Palimpsestes (1994) is a set of four piano pieces, each based on earlier sketches reworked in light of the composer’s artistic evolution towards New Consonant Music. True to its title, the work embodies the idea of rewriting and layering—musical palimpsests in which traces of past ideas remain visible beneath the renewed surface.
- The first piece, in ABA′ form, opens with a meditative, semi-improvised atmosphere, characterised by fluid gestures and harmonic subtlety. The central B section contrasts with a more agitated character, driven by a left-hand ostinato of quavers and shifting harmonic colours, before returning to a transformed A′.
- The second, remarkably brief, is purely rhythmic in nature. Each hand plays the other’s material in mirror image, constructing the texture through progressive addition—filling the silences of the opening until reaching a prestissimo conclusion.
- The third piece, highly expressive and lyrical, presents a set of variations on a chord sequence. The melodic writing is foregrounded here, lending the piece an introspective character.
- The fourth and final piece is the most virtuosic of the set, built upon a repetitive, energetic structure, with a contrasting lyrical episode at its centre that provides emotional relief before a return to the driving material.
World première: 19 January 1996, Schaerbeek Music School (Brussels), by Leonardo Anglani.
French première: 27 October 2012, CRR de Paris, by Éliane Reyes.
Recordings:
- Stéphane De May, Oréades (René Gailly label 87 111 – out of print)
- Éliane Reyes, Enigma (Dux label 0531)
