Tristan Murail

Les Ruines circulaires

After a short story by Jorge-Luis Borges: a man dreams, dreams of another person who gradually comes to life, becomes real, acquires consciousness. Then the dreamer notices that he is in fact only the product of someone else's dream. The violin dreams - its melody slowly growing out of the clarinet music. The two instruments confront each other, the clarinet triumphs, and in turn begins to dream. This dream elicits a new violin melody... The Circular Ruins: the vestiges from a far distant past are of course also brought to mind: the stone circles standing in Scotland, Stonehenge, Karnack, the monolithic statues in Corsica, the nuraghi in Sardinia, and the unusual group of stones standing somewhere in Senegal, though I have forgotten the name...Tristan MurailA Portulan cycle for eight musicians