It was while visiting the Nicolas de Staël exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in 2003 that I decided to give the title of this 1944 painting, "Les rayons du jour," to my viola concerto. It indeed corresponded perfectly to these few words that Nicolas de Staël had scribbled on his program a few days before his death regarding Webern's "Lieder" opus 19, which he had heard at the Domaine Musical concert on March 6, 1954, at the Théâtre Marigny: "red violins, red / ochre transparent fires." Passionate for a long time about the life and work of Nicolas de Staël, I matured this concerto through a long acquaintance with some of his paintings and writings. Thus, the tripartite form of the work: 1 "Tear," 2 "Movement," 3 "Transparency," corresponds to the three major stages of Nicolas de Staël's painting, dark and violent until 1948, then dominated by his search for movement and dazzling light in the years 52 to 54, and finding its fullness in absolute transparency, the quest for light having been the common denominator of these successive periods. Returning to the work itself, one can ask the question of the choice to write a concerto for viola, an exercise reputedly difficult due to the rather intimate character of this instrument. Having already written a violin concerto, "Exultet," in 1995, and a cello concerto in 1998, "Moïra," I wished to complete this cycle by writing this viola concerto and thus extend my work on strings, a material privileged for me due to my experience as a violinist (as evidenced among other things by my three trios, my two quartets, and my string quintet). My knowledge of string instruments indeed particularly helped me in the realization of this work. Furthermore, I deliberately chose to use a relatively small orchestral ensemble, thus ensuring that the lightness of the orchestration highlights the very different timbres of the viola depending on whether it is played in the extreme low or high register, a tessitura usually little exploited. The first part of the work precisely plays on the opposition of these two tessituras, both for the viola and the orchestra. The second part centers on the idea of movement, culminating in an extremely fast and fleeting solo viola passage. Finally, the third part exploits the idea of space and timbre in a calmer tempo, with this phrase from Nicolas de Staël as an epigraph: "... to find the great light." (Edith Canat de Chizy)
Author: CANAT de CHIZY Edith
Discipline/Instrument: viola and orchestra
Medium: Score
Style/Genre: contemporary
Publication date: Jan-05
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