Le temps l'horloge

Le temps l'horloge (Time and the Clock) is a work for soprano and orchestra, written by French composer Henri Dutilleux between 2006 and 2007. It is based on two poems by Jean Tardieu ("Le temps l'horloge" and "Le masque"), one by Robert Desnos ("Le dernier poème"') and Charles Baudelaire's prose-poem, "Enivrez-vous".

The work was composed for American soprano Renée Fleming, whom Dutilleux called "a great artist". The composer further said, "I constantly thought of her voice's character, of her power of lyrical expression" while writing the piece (Weininger 2007).

Performance history

Le temps l'horloge was jointly commissioned by the Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto (Seiji Ozawa, Director), the Boston Symphony Orchestra (James Levine, Music Director), and the Orchestre National de France (Kurt Masur, Music Director) (May 2007, 1).

Seiji Ozawa led Fleming and the Saito Kinen Orchestra in the world premiere on September 6, 2007, at the Saito Kinen Festival in Matsumoto City, Japan (May 2007, 1). Fleming gave the American premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Levine, on November 29, 2007, and the same performers gave the New York premiere on 3 December 2007, in the Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall (Driscoll 2008).

The première of the complete work with an added interlude and a fourth poem took place on 7 May 2009 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris. The performers included Renée Fleming (soprano), the Orchestre National de Radio France and Seiji Ozawa (conductor) (Machart 2009).

Instrumentation

Le temps l'horloge is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, three horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, crotales, acute and medium suspended cymbals, two tam-tams, wood block, bass drum, vibraphone, marimba, harp, celesta, harpsichord, accordion and strings.

Recording

• Renée Fleming, Seiji Ozawa and the Orchestra National de France – Poèmes – Decca CD – 2012.

References

• Anon. 2009. "Le Temps l'horloge, dernier chef-d'oeuvre de Dutilleux". Le Monde (9 May): 1.
• Driscoll, F. Paul. 2008. "Renée Fleming, James Levine & the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium, 12/3/07". Opera News 72, no. 8 (February).
• Machart, Renaud. 2009. "Le Temps l'horloge de Dutilleux, enfin complet: Au Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Renée Fleming et Seiji Ozawa créent l'intégrale du cycle composé pour la soprano". Le Monde (9 May): 20.
• May, Thomas. "Henri Dutilleux: Le Temps l’Horloge". Boston: Boston Symphony Orchestra, 2007.
• Potter, Caroline. Henri Dutilleux: His Life and Works. Aldershot (UK), and Brookfield, Vermont (US): Ashgate Publishing Company, 1997. ISBN 1-85928-330-6.
• Potter, Caroline. "Dutilleux, Henri". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, 7:770–72. London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001.
• Weininger, David. 2007. "BSO-Composer Relationship Proves Fruitful". The Boston Globe (23 November).

External links

• Schott Music page