Phillipe Hurel: Tombeau In memoriam Gérard Grisey: Jean Geoffroy (percussion, marimba) Jean-Marie Cottet (piano).
Besides other works and arrangements like Aurél Holló´s arrangement of Pagodes, I also took inspiration from the piece Tombeau:In Memoriam Gérard Grisey, for piano and percussion, by the French composer Philippe Hurel, particularly as related to its instrumentation.
Despite of the fact that Hurel's use of instrumentation being based on (or at least inspired by) processes of spectral music and fulfilling fundamental elements in the structure of his composition, the choices that the composer made caught my attention due to the expressiveness of the fusion of percussion instruments and the piano.
The piece uses various percussion instruments such as the vibraphone, cowbells, Thai gongs, crotales, glockenspiel and woodblocks, which are meticulously orchestrated with the piano in different sections. The many expressive ways in which Hurel combined the instrumentation opened the door to the colours and orchestrations that I thought about and used in my own arrangement. The crotales are used as an extension element of the texture of the piano and vibraphone, in a moment of violent explosion that is configured right at the beginning of the piece (examples are bars 5 and 11) and that is installed as one of the main leitmotifs of the piece.
They are also used as an element of construction of joint harmony between percussion and piano in the 2nd movement, in a slow and gradual descending passage from the high to medium register of the instrumentation (at the beginning of the 3rd movement). The bright and resonant characteristic of the crotales and glockenspiel gives the movement a sound and imagery atmosphere that is very different from the 1st movement, which seems to float in time and represents the calm after the stormy dense material and aesthetics of the previous part.
Example of the use of crotales in the 2nd movement of Phillipe Hurel's Tombeau: In memoriam Gérard Grisey.
Listening to this particular excerpt from the work, I realised the potential that the timbres and nature of the execution of these instruments, together with the piano, can have in the construction of a sound image, a conception of colours and visual inspiration. This is something I tried to use in my own arrangement.
The use of gongs is closely related to another important leitmotif of the work. These instruments are used in conjunction with the medium register of the piano and represent a portal to a slower tempo that repeatedly interrupts the dense musical discourse of the piano and the vibraphone. Examples of this are in measures 24 and 29 of the first movement.
When listening to this specific orchestration, I noticed that it would be possible to enrich the middle register of the piano (which does not have the same nature and prominence as the low and high registers), as well as to enhance the richness of timbre and non-Western sounds to build a stronger image for my arrangement.
The inspiration that I found in the sonorities of Tombeau in memoriam Gérard Grisey by Philippe Hurel is not a coincidence, as there is a parallel between impressionism and spectralism, not only in the primary significance of timbre, but also in their association with the visual arts.
