Michèle Bokanowski
Cirque
about
The circus is a place of light and colors, but also of shadows and even darkness. Of course, it delights children and makes adults laugh. But all it takes is a rainy autumn evening near a big top and the smell of hay for the sadness of clowns, the endless training of animals, and the monsters hiding in some caravan to come back to mind... Cinema, the essence of the circus—movement, light, danger, and burlesque—will have been admirably rendered in Notes on the circus by Jonas Mekas (1966), one of the inventors of the film diary. With Cirque, Michèle Bokanowski accomplishes similar work, entirely dedicated to spinning, in the realm of music.
After studying with Pierre Schaeffer and Éliane Radigue, she became known by composing musique concrète works, including Tabou and Trois chambres d'inquiétudes. The latter, a grande dame of drone and minimalism, falls under the spell of the Circus and writes the libretto of the piece as a poem.
The work, divided into five movements, is based on the processing and editing of recordings made in one or more circuses (which is not specified and does not matter) between 1988 and 1993. The initial allegro reveals the gallop of a horse progressively joined by other images. The idea of the circular space of the big top is immediately and magnificently rendered and will be constantly recalled through an insistent use of the looping technique. Children's laughter, applause, and drum rolls are thus sheared, repeated before being brutally interrupted. Accordion interludes and sound distortion create a dreamlike atmosphere. This beautiful nightmare reminds us, in the words of Éliane Radigue, of the "Magic of childhood that still lives in the heart of man beyond its abrupt end."
Words by Alexandre Galand, excerpted from the book "Field Recording - L'usage sonore du monde en 100 albums" (éd. Le mot et le reste, 2012).
A major member of the French musique concrète scene, Michèle Bokanowski was born on August 9, 1943 in Cannes, FR, to a musician mother and a writer father. She lives and works in Paris today.
A music lover since adolescence, it was relatively late, at the age of 22, that Michèle Bokanowski decided to study composition. Reading Pierre Schaeffer's À la recherche d'une musique concrète was decisive. After classical training in harmony, she met Michel Puig, a student of René Leibowitz, who taught her writing and analysis based on Schönberg's Traité. In September 1970, she began a two-year internship at the ORTF research service under the direction of Pierre Schaeffer. She simultaneously participated in a research group on sound synthesis, studied computer music at the Faculté de Vincennes, and electronic music with Éliane Radigue.
Her main works are intended for concert: Pour un pianiste, Trois chambres d'inquiétude, Tabou, Phone Variations, Cirque, L'étoile Absinthe, Chant d'Ombre, Enfance, Rhapsodia, Cadence, Elsewhere. She has also composed for theater (with Catherine Dasté), dance (with choreographers Hideyuki Yano, Marceline Lartigue, Bernardo Montet), and cinema: music for Patrick Bokanowski's short films and his two feature films L'Ange (1982) and A Solar Dream (2016).
Tracklist
1. Allegro 12:58
2. Andante 05:11
3. Scherzo 07:56
4. Galop 01:41
5. Finale (Parade) 08:53
credits
released August 23, 2024
Musique concrète produced in the studios of Kira BM Films and Musiques de la Boulangère (1988-1994)
Accordion: Jean-Louis Matinier
Premiered May 23, 1994 at the Socar factory in Crest (Drôme) during the 1st Festival Futura.
Thanks to Denis Dufour and Nicolas Frize
CIRQUE painting by Christian Daninos (acrylic on wood 1975)
Layout: Damien Tran
Cutting: Schnittstelle
Kythibong 2024
First CD edition: Empreintes Digitales 1995
Second CD edition: Motus Acousma 2014
Third CD edition: Sonoris 2022