Machine à couper le temps.
for double quartet (trumpet, trombone, horn, percussion).
This approximately nine-minute work was written in 1980 and has never been performed due to its unusual instrumentation.
The composition of “Machine à couper le temps” was conceived as a series of variations. The variation elements, however, are not thematic phrases, but rather four types of sound events: (A) a “cluster” of sustained notes with internal microtonal variations, (B) a melody of twelve-tone origin, (C) a series of chords with an accented attack, and (C) a rhythmic sequence of percussion only. Initially, these elements constituted four different, unrelated sections. Eight additional connecting sections were added, containing overlaps and mutual contaminations of the four musical ideas. Thus, for example, we have chords varying towards the melody, or sustained notes that also include percussion instruments with their inharmonic sounds, or even melodies with rhythmic scansions.
The instrumental groups are conceived as separate machines, two sound systems that contrast with each other, generating spatial and temporal relationships through a continuous interplay of rhythmic and tonal shifts. To make this duality perceptible, the two groups are placed far apart.