectral neutrality of the synthetic sounds and their relative simplicity in this piece that make it possible to act very precisely on the relations of pitch, and in so doing, on the durations. In addition, this neutrality makes it possible to deduce the structures and, after certain numerical operations in the course of the creation of the track are taken into account, the formal conceptions of the work.
As a consequence, I « naturally » applied « instrumental » processes to the track, as well as operations on tempo to the instrumental world.

The electronic part of this piece was coded by myself (code scriptu) at the computer centre of Orsay and converted at the Ircam by Frank Brown.
If words are not without their power in orienting the listener, I would say the work can be listened to as an action developing in a relatively discontinuous way against a more continuous framework, or even as a succession of theatrical tensions on a mobile stage.

D. Cohen