Rothko Chapel is inspired by 14 canvases painted by Rothko for the Menil Foundation in Houston. The composer Morton Feldman meditates on the vibration of a place and of a painting. An immersion in the borders of the imperceptible, an immobile procession, like friezes on Greek temples for voice, percussion, and viola. The continuity of Rothko’s large formats is recreated by the contrast of different musical sections, until the Hebraic melody that ends the work without closing it. By way of a prologue, The King of Denmark for percussions played only with fingers and arms. Sounds of outdoors and childish snippets rustle in this work written on a beach. Gérard Grisey’s Prologue draws a unique trajectory among line, surface, and volume; a continuum between the harmonic base and “inharmony”. Beginning with a few neumes, through a phenomenal extension, acoustic spaces are born.
MORTON FELDMAN THE ROTHKO CHAPEL, THE KING OF DENMARK
GÉRARD GRISEY PROLOGUE
Florent Jodelet Percussion
Othman Louati Célesta
Geneviève Strosser Viola
Les Cris de Paris
Geoffroy Jourdain Conductor
Éric Daubresse IRCAM Computer Music Design
In connection with the thematic exhibition in the Modern collection: "LŒil écoute". Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou.
Prologue's Excerpt
by Gérard Grisey, with Garth Knox, Viola at the Centre Pompidou, 2006
