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Petit bestiaire

Petit bestiaire

(Code: A110410059)
For 4 mixed voices by Aurélien HALLOPEAU on a text by Guillaume APOLLINAIRE created during the Eufonia Festival in October 2021.
3.40 EUR
12g

Petit Bestiaire, composition for SATB a cappella choir by Aurélien Hallopeau, on poems of Guillaume Apollinaire



Composed for the composition competition « Eufonia 2021 » in Bordeaux, Petit Bestiaire is a piece for mixed a cappella choir which sets to music three short poems by Guillaume Apollinaire, from his collection Le Bestiaire ou le Cortège d'Orphée: "La Puce", "La Carpe" and "L'Écrevisse". The three poems are operated successively with the reuse of some musical motifs to create a unity to the piece.
Here are some of the reading passages that guided the composer in his understanding of these texts. For his Bestiary, Apollinaire draws his inspiration from medieval bestiaries, manuscripts, often religious, containing descriptions of animals, real or mythical, with a didactic and symbolic scope. Thus, although the poems in this collection may seem enigmatic at first glance, the poet's aim is to take up the codes of medieval bestiaries, while at the same time diverting them, in order to express his joys, sufferings and expectations, always with a touch of irony. "La Puce" seems to depict a defeatist portrait of human relations; "La Carpe" seems to symbolise an ancient lost ideal; "L'Écrevisse" may, for its part, represent the impotent struggle against the flight of time.
These three poems have greatly inspired Aurélien Hallopeau: both amusing and profound, they constitute a perfect text for a contemporary choral piece. His initial idea was to paint the words of the text as well as possible, to better underline their meaning and irony: from the pricked notes at the beginning of the piece to imitate the hopping of the flea, to the crayfish walking backwards, with the theme repeat, taking us back to the beginning of the piece, but in a slower, less animated rhythm.
The winning composer of the competition confides to us: "It's the first time it happened to me, but it's as if the music falls on the words. A first draft of this piece was thus composed fairly quickly, just by singing over the text. The next step was to carefully arrange the voices and effects ... »


Composition for four mixed voices choir SATB a cappella




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