To Hans Tutschku

Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Est (d’après Debussy) is a threnody for the civil victims of ideological-economic wars.

Claude Debussy’s highly varied writing and composition techniques find a strong echo in electroacoustic writing techniques and sound processing. For example, in his music we can hear ‘looped’ repetitions of short cycles often transposed, with or without speed variation (fast high notes, slow low notes) or coloured differently each time they occur, dynamic contrasts, sudden changes in tempo through transition-less sections (abrupt editing), overlaying of figures in a continuous weft, oppositions of masses, of movements (mobile/tension, still/release)… His 3rd movement of La mer — Dialogue du vent et de la mer —, the 7th Prelude from the First Book for Piano — Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Ouest —, and his orchestral work Jeux are all fine lessons.

There is also the special relationship with nature as a model. Here, nature is perceived in a diversity of energetic movements and spectral colours by the ear of a musician who tries not to describe it with anecdotal sounds, but to reread it and transpose the energy that drives natural phenomena. In turn, Debussy is taken as a model of energetic and musical behaviour, not as a sound source, but as a stylistic and dialogue reference point, one hundred years later. Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Est (d’après Debussy) makes playful use of the opacity or transparency of a moving curtain that hides or lets us peak at a few fragments and reminiscences of Debussy, who would no doubt have participated in the adventure of electroacoustic music, and would conceivably have integrated space as a musical parameter…

— Annette Vande Gorne [English translation: François Couture, ix-07]

Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Est (d’après Debussy) [What the Eastern Wind Saw (After Debussy)] was realized in 2003 at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio of Musiques & Recherches in Ohain (Belgium), and premiered on June 7, 2003 during the Monumenti Pianistici concert series, for the concert “Intorno a Debussy: nuove composizioni elettroacustiche su materiali del passato” (Cagliari, Sardinia). The piece was commissioned by the same organization that premiered it. Thanks to Lucio Garau. Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Est (d’après Debussy) was awarded the 2nd prize at the 4th Concorso Internazionale di Composizione Musicale Elettronica Pierre Schaeffer (Pescara, Italy, 2003) and was recorded in 2005 on the compact disc 4° Concorso Internazionale di Composizione Musicale Elettronica Pierre Schaeffer (AMP 2004).

First titled Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Est, in the spring of 2020 the composer slightly modified the title to Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Est (d’après Debussy).

Premiere

• June 7, 2003, Monumenti Pianistici — Intorno a Debussy, Exmà — Centri d’Arte e Musei, Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy)

Awards

• 2nd prize, Category A (fixed medium), 4th International Competition of Computer Music Pierre Schaeffer, Pescara (Italy)
• Recommended, 10th International Rostrum of Electroacoustic Music (IREM) 2004 — Rome