The first performance took place in the following December in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, conducted by Michaël Gielen. Among its characteristics, I shall mention the search for harmonie colours (one might consider that the harmony – the science of chords – is its principal subject), a very large instrumental team, a rather particular formaI organisation in sequences at the same time overlapping and superimposed, and, finally a general movement toward the appearance of a sort of final monody.

FANCY AS A GROUND dates from the summer of 1981. lt was first performed in Paris at the end of the same year by the Ensemble Intercontemporain for which it was composed. This rather short and very consonant work had its roots both in an earlier work. FANCY for the harp, composed by my wife three years earlier, and in the very characteristic melodicorhythmic structure of a Iittle piano piece composed at about the same time by our daughter Valérie. FANCY AS A GROUND, as its title suggests, expresses itself with a degree of fantasy in a repetitive form.

TROIS POLES ENTRELACES, also, is a summer product! It was finished on 5th August. 1985 and was performed for the first time in Brussels. two months later by the players who made the present recording. Its composition had been commissioned by the Conseil de la Musique of the Communauté Française de Belgique, on the occasion of the International Year of Music for a concert in the Festival of Wallonia, the second part of which was devoted to Alban Berg’s KAMMERKONZERT. The instruments selected reflect that masterpiece of concerted music: an instrument of wide tessitura, the solo harp, a string instrument, the viola and five wind instruments. The five movements are inspired by the polyphonie forms practised during the baroque period.

BRASIER DE NEIGE, for a mezzosoprano and string quartet, dates from the beginning of May 1986. The words are borrowed from some verses by Serge Meurant treated very freely. I long dreamed of one day writing a string quartet (but the summer was too short!). Could not this very concise movement become one of its possible figures? BRASIER DE NEIGE is dedicated to its interpreter. Lucienne Van Deyck. It was first performed on 6th June, 1986, in Brussels.

Pierre Bartholomée

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