Billaudot Beffa Karol - Tabula Rasa

Summary of This Score

Commissioned by Elsa de Lacerda and Pierre Solot, this work for violin and piano is part of a musical approach nourished by the imagery of revolutionary songs. Initially conceived as a series of variations on a gospel linked to the emancipation struggles of the African-American community, the piece ultimately takes as its starting point "Untemationale," a particularly fertile material because it is not limited to a single theme but assembles several musical ideas.

Titled "Tabula rasa," the work plays on the resonance of an emblematic phrase, "Let us make a clean slate of the past," while sending an ironic nod to the rupture slogans carried by certain composers close to the Darmstadt School. This dual reference enlightens the listening experience: tradition and reinvention intertwine, as if reconstructing a soundscape from familiar fragments, displaced and transformed.

The first movement unfolds over a slightly limping piano pendulum. This lullaby movement, traversed by a ringing evoking sleigh bells, accompanies a subtly disguised theme of the Internationale, as if heard from a distance or filtered through memory. The second movement asserts a more direct dynamism: clear harmonies, incisive rhythms, and nervous exchanges establish a lively dialogue where violin and piano respond to each other with candor, precision, and relief.

The third movement unfolds a series of variations, sometimes enigmatic, sometimes consoling, built on close canons between the two instruments. The writing slips in an allusion to Arvo Pärt, author of a famous "Tabula rasa": imitations of bells and effects recalling the spirit of tintinnabulation color the texture, offering a conclusion both structured and intensely suggestive.

Technical specifications

Musical Genre

Classical

Publication

Sheet music

Instrumentation

violin and piano