Exils

When music comes out of the violin or any other instrument, when it comes out of the body, is it not condemned to leave us forever, rising "out of us" and joining the silence that precedes and follows any sound emission?

By definition, the practice of a living art - and in particular music - is the experience of this metaphor of exile as a perpetual separation from a note, a sound, a vibration...

Perpetual separation, but also perpetual re-creation and rebirth of this mysterious flow of sound which, if it separates from us, is to better reunite by creating and renewing the link through the ear and through play. The ephemeral needle of an eternal thread that connects those who listen and play together, music can link the four corners of the world, to all eras, and to loved ones present or departed, ignoring space and time boundaries. Music can express exile, but it can also abolish it!

"Out of the Soil" is of course the exile to which many of the pieces on this disc pay homage, rekindling the fires of the Jewish cultures of Central Europe, the Irish, Finnish and Fado cultures among others, joining the bouquet where the four creations commissioned from Maël Bailly, Vincent Lê Quang, Fiona Monbet and Johan Farjot, whose universes are dear to me by their poetic, lyrical, tender lines, their jazz accents, atypical...

This record is as much the fruit of the trying and shattering experience of exile as it is the fruit of what any ordeal calls forth: consoling tenderness, derision, warmth, light, friendship, contemplation, celebration of life.

And since exile means being "off the ground", why not take the definition literally and consider that exile is also what happens to us when we no longer touch the ground, and fly away... Leaving the ground, and joining the spheres that are dear to us, that nourish us; leaving the ground, and finding elsewhere those parts of us that live in other dimensions. Out of the ground, to meet at the heart of what makes up our intimate reality and our identity, to finally, on the loom of staves and strings, give voice to our wordless stories.

 

Anne Montaron

Reviews on... ->Le Monde - Pizzicato - Classica - Froggy's delight - ClassiqueNews - Entre les lignes entre les mots - Le Monde (2)

France Musique/L'invité du jour - France Musique/Les grands entretiens

1. E. Moatti  Matkustaa
2-4. E. Bloch  Baal Shem
5. V. Lê Quang  Bois d’épines
6. E. Moatti  Haaveilu
7. E.P. Salonen  Lachen Verlernt
8. E. Moatti  Lágrima 
9. E. Moatti  Aamunkoitto
10. E. Moatti  Klezmer for Michaël
11. J. Farjot  L’Attimo che ami
12. L. Boulanger  Nocturne
13. M. Bailly  Néon
14. V. Lê Quang  Nacelle
15. F. Monbet  Vie-Re-Volte

Suzanne Ben Zakoun - piano (2,3,4,11,12)
Vincent Lê Quang - Saxophone (5,14)
Julia Macarez - viola (13)
Fiona Monbet - violin (15)
Elsa Moatti - violin, voice, baroque violin