juxtaposition of notes, mathematical equations, sketches, and Greek letters. September 1951: How to introduce voices, cries of pain, sobs, into music? September 1952: I must continue to strip down sound and rhythm. To reduce them to their most primitive expression… To find composition in its secret hiding place at the deepest level of primitive art. The opposite of modern diversity and complexity! The origin of music, that’s what must be put back into place... Relearning to touch sound with our hands – that’s the heart, the essence of music!
This enthusiasm, this permanent quest for the primitive force in art, takes me back again to images of him in Corsica. Sitting cross-legged, he would pore over a book of Plato or mathematics. He sometimes stared at the sky, searching for that particular moment when he could at last, in extreme hand-to-hand combat, draw close to the untamed elements of nature, so as to nourish and renew himself in them. He’s standing now, facing the raging sea, his face radiant, peaceful at last, reflecting a particular serenity that signifies that this moment won’t escape him any longer. We’ll be able to go out in the kayak now. The gigantic waves break over us with a terrifying roar; we are completely immersed in their white spray. We can’t breathe. Everything is white, deafening. And again I hear his voice, barely audible among sounds that have become suddenly deafening, “upright, upright, upright!!!” And the movement of our oars accelerates, to maintain the boat against the waves, or we will capsize and may be shattered against the rocks... The thunder rumbles, we’ve taken refuge in our tent. And again his face is radiant, peaceful. He uses his watch to calculate meticulously the number of seconds between the brutal bursts of lightning that tear apart the night and the explosions of thunder as they grow closer and closer to us. When the storm is at last directly above our heads he leaves the tent, half-naked; he runs and disappears little by little into this grandiose spectacle of sound and apocalyptic light.
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