Theoretically at least, then, there are no stylistic limits on projects that carry Sclavis's name, yet eyebrows were raised when he introduced his Rameau "concept" at the Theatre de la Renaissance in Oulins in early 1994. If not quite the revered figure his near-contemporaries Bach, Handel and Scarlatti are in Germany, England and Italy, Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) is held in high regard in France. On what grounds was a jazz musician reinterpreting this esteemed composer and musical philosopher?
"I decided Rameau was violent," the Lyon-born clarinettist/saxophonist told a reporter from American magazine Jazziz, explaining how his interest was piqued. "I don't remember why – but it was a beginning." Like his idol Ellington, Louis Sclavis follows his intuitions in his suites.
It was through a performance of Les Indes Galantes, choreographed by Mathilde Monnier –Sclavis has worked with the dancer in various contexts – that he began to hear Rameau in a new way: "I liked the exaggerated, slightly vulgar, preciousness of it...and also the tension, which is really what interests me in any art form. And there's a certain instrumental wildness, a rawness in the sound." This is harder to discern today than in the 18th century when, in the words of musicologist H. Wiley Hitchcock, Rameau's works seemed "harsh, radical and subversive" to his fellow composers. Rameau biographer Cuthbert M. Girdlestone has written that although his music is "graceful, like all of his century's art, Rameau's originality does not lie in his grace. Behind the gauze of fetes galantes there stands a sharply defined, austere, almost grim personality, neither sentimental nor frivolous. One must strip him of Watteau-like visions and behold him in all his strength. There is a misfit between his nature and the frivolous genres to which he had to give himself. His works stand like erratic Baroque blocks in Rococo surroundings."
Sclavis warmed to what he perceived as a sense of discontinuity in Rameau's compositions. "You can find elements in Rameau's operas which are not so dissimilar to our work," he maintains. "The idea of breaks or ruptures in the material, for example, an episodic approach to the work, sometimes veering off at right-angles. You could compare this to what we're attempting in the suites, working with sequences that are later unified."
To French magazine Le Monde de la Musique/Jazzman, Sclavis emphasized that there are essentially "two ways of approaching a historical personality – either via biography or the novel", and made it clear that the Sextet's approach is an imaginative re-creation rather than a literal "translation" into a modern idiom. "As with the Ellington project (Ellington On The Air), the subject matter allows us to avoid 'patchwork' or collage, and binds the material together."
Most of the pieces on Les Violences take as their inspiration segments of the tragedy Abaris, ou les Boreades – a work unperformed in Rameau's lifetime – although there are also sections based upon Les Indes Galantes, on Dardanus and on "La Bougon", the second movement of the Concert en Sextuor no. 2. With the exception of the brief "venir punir son injustice", transcribed by Yves Robert, these works have been radically rearranged (one could also say newly composed) by the members of the Sextet and by frequent collaborator Main Gibert. Gibert contributed material to many Sclavis recordings, including the ECM Acoustic Quartet album of 1994. ecm
Tracklist :
1 le diable et son train 8'42
(François Raulin)
2 de ce trait enchanté 8'28
(Louis Sclavis)
3 «venez punir son injustice» 1'03
(Yves Robert)
4 charmes 3'47
(Alain Gibert)
5 la torture d'alphise 2'21
(Yves Robert, Francis Lassus)
6 usage de faux 6'00
(Dominique Pifarély)
7 réponses à Gavotte 8'32
(Louis Sclavis)
8 charmes 0'49
(Alain Gibert)
9 pour vous ... ces quelques fleurs 4'05
(Bruno Chevillon)
10 ismenor 8'34
(François Raulin)
11 post-mésotonique 4'03
(Yves Robert)
Credits :
Louis Sclavis Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Soprano Saxophone
Yves Robert Trombone
Dominique Pifarély Violin
François Raulin Piano, Keyboard
Bruno Chevillon Double-Bass
Francis Lassus Drums, Percussion
