Light and shadow

A certain metaphorical gloom pervades this concert. Couleurs du vent was composed by Kaija Saariaho following a bereavement. Dramatic family circumstances in which "the breath of the wind became [for her] a symbol of life, and the piece became a story of breathing". The work itself is an improvisation on the material of her trio Cendres. Similarly, it was an orchestral texture from her piece Vista that gave birth to Semafor. The latter title refers to sculptures by Ernst Mether-Borgström, who conceived them as road signs planted in the urban jungle. The flashes and shadows of this lighthouse in the night are matched by the shadows of a theater with a mythological aura, as Frédéric Durieux dedicates Theater of Shadows II to the French visual artist Christian Boltanski. The title refers to the Théâtre d'ombres, with which the artist evoked myths and cosmogonies. When it comes to cosmogony, Michael Levinas's L'Ébranlement, which is nothing other than the spatial repercussion of the timbre, also represents the earthquake, or even the expectation of an all-spiritual revelation.