Is it because it is the signature, the audible trace by which each living being identifies itself and by which it marks others and detects their intentions? The voice remains the prime emotional and musical vehicle. It is the ancestral medium of all direct communication.

Vox Alia I — Affetti [known until 2022 as Vox Alia] is a suite of five short vocal studies.

Giocoso, which blends vocal music from every non-European continent and the Western past (“alleluia” from Stimmung by Stockhausen, Pygmy chant from Gabon, Inuit chant, diphone Tuva singing), is constructed as a binary and contrasted form, reinforced by spatial writing in bipolar dialogue — front-back, left-right, and all the diagonal combinations that can only be heard in the original octophonic version.

Amoroso experiments with ornamented, contrapuntal writing, both sonically and spatially, modeled on a Maronite rite phrase and a Salve Regina for mixed choir by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Amoroso opposes and embraces voices.

Innocentemente recovers the immediate, contrasting and elusive temporality and diffuse, informal spatiality of childhood from the voices of an eight-month-old baby and his mother. The overall form is retrograde mirroring.

Furioso erupts in violence in a linear, oriented space, with a rising, rhythmic, explosive energy that concludes with the violence of Medea by Cherubini, featuring the voice of Maria Callas.

The flow of the first four parts of Vox Alia I — Affetti reflect a reminiscence, a tenuous link with the classical sonata form.

The fifth part, Parola volante, is a short tribute to Pierre Schaeffer’s revolutionary thinking on sound, its morphological description, its perception in reduced listening conditions, its contribution to space, through a few sentences and Schaeffer’s voice, in polyphonic writing reminiscent of Johann Sebastian Bach, one of Schaeffer’s favourite composers.

— Annette Vande Gorne [English translation: François Couture, i-25]

Vox Alia I — Affetti was realized from 1992 to 2000 at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio of Musiques & Recherches in Ohain (Belgium) with sound material obtained from Ina-GRM’s SYTER and MARS systems. The octophonic mix was produced at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio. The first movement, Giocoso, was premiered on June 20, 1996 at Théâtre de L’L (Brussels, Belgium). Amoroso and Innocentemente were premiered on April 10, 1998 during the Cycle acousmatique presented by Ina-GRM at the Salle Olivier Messiaen of the Maison de Radio France (Paris, France). Furioso was premiered on October 18, 2000 during the international acousmatic festival L’Espace du son at Chapelle de Boondael (Brussels. Belgium). The complete work — including Parola volante — was premiered on September 9, 2001 at Centre culturel de Rixensart (Genval, Belgium). Vox Alia I — Affetti was commissioned by the Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM) (Paris). Thanks to François Bayle and Daniel Teruggi.

Known until 2022 as Vox Alia the work is now titled Vox Alia I — Affetti, the first of the five works in the cycle Vox Alia (1992-2024).

Premiere

• September 9, 2001, Under the title Vox Alia: Concert, Centre culturel de Rixensart, Genval (Belgium)