Tristan Murail: Le Partage des eaux (1995)

Tristan Murail (*1947) Le Partage des eaux, for large orchestra (1995) Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France Pierre-André Valade, conductor It was with Le Partage des Eaux that I began studying highly complex sounds - noisy sounds, natural sounds. This exploration continued in a more systematic way with Bois Flotté (sea sounds, the sounds of strings played with extreme bow pressure), as well as with Winter fragments (tamtams, chanting voice). The sounds analysed in Le Partage des Eaux are derived from natural phenomena: a wave breaking gently on the shore, the effect of a backwash. They inspire the piece’s shapes and sounds, sometimes by using data analysis directly, sometimes more metaphorically. One musical object, heard often in various forms throughout the score, comes thus from the spectral analysis of a breaking wave. This object is manipulated, transformed, expanded or compressed in many ways. It contains strangely coloured and strangely coherent harmonic-tim