La Petite Sirène (The Little Mermaid), subtitled “symphonic enchantment”, was composed during the summer of 2014. It was commissioned by the Orchestre philharmonique des grandes écoles and its music director Aurélien Azan-Zielinski, to whom it is dedicated.
It was created in Saint-Nicolas-la-Chapelle (Savoy) alongside Maurice Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye, whose similarity can be sensed. First designed as a pure instrumental piece, La Petite Sirène is here presented in a version with narrator. I tried to convey the atmosphere of fairy, poetry and enchantment of Andersen’s tale. The orchestration strives to be sparkling, shimmering and full of magical colors. It is in all modesty in line with the palettes of sounds created by Claude Debussy or Maurice Ravel. The main characters are related to instruments in a watery crossfading, though there is no precise identification. The episodes of the tale echo each other thanks to a work on the characters musical themes.
Romain Dumas
(translation Philippe Do)
Audio Excerpts
Nomenclature
2 flûtes (la deuxième prenant le piccolo), 2 hautbois (le 2e prenant le cor anglais), 2 clarinettes en si b, 2 bassons (le 2e prenant le contre-basson), 2 cors en fa, 2 trompettes en si b, timbales, 3 percussionistes (grosse caisse, tam-tam, fouet, glockenspiel, xylophone, cymbale, caisse claire, triangle, tambour de basque), harpe, célesta, cordes
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