“Lauds” (from the Latin Laudare, to praise) is a Christian service to celebrate the Creator at the dawn of each new day, often using texts from the Bible, including Psalm 150, set to music by Stravinsky, among others. It is the latter text, in Latin and German, spoken by computer-generated voices, that can be heard in the first moment of my work. This moment, Les voix enfermées [The locked voices], which lasts around 14 minutes, was premiered on 9 June 2015 at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin under the title Finsternis und Lobgesang [Darkness and song of praise], during my year-long stay as a fellow.

Since then, using the same personal techniques, I have composed two new moments in Paris, one of which, Appels (2’30”), is simply an interval of time in which the fixed silences that precede and follow it are of unusual length.

With En chemin [On the road], a long sideways tracking shot lasting around twenty minutes and set outdoors, in which we end up joining a character maniacally repeating Laudate (praise), crossing places, meeting crowds and crossing paths with other characters (including a woman who seems mad), I wanted to suggest a journey in the open air on a road that is if not infinite, at least has no known end. The work ends with the words, taken from Psalm 43: “I will go to the altar of God.”

The three moments of Laudes are no longer separable and must be played in their entirety, including the silences, at each public performance.

Premiere

• August 24, 2019, Futura 19: Concert 17, Salle des Moulinages — Espace Soubeyran, Crest (Drôme, France)