Ferrari Edition 4

Royer is a restless musician. His earlier collaboration with Ferrari and pianist Jean-Philippe Collard-Nevin resulted in a powerful collection on Sub Rosa SR 261: Rencontres Fortuites (2003), Tautologos III (1969), and Didascalies (2004), not to mention Didascalies 2 (1993) on Sub Rosa SR 363-AB. (Yes, Didascalies 2 was written earlier; however, it was titled after the 2004 work came into being.) The fervor continues with a release in which Royer almost completely dissolves into Ferrari’s tapes.

Éphémère can be for tape alone, or for tape with instruments. Ironically, the performers’ activities are ephemeral, whereas the tape is fixed. Alga marghen Plana-F 33NMN.081 documents two renditions (I, Nov. 1974, and II, the same month a year later). For this instantiation, Brunhild updated the work for Royer. Brunhild and Royer’s version is shorter (13:08) than either of the two on Alga marghen (27:03 and 51:35), however the piece’s duration is inherently flexible (my understanding is that I is tape alone and II adds electronically processed instruments). We are to understand that the Éphémère’s tape is like the sea, that the work ought to imitate the ocean. There are subtle loops and murmuring voices over an insistent, engulfing electronic buzzing drone on the original tape.

Brunhild’s tape offers the essence of the content heard plainly in I. Royer is credited with just viola, although I think he also explores piano and percussion as well. His actions (delicate scratching on viola, interior piano sounds, bells) emerge out of the troughs in the cresting tape. Overall the progression is perkier and more compact than the mid-70s realizations. We quickly learn that Royer will rarely play the viola conventionally.

Debussy hovers at the fringe, as we see in the titles and sources of Brunhild and Royer’s pieces. Le Piano Englouti and Pour que le vent soit propice / Ce qu’a vu le Cers both reference piano preludes (Book I, No. 10 and Book I, No. 7). Brunhild takes a more oneiric direction than perhaps Luc ever would. Le Piano Englouti is episodic with contrasts and pauses, begging an adventure story. Royer’s fidgeting viola emerges over dreamy textures. I am immediately struck that Brunhild is creating a place that never was whereas Ferrari took real locations and transformed them.

The tape from Ce qu’a vu le Cers reflects nature, capturing sounds around Tuchan (a small town in France, also the kernel for a larger Luc and Brunhild multimedia work), birds, bells and insects with talking and crowd noises from a carnival. It’s meant to be a backdrop for an improvising ensemble, as in ADDA 581088, with the Le Vivant Quartet: Richard Breton, guitar, Jules Calmettes, flute and sax, Henry Fourès, piano, and Alain Joule, percussion. The older release (1988), 25:16 of “imaginary folklore,” has never been one of my favorites, though I suspect its trans-European, minstrel pseudo-jazz over basic repeating chord progressions was exactly what Ferrari was after, especially the pulsing tape which inspires a tango/polka.

Royer explores a different path, avoiding riffs on invented nursery tunes, but instead creating varied episodes layering viola gestures in specific tessituras as Ferrari’s tape slowly unfurls beneath. Royer’s vision is 40:23, and I suspect we don’t first hear Ferrari’s tape until around the 11:30 mark. A big challenge is to introduce material that complements the tape without making everything sound foolish. The distorted carnival or calliope music around 26:00 is one such tricky place. Royer offers vocalizations, and loops his material creating effects such as high-pitched agitation sounding like angry seagulls. If it hasn’t been evident already, Royer is one of the best Ferrari proponents around.
— Grant C. Covell, lafolia.com, November 2015