!

Publishers: Jobert (orchestral score), 1992, Billaudot (cello/piano reduction

by Ton That Tiet, with the composer’s permission).
‘Jazz is our universal folklore: it has replaced all the others. Of course, some of
us, including myself, have had the good fortune to accede to sources of living
music of very high, very old tradition, which obviously marked them, but this is
not the case with all of today’s musicians, and I believe that, as music—like all
art moreover—expresses the people, the land, something quite precise on the
planet, it must return there somehow, and jazz is something that goes completely
round it.’

III. MUSIC FOR ORCHESTRA

SILENCIAIRE (no. 68) Playing time: 19’

for strings and percussion
" Forces: 6 percussionists, strings 4.3.2.2.1
Percussion instruments:
I: marimba (or xylomarimba), 2 Saharan drums (low, high) (or tom-toms or
bongos), Berber crotales, 4 metal blocks (or 4 vibraphone bars), 4 tom-toms (G
sharp, B, F sharp, A), 2 stones, low maracas, pedal timpani
II: vibraphone, 6 woodblocks, claves (medium, high), wood-chimes, guiro, 2
metal plates, 2 triangles (high, low), xylomarimba, 2 seashells, low Saharan drum
(or low tom), gongs common to percussion I & II
III: vibraphone, set of tubular bells, 6 temple blocks, 2 maracas (high, low), set
of 8 bottles (very high), low triangle, 3 suspended cymbals (high, medium, low),
cowbells (low), 2 stones, 2 tom-toms (B, A), 2 m’tumbas
IV: jazzoflute, 3 suspended cymbals (high, medium, low), hammer glockenspiel,
2 Saharan drums (medium, high) (or tom-toms), glockenspiel, 3 Chinese
cymbals, 2 tam-tams (high, medium), 2 shells, 4 tom-toms (or m’tumbas) (A, D,
E flat, A flat)
V: jazzoflute, claves (high, medium), xylomarimba, 2 maracas (high, low),
cowbells (high), 3 tam-tams (high, medium, low), bongos, 2 shells, 2 m’tumbas
VI: jazzoflute, 2 tam-tams (medium, low), 2 bongos, wood drum, low bass drum
with pedal (or timpani ad lib.), tarole (small side drum), 2 crotales, glockenspiel,
cowbells (medium)
! Publisher: Billaudot, 1992.
‘With the title Silenciaire, the composer means to propose a sort of breviary of
silence, matter which our era has made a phenomenon precious above all. From
this contemplation of silence, which he tends to consider the source of all creation
and life, is born a discovery of the inner space—for the creator as much as for the
listener. The Silenciaire again attempts the experiment of suggesting, like certain
natural phenomena, the absence of noise through a tangle of sounds that can
reach a swarm. At other moments, the work punctuates slots of silence, woven
from barely audible veining, with outpourings of sound. Once the resonance of
the last verse has died out, only the overall impression left by this work will tell
each one whether he was able to isolate and define, along the way, a bit of the
precious absence that is the quest of the Silenciaire. The formidable arsenal of
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