Commissioned : Les Percussions de Strasbourg, pour leur cinquante ans
Creation : 10 mars 2011, États-Unis, Boston, Tsai Performance Center, par Les Percussions de Strasbourg et le Boston University Symphony Orchestra, direction : John Page.
Duration : 19 minutes
Team : 6 percussionists
Editor : Billaudot
Speaking in Tongues was written for the 50th anniversary of Les Percussions de Strasbourg. The piece features the 6 soloists of Les Percussions de Strasbourg with full orchestra. Four of the percussionists are placed in the Hall, surrounding the audience, while the other two are placed in front of the orchestra on opposite sides. Each of the offstage percussionists is joined by one instrument from the orchestra, creating washes of sustained tones from all directions. The broad palette of the orchestra combined with the virtuosity and flexibility of the percussion soloists allows the creation of a complex sonic environment in which the constantly re-contextualized foreground is deployed.
The music grows out of this configuration like the breath and voice of a virtual body, but a body of vast proportions and a voice speaking in something not quite like any language ever heard. The audience is plunged into the middle of this body where sounds ebb and flow and move, patterns gradually emerge, then start to shape memory and expectation and ultimately begin to evoke sense and meaning.
Joshua Fineberg