Lemoine Murail - Seven Lakes Drive Po - 6 Instruments

Summary of This Score

With Portulan, Tristan Murail offers a musical journey directly connected to a place: Harriman State Park, a vast preserved area with the small mountains of the Appalachians, covered with forests and dotted with lakes. The image of the Seven Lakes Drive, a road that winds through the park across the hills and successively reveals bodies of water, becomes a metaphor for listening: moving from one landscape to another, from a burst of timbre to a more stable zone, like so many "lakes of music," all similar yet all different.

The musical discourse is structured around horn calls and winding melodies that lead to calmer, more harmonized moments, where the sensation of sonic perspective broadens. The score thus highlights a continuity of trajectories (curves, detours, lines) and stopping points, as if the ear follows a road and pauses to contemplate a sonic panorama. This alternation contributes to the overall clarity while allowing for great richness in color detail.

Technically, the writing is based on the exploitation of natural harmonic resonances, particularly in the horn and piano. The work on timbre, harmonics, and resonances gives the piece its identity: a sound material both precise and suggestive, typical of contemporary repertoire. This score is intended for musicians seeking an ensemble piece where listening quality, balance of sound layers, and construction of resonances are at the heart of the interpretation.

Technical specifications

Musical Genre

Classical

Publication

Sheet music

Composer	Tristan Murail	Genre	contemporary
Edition	Portulan	Year of publication	2006
Instrumentation	cycle for eight musicians