La joie ivre

After a series of highly fragmented works, in 'La joie ivre' I wanted to compose a continuous piece inspired by the motet 'Jesu meine Freude' by J.S. Bach. I derived many of the sounds by transforming a recording of the first line of the chorale. In this piece, I wanted to express the same sense of fulfillment and joy I find in the Bach motet as well as to underline the fact that this serenity and bliss is at times in danger of being overwhelmed by chaos. I combined the motet with three recordings I made of children during my travels in Jakarta and Lisbon. The recordings draw on very different expressions of playfulness. These are combined with extracts of the motet and with traditional music from Africa, Indonesia and Hungary. I applied the familiar technique of mapping transpositions of pitched sources into a harmonic grid that I use in many of my compositions. In 'La joie ivre', however, this process becomes very clearly audible.