Les Chants de l'Agartha

> Premiere on September 12, 2008, in La Roche-Posay (France), by Jérôme Pernoo (cello) and Jérôme Ducros (piano)

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"Three pieces for cello and piano dedicated to Jérôme Pernoo and Jérôme Ducros

1. Under the Mongolian desert
“The path cut into the rock plunged into the bowels of the earth. Little by little the darkness gave way to a strange luminosity. Then the entire underground city appeared, radiant and ancient: the mysterious kingdom of Agartha.”
A single long theme runs through this movement, a lyrical theme that begins in the lower register of the cello over an undulating piano accompaniment and rises ever more radiantly as the city appears. Then it falls back into dark chasms, finally passing to the piano. A sort of musical journey to the center of the earth...

II. The Library of Lost Knowledge
“The shelves carved with disturbing shapes stretched as far as the eye could see. Books from antediluvian civilizations, books containing ancient wisdom and history from before history, seemed to have been sleeping there for millennia... The mythical library of Agartha beckoned us.”
This movement serves as an intermezzo. A skipping theme is repeatedly interrupted by mysterious chords. This "musical monolith," which seems foreign to the discourse, eventually imposes itself and seems to gnaw away at the vitality of the first motif from within. A lunar and icy coda concludes this half-hearted intermezzo.

III. Dance before the King of the World
"In the city's main square, which resembled a gigantic ancient forum, stood the throne. The King of the World sat surrounded by his ominous advisors. Before him, a wild dance took place, the dancers gradually drawing the crowd into a collective trance."
The finale is a frenzied bacchanal built on two themes. The first is a short, authoritarian motif that stands relentlessly at the beginning of the piece. Later, a second, heady, almost folkloric theme appears, which returns in the high notes of the cello and finally in a whirlwind of piano. It is a wild conclusion, where the rhythms dislocate, which ends this collective trance.

(Guillaume Connesson)