Élise Bertrand

Monochromes op. 23

Monochromes comes from the composer's interest in colour, which has been associated with light since childhood. Light becomes musical light.

It is the different sensations that the colours evoke in her that she wanted to transpose into three varied colours-atmospheres, imagining each movement haloed by a light and a texture of its own.

The first, lyrical, Monochrome, reveals the forms of an imaginary and sonorous landscape as the rhythm evolves. The contours of the melody, resembling shapes or objects, are articulated more and more precisely, shaping themselves from quarter notes to sixteenth notes in a gradual ascent before descending to half notes. Could it be the color white?

That's what the second Monochrome suggests, hazy and atmospheric. The effects of wind, ultrasound, loss of the notion of time, widening of the ambitus, evoke the colour pearl grey.

Contrasting in tempo, character and ardour, the last Monochrome is the accumulation of the textures of the other two movements, the explosion of a multitude of colours, creating the illusion of a single multiple colour, like an iridescent kaleidoscope.