for orchestra (2015)

First performance: Festival ManiFeste, IRCAM, 2015
Maison de la Radio, Paris, 104
Orchestre de Radio France
Pierre Andre Valade, conductor

Listen on IRCAM Website

…après la bataille (French for “after the battle”) is an orchestral work that draws its inspiration from a preceding concertante piece titled Battaglia. In turn, Battaglia pays homage to the Baroque tradition of battle-themed compositions, particularly those of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber.

In …après la bataille, the composer extends this historical thread into modern territory. By bridging the orchestral soundworld with the concept of acoustic ecology—à la R. Murray Schafer—and exploring the notion of orchestral music as an “inhabitable space,” the piece invests the orchestra with a sense of sonic geography that listeners can inhabit. At the same time, it weaves electroacoustic transformations within a large-scale polyphonic structure, creating a sonic environment where past and present sonic paradigms converge. The result is a reflection on the aftermath of conflict, both in its geopolitical and introspective sense—encompassing real wars as well as psychological, inner battles.