Written for two narrators, two soloists, to percussionists and a thirteen-piece self-conducted mixed choir, this album is an highly emotional mixture of opera and experimental text declarations. This Montréal-based composer tells a story abot Lui, who is dying, scared and delirious, Elle, who acts as an ironic witness and Choir, who represent the others that will die one day. The interaction beween these groups can be considered Meredith Monk meeting ritual chants and chamber music neeting zen improv acoustics. Such projects can’t be heard often, an interesting mixture of styles and ingredients. Especially the calmer and religious second half of the album is beautiful.

Danielle Palardy Roger présente avec Bruiducœur un curieux oratorio. De cette forme musicale, elle conserve une approche religieuse, comme en témoigne la seconde partie de son intitulé: Prières des infidèles, et une mise en œuvre vocal avec un chœur mixte amplifié (VivaVoce) et deux solistes. Deux récitants complètent la palette vocale, tandis que l’accompagnement instrumental, limité aux percussions, est des plus sobres. Mais Bruiducœur prend aussi des allures de poésie sonore, d’improvisations vocales détournant en cela la stricte construction d’un oratorio dont le propos est de confronter un couple, Lui, agonisant, Elle l’observant ironiquement en présence d’un environnement symbolisé par le chœur et les solistes. Cette approche singulière où se mêlent chants grégoriens, voix diphoniques, onomatopée, Sprechgesang et autres effets vocaux, jouant aussi sur les mots et leur sonorité, rend jubilatoire ce Bruiducœur, prières des infidèles, malgré la thématique plutôt morbide.

Choral music rarely gets let out of the box these days. One gets the odd recording of vocal work that has some interesting directions, but rarely does one get such a tour de force as is presented on this disc. Roger, who is no stranger to text-based work, has created a tale of a man at the end of his life, frightened and half-crazed, attended by a female witness describing his state and the choir and soloists as the society that surround him. The piece itself is composed for 13-piece choir, two soloists, two narrators and two percussionists. A number of things provided me with ways into this work. The repetitive nature of the text brought Steve Reich and Meredith Monk into the picture and the music is somewhat reminiscent of Berio or Ligeti, but more to the point; a lot of it reminded me of what a Diamanda Galas solo might sound like if it was arranged for multiple voices. There are interludes where the soloists improvise like a pack of rabid dogs, as well as beautifully stark ensemble sections that rise and fall like grey cloud. The two percussionists provide segues and accompaniments that provide a near perfect counterpoint to the voices. Bruiducoeur is a strong and challenging work.

Danielle Roger is known for her work with all-women groups like Wondeur Brass, Les Poules and Justine. With these and many other projects she became a leading force as a percussionist and composer in the new music scene of Montréal since early 80s. In recent years she concentrated more and more on composing music. On her new cd Bruiducoeur Roger presents an extensive vocal composition, recorded live in june 2004. It’s a vocal work for two narrators, two soloists, two percussionists and a thirteen-piece mixed choir. An oratorio to be more exact. Not a very regular musical form. I know Florian Fricke of Popol Vuh always wanted to write one. The oratorio is a musical composition that was at his peak in the 17th and 18th century. Most oratorios had religious themes. This seems to be case with Bruiducoeur also as it is subtitled “Prières des infidèles”. “This secular ceremony revolves around three characters: LUI, who is dying, scared and delirious; ELLE, who acts as an ironic witness, describing his fears and his struggle; and the CHOIR and SOLOISTS, empathic, representing us, the others, as we too will die one day.” For full enjoyment of this cd it helps if you understand french, but the booklet helps as it contains the full text in french and english. Voices sing, speak, scream. Sentences, words, but sometimes only syllables, or just sounds. The soloists and narrators do a great job. The whole is sparsely instrumented with percussion. Overall the music is not very melodic. At moments medieval sounding melodies appear at the surface, like in track one and three. Track six starts with mongolian throat overtone singing. In general it is a kind of ‘sprechgesang’ that dominates.

La sensibilité ironique de Danielle Palardy Roger s’exprime haut et fort dans cette œuvre divisée en treize tableaux relatant l’agonie d’un homme, notamment dans les tableaux Moimoimoi / Mon amour ou Moissi moisi je vais mourir. La compositrice a écrit son oratorio pour chœur mixte, deux récitants, deux solistes et deux percussions et propose ici une version d’environ une heure, après la création publique datant de 2004. Une œuvre très achevée de la «battante» de la musique actuelle.

Cet oratorio de Danielle Palardy Roger est une œuvre singulière qui nous plonge du début des temps jusqu’à nos jours dans notre combat inégal face à la mort. Les voix y sont omniprésentes. Dans cette œuvre où nous retrouvons un choeur mixte amplifié, des récitants, des solistes et des percussions qui viennent ponctuer cette suite, l’écriture et l’improvisation se courtisent sans cesse. Le texte récité est appuyé par des lignes mélodiques, des cris et onomatopées et même des chants d’inspiration grégorienne. Bruiducœur… exige une écoute active afin d’apprécier ses qualités. C’est un album surprenant qui mérite qu’on lui dédie une oreille curieuse et ouverte. 8/10