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The name Raphaël Cendo immediately brings to mind saturation, a movement he created fifteen years ago with Franck Bedrossian, soon joined by Yann Robin.
These composers advocate and theorize the use of a " saturated total ", revealing " all the hidden zones of sound " (Bedrossian) while allowing " the complete indifferentiation of parameters through extreme fusion " (Cendo). White noise, complex sounds, distortion and excessive energy, with the instability they can entail, right up to the loss of control of the sound by the instrumentalists and the quest for a certain "animality", invite listeners to find in subversion and discomfort a new ideal of beauty.
In addition to electronic effects, saturators have also appropriated and codified extreme new instrumental gestures, transforming lutheries (notched bows, addition of objects), exploring extraordinary nuances, eliciting great virtuosity (diversified playing techniques executed with lightning speed), to achieve the sought-after principle of " exaggerated sonic deployment in a limited context " (Cendo). While saturation has never been organized as a school, as serialism or spectralism were in their time, and each of these has been emulated by many others as a vehicle for new grammars, each of the protagonists has been able to develop his or her own style within this common aesthetic base, and deploy it over the years. Our era is no longer one of schools and dogmatic discourse.
Raphaël Cendo (b. 1975) has always seen saturation as a political dimension, a form of resistance to the single technocratic and neo-liberal model of thought, the manifestation of a desire for survival: " Excess teaches us to live. This CD, recorded byEnsemble Linea under the baton of Jean-Philippe Wurtz, presents three stages in his aesthetic evolution (we have chosen to present them in chronological order). Action Painting (2004-2005), is a manifesto of the first moment of saturation, when the radical complexification of the writing, the howling of instruments and musicians, the unbridled virtuosity, the excessive use of sound masses, overloaded counterpoints and non-standard speeds of execution came together in an immense cry of violence at the limit of the bearable. Beyond his fascination with the saturation of Jackson Pollock's lines and the ritual he created around his act of creation, Cendo was influenced in his youth by rock, the Velvet Underground, punk and noise. He has channeled these energies into this score.
The second part of Action Painting, exploring a saturation of minute detail, already heralds the period of the "infra-saturated": after the raw, radical and explosive energy of the beginnings, around 2010 the composer tackles a "dark matter", i.e., what might remain in a devastated, post-apocalyptic world. This is clearly heard in Graphein (2014), a mosaic of a thousand colors in search of infinite nuances of saturated matter.
The latest development is the formal saturation experienced in Corps (2015), achieved through extreme structural fragmentation, the 25-minute piece consisting of over 240 parts. This piano concerto is performed by a furious Wilhem Latchoumia in a terribly physical performance of brilliant eloquence and flawless virtuosity, on an instrument augmented by numerous objects.
A synthesis of great complexity and immense diversity of character, it presents a mature composer in full possession of his abilities, capable today of transcending the initial energy that launched his career at full speed. For several years now, he has been writing rich, inspired pieces, such as the masterpiece Registre des Lumières, premiered in Donaueschingen in 2013.
On this recording, Ensemble Linea and Jean-Philippe Wurtz demonstrate their perfect mastery of Raphaël Cendo's unleashed scores, which they have been exploring with brio for almost a decade. They know how to tame the energy while letting it roar to our delight. The program is skilfully constructed, taking the listener from the infinite variety of Corps to the primal outburst ofAction Painting, which provides a soft landing, notwithstanding the final fatal percussive blow.
Guillaume Kosmicki
