Epiphanie de l'imperceptible
Institution:
Paris 8Disciplines:
Directors:
Abstract EN:
Among the many modes of musical expression that the xxth century offers, there is one dimension that is particularly fascinating to listen to but whose approach is anything but easy. We mean a range of sounds that tend to be scarcely audible and are buried in the deep bosom of the perception field. But the word scarcely brings a nuance that heralds and amplifies the presence of the sensitive world within which another world, hitherto unheard -of and unexplored seems to quiver to life. Thanks to the former, there emerges a world so intently tenuous that the listener's subjectivity, as if mesmerized, pervades the space left vacant by the fading sound. Thus, this troubling poetics of subdued sounds seems to form a very specific, aesthetic and musical category, typical of a true philosophy of music seen as the philosophy of sound which reintroduces the fundamental importance of listening when one concentrates on sound as a phenomenon and on its repercussions on the personal experience of the listener. Here is a baffling challenge to the overstrained ear but also to the listener's receptive skills and aesthetics awareness as well. For the three are simultaneously, patiently and relentlesly in quest of the musics of the imperceptible which demand of the listener "to go through the looking glass" to discover the world that dwells in their ethereal vibrations, a universe which they reveal unto him after long-suffering explorations which take him on the fringe of the "after sound". The presens thesis - it is hoped - may help to lift a corner of the veil behind which is lurking the frail whisper of this peculiar musical property. For, like all veils, it is obviously an enigma for the researcher and it stirs his desire to understand what it is that - behind the dropped curtain - plays tricks upon him.
Abstract FR:
Parmi les multiples modes d'expression musicale du vingtieme siecle, il est une dimension sonore particulierement captivante a l'ecoute, et qui ne se laisse pas facilement apprehender. Car il s'agit en l'occurence d'un sonore enclin ou resolu a ne presque plus sonner, qui va desormais se loger dans la profondeur du champ perceptif. Mais deja, l'ecart engendre par ce "presque" manifeste et amplifie la presence du sensible, dans lequel semble fremir le soupcon d'un monde jusqu'alors in-oui et incontemple ; sensible a la faveur duquel emerge un monde si intensement tenu que la subjectivite de l'auditeur envahit d'elle-meme, comme magnetisee, l'espace laisse vacant par le son decroissant. Cette troublante poetique de l'attenuation sonore parait ainsi constituer une categorie musicale et esthetique tout a fait specifique, caracteristique d'une veritable philosophie de la musique comme philosophie du son, qui reintroduit l'impor- tance essentielle de l'ecoute dans l'attention apportee au phenomene sonore et a l'experience interieure de son retentissement. Defi enigmatique au sens auditif surtendu mais aussi a la reception vive comme a la conscience esthetique qui, tous trois, interrogent de concert patiemment et sans relache, les musiques de l'imperceptible nous mettent pratiquement en demeure d'entre-distinguer l'arriere-monde qui se tient dans leur extreme fragilite vibratoire, et qu'elles nous font "apparaitre" a force de perseverantes explorations aux confins d'un au-dela du son. Tel est le voile de cette singuliere propriete musicale, frele et murmurante, que la presente these voudrait pouvoir lever. Car, comme tout voile, celui-ci ne manque pas de susciter bien des interrogations dans l'esprit de l'auditeur, ni d'attiser son desir de comprendre ce qui, derriere, se joue de lui.