Poetic Forms: laisse, chanson de geste

Poetic Forms: laisse, chanson de geste is the second completed work in my Poetic Forms series, in which the structural components of literary poetry are transposed or transformed into musical parameters. This series is part of my larger compositional project: exploring new approaches to constructing and defining the fundamental elements of music. The subtitle of the piece—5 lignes pour quatuor à cordes (5 lines for string quartet)—highlights its structural basis: the five-line verse form, taken from the Chanson de Geste, more specifically from the Chanson de Doon de Nanteuil, of which only fragments have survived. Inspired by this textual form, I have reused and reinterpreted a wide range of compositional techniques from early music, drawing inspiration in particular from Hildegard of Bingen, the Notre Dame School (Léonin, Pérotin), Guillaume de Machaut, Ars Subtilior (Solage, Ciconia), and the theoretical treatises of the 16th-century composer Nicola Vicentino. Composed for the Quatuor Béla's Musiques Envoûtées project, the piece was conceived around the notion of resonance as its central musical idea. During its development, I explored different dimensions of resonance: as a perception of acoustic space; as a relationship between instrumentalists (resonant bodies); as a harmonic phenomenon; and as a link between successive or interpolated musical phrases. Thus, Poetic Forms: Laisse can be seen as a kind of treatise on resonance—examining its potential as a principle for generating musical form—in the spirit of the very works and historical figures that inspired its creation.