“Art is the transmission of associations of ideas.”

— Albert Schweitzer, J.-S. Bach: Le musicien-poète

When I receive a commission from an ensemble or other organization, I often use their name as a poetic trigger to begin my work. In this case, one of the first paths I followed was the idea of “transmission.”

Since three of Transmission’s members have experience in the field of improvisation, the ensemble requested that this fact be exploited in the commissioned piece. The idea came to me to divide the ensemble in two: a trio of improvisers and a trio of “readers” who would adopt a more classical approach — “trance” and “mission.”

I imagined that the classical trio would play seated, in a regular concert position, and that the members of the improvising trio would play standing up, using a variety of instruments, each one in a different location and moving from one station to another.

I wanted the classical trio to follow a strict ritual. At first, this trio works unanimously. It was while I was reading Oliver Sacks’ The Twins, in his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, that the idea came to me to have this trio embody the order of prime numbers (the order of natural numbers that divide only by one or by themselves).

Throughout the piece, the musicians in the classical trio exchange the note middle C (each time they encounter a twin number), running up all the prime numbers in an unchanging pulse equal to one second. This C always retains the same duration — a slightly accented full eighth note — impassive and unalterable, like a beacon in the night. The piece stops just before reaching the number 853. How many minutes is that?

This unchanging, almost cold ritual gradually “warms up,” however, through the influence of the improvising trio. The musicians in this trio don’t have to go through the same ordeal. They can choose when to intervene within a more flexible framework. They are more individualistic, more dissident, more extravagant. Gradually, the improvisers transmit their warmth, ardour, and passion to the others, until each member of the classical trio, unable to stand it any longer, indulges in a lyrical outburst that momentarily breaks the unanimity. For their part, the improvisers end the piece with more precisely timed motifs—transmission of heat; transmission of thought.

I leave you with these words from Leibniz as quoted by Oliver Sacks: “The pleasure we derive from music comes from counting unconsciously. Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic.”

Nothing but that? Really?

— Jean Derome [English translation: Isaiah Ceccarelli, xi-23]

Premiere

• April 23, 2016, Année Jean Derome: Transmission invite…, Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur, Montréal (Québec)