Les Voix Humaines

Les Voix Humaines uses Marain Marais' work of the same title as a starting point. I have appropriated every pitch and phrase from Marais' work, but changed the techniques and registers, as well as reordering the phrases. The performer reads Marais' material as they play through the piece (notated on a separate, opaque staff), using this to guide their tempo and phrasing. You could say that they play this music through in their head, while fingering the pitches I have written. In a sense, they are performing a deconstructed, weathered ruin of the older work - transferring some of the elegance, poise, and visceral resonance of this work into mine.