Compositions
Un temps inhabitable
for vibraphone and fixed media (2023, 6')
Un temps inhabitable, written between August and October 2023, is based on the writings of the French philosopher and activist Simone Weil (1909-1943), who involved herself with the dilemmas, in particular the inhumane character, of early 20th century factory work. To gain the deepest possible insights she became a factory worker herself in the mid 1930s, and an agricultural labourer as well. Weil wrote extensively about her concerns, and her visions around the future of factory work, in letters, articles and essays, and in correspondence with some factory directors. Her uncompromising dedication took a heavy toll on her frail health. During the Second World War, age 34, she died from cardiac failure, apparently in relation with a self-imposed regime of starvation.
Un temps inhabitable, for vibraphone and soundtrack, takes a fragment from Weil’s essay La condition ouvrière as its basis. The text reflects on time, rhythm, and the balance between variety and monotony as the most important factors in the workers' problem. It states that “all that is in any degree beautiful and good among human things carries in some degree [a] mixture of uniformity and variety; anything that differs from it is evil and degrading”. The “impossibility of foreseeing” and “instants following one another like the ticking of a clock” make time “uninhabitable to man, unbreathable”.
The soundtrack is built on the spoken selected text; a quartertone vibraphone walks in its melodic and rhythmic footsteps. In the course of the piece, the text is increasingly transformed and “de-humanized” through a variety of electronic processes. The resulting soundtrack serves as a musical partner for a live vibraphone part which in its turns follows the text tenaciously and with abandon.
Un temps inhabitable makes part of a cycle of works by Marinissen around Simone Weil's writings. The composer thanks French soprano Agathe Labadie for her wonderful rendition of Weil’s texts. The composition of this cycle was kindly supported by the Dutch Fonds Podiumkunsten.
Un temps inhabitable, written between August and October 2023, is based on the writings of the French philosopher and activist Simone Weil (1909-1943), who involved herself with the dilemmas, in particular the inhumane character, of early 20th century factory work. To gain the deepest possible insights she became a factory worker herself in the mid 1930s, and an agricultural labourer as well. Weil wrote extensively about her concerns, and her visions around the future of factory work, in letters, articles and essays, and in correspondence with some factory directors. Her uncompromising dedication took a heavy toll on her frail health. During the Second World War, age 34, she died from cardiac failure, apparently in relation with a self-imposed regime of starvation.
Un temps inhabitable, for vibraphone and soundtrack, takes a fragment from Weil’s essay La condition ouvrière as its basis. The text reflects on time, rhythm, and the balance between variety and monotony as the most important factors in the workers' problem. It states that “all that is in any degree beautiful and good among human things carries in some degree [a] mixture of uniformity and variety; anything that differs from it is evil and degrading”. The “impossibility of foreseeing” and “instants following one another like the ticking of a clock” make time “uninhabitable to man, unbreathable”.
The soundtrack is built on the spoken selected text; a quartertone vibraphone walks in its melodic and rhythmic footsteps. In the course of the piece, the text is increasingly transformed and “de-humanized” through a variety of electronic processes. The resulting soundtrack serves as a musical partner for a live vibraphone part which in its turns follows the text tenaciously and with abandon.
Un temps inhabitable makes part of a cycle of works by Marinissen around Simone Weil's writings. The composer thanks French soprano Agathe Labadie for her wonderful rendition of Weil’s texts. The composition of this cycle was kindly supported by the Dutch Fonds Podiumkunsten.
© Arnold Marinissen 2024