Francois-Amoresque (S)-Indeterminate OS

Amoresque by Jean-Charles Francois was commissioned by the Centre Culturel Andre Malraux at Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy and is dedicated to the French percussion quartet Helios. The title refers to Amores by John Cage, and his percussion works of the 30s and 40s, and also to Naim Amor (an e-musician of the ensemble Generation Chaos, Paris) whose composition Elevator Baby is freely quoted at the end of the piece.

The concept on which the piece is based is that, contrary to the usual thought, so called "non-pitched" percussion instruments have always a predominant pitch, even if it coexists with other enharmonic partials, or even in the case of instruments having very complex timbre. The instruments are not specified, only the pitch collection: the percussionists have to find a collection of instruments corresponding to these pitches with the task to have the greatest diversity of timbres. The piece is rather melodic. However the composition is based on an alternance of very simple segments (the pitch succession should be clearly perceived) and very complex ones (the perception of the different timbral qualities would come to the forefront).

Instrument Specifications:

Percussionist 1 - Four instruments pitched to A#, from the most resonant to the driest.

Percussionist 2 - Four instruments pitched to G#, from the most resonant to the driest

Percussionist 3 - Four instruments pitched to E, from the most resonant to the driest

Percussionist 4 - Four instruments pitched to C, from the most resonant to the driest