Music For A While
Monday February 19th, 2024 with David Cavlovic
Rebel with a Chaos

For the first published edition of Jean-Féry Rebel's Les Elémens, the composer provides a written "warning" describing his approach to the work: "The elements painted in dance and in music seemed to me susceptible of a pleasant variety, as much in relation to the different genres of music as in relation to the dancers. The introduction to this symphony was natural, It was Le cahos even, this confusion which reigned between the Elements before the moment when subjected to invariable laws they took the place which is prescribed to them in the order of nature. To designate, in this confusion, each element in particular I used the most popular conventions. The bass expresses the earth through notes linked together and which are played by jerks. The Flutes, by lines of song, which go up and down, imitate the course and the murmur of the water. The air is painted by outfits followed by cadences that form the small flutes. Finally, the violins, in lively and brilliant lines, represent the activity of fire. These distinctive characters are recognized, separated or confused, in whole or in part, in the various occasions, which I call by the name of Cahos and which mark the efforts which the Elemen make to get rid of each other. In the 7th cahos, these efforts decrease in proportion as the entire resourcefulness approaches. This first idea took me further. I dared to undertake to join to the idea of the confusion of the elements of Harmony. I hazarded to hear first all the sounds mixed together or rather all the notes of the Octave united in a single sound. These notes then develop while going up in Unison in the progression which is natural for them, and, after a Dissonance, one hears the perfect chord. I finally believed that this would make the Cahos of harmony even better, if by walking through the different Cahos on different strings, I could without shocking the ear, make the final tone indecisive, until he returned determined at the time of the final examination."