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Figures de style

Patrick Ascione

Programme notes

Works in this cycle

Ascionerie no 1

Premiere

  • January 8, 2006, Multiphonies 2005-06: Concert, Salle Olivier Messiaen — Maison de Radio France, Paris (France)

Ascionerie no 2

Premiere

  • April 28, 2006, Concert, Petit théâtre Mercelis, Brussels (Belgium)

Ascionerie no 3

Premiere

  • June 26, 2007, Microfolies 2007: Musique dans la rue, Pavillon Vendôme, Aix-en-Provence (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France)
  • Year of composition: 2007
  • Cycle: Figures de style
  • Commission: Direction régionale des affaires culturelles en Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur, Art-temps réel

Ascionerie no 4

Premiere

  • June 1, 2007, Festival Acousmatic 1.0, La Brèche — Centre régional des arts du cirque de Basse-Normandie, Cherbourg-Octeville (Manche, France)
  • Year of composition: 2003-07
  • Cycle: Figures de style
  • Instrumentation: 8-channel fixed medium
  • Commission: Direction régionale des affaires culturelles de Basse-Normandie

Ascionerie no 5

This text is unavailable in English.

Depuis que je fais de la musique, j’ai progressivement pris conscience d’un ensemble d’automatismes, de manières de faire, de tics, de réflexes d’écriture qui toujours m’envahissent lorsque je compose… Au point que cela est devenu prioritaire et représente le véritable enjeu de mon travail. Besoin d’un univers intérieur à explorer… Sorte de rendez-vous plastique indispensable avec les sons, les couleurs, les formes et l’espace…

Voilà comment m’est venu ce terme d’«ascionerie», d’abord perçu comme une expression saugrenue, puis très vite comme une évidence parce qu’il faisait parfaitement écho à ce qui me semble important pour un auteur à savoir la conscience et la maîtrise de son propre style…

Et au-delà de cette conscience, peut-être la recherche d’une «définition» de ce que signifie alors cette histoire de style…

Premiere

  • January 11, 2009, Multiphonies 2008-09: Akousma, Salle Olivier Messiaen — Maison de Radio France, Paris (France)
  • Year of composition: 2008-09
  • Cycle: Figures de style
  • Instrumentation: 16-channel fixed medium
  • Commission: French State (Music Office), Ina-GRM

Ascionerie no 6: Fantaisie diabolique

Ascionerie no 6: Fantaisie diabolique — the sixth and final installment in a series started in 2003 and entitled Figures de style — is about my growing awareness of a set of habits that are inextricably tied to how I approach the world of sounds and sound treatment, my tools, and the mannerisms that take a hold of me whenever I am composing. To a point where this has become the central issue in my work, like a necessity, the unavoidable yearning for an inner universe to explore… An essential date with sounds, colours, shapes, space…

And that is how this word, “Ascionerie” (“Ascioneism”), came about; it looked strange at first, but it quickly became self-evident, because it embodies what I think is important for a composer, what accounts for his personality: the awareness and mastery of his own peculiarities, style, language, and world…

So, for the sixth time, I have bowed to my own automatic processes and writing rituals, gradually identified through time, and perhaps to my failings too. This sixth piece is about temptation, but at a different level, since the only thing I gave in to was the temptation of resisting to temptation…

More specifically, Ascionerie no 6: Fantaisie diabolique is about the issue that arises between artistic research (and art in general) and everything the era (i.e. the market or unscrupulous individuals herein represented by “the devil”) is trying to impose on the whole world!

Thus forcing artists to keep to the margins and grow disheartened there…

Patrick Ascione [English translation: François Couture, ii-15]


Ascionerie no 6: Fantaisie diabolique [Ascionism No. 6: Diabolic Fantasy] was realized in December 2011 and January 2012 at the composer’s studio and premiered on January 21, 2012 as part of the Multiphonies series presented by the Ina-GRM at the Auditorium Saint-Germain of the MPAA (Paris, France). It was commissioned by the Ina-GRM. The recorded voice is that of the composer.

Premiere

  • January 21, 2012, Multiphonies 2011-12: Akousma, Auditorium Saint-Germain — MPAA, Paris (France)
  • Year of composition: 2011-12
  • Cycle: Figures de style
  • Duration: 11:40
  • Publisher(s): Ymx média
  • Commission: Ina-GRM
  • ISRC: CAD502110007