LA DUREE SANS CONTACTS S'AFFAIBLIT - the artist and his model II
2010
for string quartet
dedicated to L. M. D.
duration: ca. 23 minutes
Lineage: Robert Burns’ 18th-century poem “Lassie w’ the lint-white locks” inspired Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle’s 19th-century poem “La fille aux cheveux de lin”, which Claude Debussy set to music in an unpublished 1882 song. Debussy later borrowed the title of Leconte de Lisle’s poem (and the key of his early song) for his piano prélude “... La fille aux cheveux de lin”, published in 1910 as No. 8 from Book 1 of his Préludes. Alfred Cortot recorded the work in London on 2 July 1931, and in 1991 this recording was re-issued on compact disc as Biddulph LHW 006. The Artist and his Model I-VI are all based on precise micro-temporal measurements of Cortot's recording. These measurements were carried out by the composer, graciously assisted by Olivier Senn, at Harvard University during the summer months of 2010.
The title of this quartet is derived from Paul Valéry's Alphabet. The epigraph is drawn from Valéry’s Eupalinos ou l’architecte (1921): "Écoute, Phèdre (me disait-il encore), ce petit temple que j’ai bâti pour Hermès, à quelques pas d’ici, si tu savais ce qu’il est pour moi!—Où le passant ne voit qu’une élégante chapelle,—c’est peu de chose: quatre colonnes, un style très simple, —j’ai mis le souvenir d’un clair jour de ma vie. O douce métamorphose! Ce temple délicat, nul ne le sait, est l’image mathématique d’une fille de Corinthe, que j’ai heureusement aimée. Il en reproduit fidèlement les proportions particulières."