Lemoine Dufourt - UR-geräusch - Grand Orchestre

Summary of This Score

With Ur-Geräusch, Hugues Dufourt continues his deep exploration of sound phenomena: the unfolding of sound, nuances, thicknesses, and transformations of the orchestral mass. A pioneer of the spectral movement, the composer develops here a writing where the orchestra is not merely a collection of instruments but a true field of forces, capable of revealing reliefs, folds, and resonances that seem to evolve like living matter.

Commissioned by the Beethovenfest Bonn with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, the work was premiered on September 23, 2016, in Bonn (Beethovenhalle) by the WDR Sinfonieorchester, conducted by Marek Janowski. It continues Dufourt's concerns since the late 1970s, notably around an expanded vision of sound, already present in Saturne, and a strong relationship to artistic imagination, between painting and the architecture of time.

The title Ur-Geräusch refers to the idea of a "primeval noise" associated with Rainer Maria Rilke, who imagined, in a 1919 text devoted to the phonograph, the existence of an original sound imprint. In this spirit, the score questions listening, memory, and perception, bringing to the surface a material that seems to come from before form, before discourse, as if the orchestra seeks to rediscover a source.

This project is also a salute to Beethoven: not an illustrative quotation, but a reflection on Beethovenian rupture and what it entails for symphonic writing. Ur-Geräusch thus offers a demanding contemporary score, ideal for musicians, conductors, and programmers seeking an orchestral work that is at once intellectual, sensory, and intensely dramaturgical, at the heart of the current repertoire.

Technical specifications

Musical Genre

Classical

Composer	Hugues Dufourt	Genre	contemporary score (spectral aesthetic)
Instrumentation	symphony orchestra