A piece for string quartet, narrator and fixed sounds, guided by the texts of Edmond Jabès and
Franz Kafka, in dialogue with those of Marc Feld and Michel Butel.
"Obscurités" was born of text extracts and sentence fragments taken from works by Edmond Jabès and Franz Kafka. These phrases cross dark, secret paths, which become exposed throughout the course of the music.
It was intended that these phrases should not be heard, but rather that they would guide the piece's different characters in homage to
Luigi Nono's string quartet "Fragmente Stille an Diotima", performed by the Rubin Quartet. However, little by little the desire materialised for a more open dialogue, for a more intense confrontation. Mark Feld took heed of this desire and wrote a text which contained the same phrases, but used the principle of erasure to conceal them underneath other words, under other obscurities. The text itself becomes buried, erased, obliterated by the contemporaneous music.
One sole phrase has resisted and remains discernible.
Jean-Christophe Feldhandler wanted to push the boundaries by making the text resound with a text written and read by Michel Butel (from one of his signature radio shows).
His voice and his breath are warm, and an almost playful tone hides in the grainy depths of his voice.
Irmgard Zavelberg: violin.
Sylvie Altenburger: violin, viola.
Ulrike Zavelberg: cello.
Tinta S. Von Altenstadt: violin.
Jean-Christophe Feldhandler: composition.
Marc Pichelin: electroacoustic realization.
Marc Feld: original text and voice.
Jean-Christophe Feldhandler (born 1962 in Paris) is a French musician, percussionist and composer. His influences are multiple, from the polyphonic singing of the Renaissance to Alban Berg,
John Cage,
Morton Feldman,
Luigi Nono but also free jazz. He is one of the founding members of the Hêlios Percussion Quartet, dedicated to the interpretation of
John Cage's music and the creation of new works for percussion with composers such as Kaija Saariaho, George E. Lewis, Jean-Pierre Drouet, Vinko Globokar or Georges Aperghis. He works with the theater (with the directors Thierry Bedard, Marc Feld or Bruno Boulzaguet), with the visual arts (with the video artist Hugo Arcier and the visual artist Philippe Charles), and with the contemporary poetic writings (with the author Raharimanana). In his approach as a composer, he likes to work and explore the interpretation with personalities of different backgrounds—from written music to improvised music—such as the trombonist
Thierry Madiot, the double bassist Anne Gouraud, the cellist Martine Altenburger, the violinist Tiziana Bertoncini, the saxophonist
Michel Doneda, the pianists
Sophie Agnel and Michel Maurer, the guitarist and electroacoustician Vivien Trelcat, the percussionist Philippe Foch, the singers Aurélie Maisonneuve,
Géraldine Keller, Sylvie Deguy...
