Commissioned piece:
Title : Lichen for piano and small ensemble
Composer: Jérôme Combier
Can music reflect the terrible of time? And can a few minutes contain all the wear and tear of the earth, the wear and tear of stones, the wear and tear of metal? Or precisely, does man’s music go up against, again and again, a little in vain, towards an origin which, although ideal, would also be the only guarantee of his presence in the world. Lichen on a stone, to say the image of a piano, with brief resonances, won by outfits of winds and rubbed sounds. The image of an unshakeable world – this beautiful temperament – eaten away by the microtonality that will have covered it. Finally, the image of virtuosity – but then the one Berio talks about and not another – gangrened by a stagnation and calm that will eventually have absorbed everything. Lichen would be a struggle; that of the artist and his expressiveness, that of the performer and his interiority. The one of any art finally looking for a language.
Note of intent from Jérôme Combier
Commissioned by Orléans International Competition for the 11th International piano competition of Orléans
Lichen by Jérôme Combier performed by Aline Piboule, laureate of the 2014 International piano competition of Orléans:
