Peter Eötvös: The Sirens Cycle

IRCAM/Centre Pompidou-Grande salle-Paris

France

Audrey Luna Soprano
Quatuor Calder
Benjamin Jacobson Violin
Andrew Bulbrook Violin
Jonathan Moerschel Viola
Eric Byers Cello
Serge Lemouton IRCAM Computer Music Design
Serge Lacourt IRCAM Sound engineer

The oeuvre of Peter Eötvös is marked by the inherent bond he has established between music and language, as Janáček once did. Composer and conductor, Eötvös has asserted himself in the world of contemporary opera since the stunning Trois sśurs. In his new quartet, he takes advantage of the expressive and "linguistic" power of strings to which he adds a voice. The starting point for Sirens is a short text written by Kafka in 1918 in which the sirens’ fatal weapon is silence. "But Odysseus, if one may so express it, did not hear their silence; he thought they were singing and that he alone did not hear them." Other sirens from Joyce and Homer spring out from behind the quartet: three languages, three speeches for this "chamber opera".


Peter Eötvös : Korrespondenz ; The Sirens Cycle
Leos Janacek : Quatuor n° 2 « Lettres intimes »