Hurel, P :: Loops I

Loops I

Hurel, P

Editions Henry Lemoine presents Philippe Hurel's 'Loops I' for solo flute, in 3 movements.

'It had been a long time since I had wanted to write a new piece for solo flute. In Eolea, a work written in 1981, I tried to turn around the voluble classical play of the flute such as it appears in the traditional literature. In Loops, the sound of the flute and the techniques of playing become less important than the processes of transformation in the work. The title of the piece announces and indicates its own writing principle, and in fact indicates a whole series of pieces already in progress that work in the same way. I start with small rhythmic motifs that repeat and transform themselves a little at a time. Thetransformations employ simple formulae addition or successive subtractions which end up incrementally re-creating themselves. What interests me is what there is between the two states that is, the manner in which one arrives and departs again. The result of the processes in general a small turning motif is of no interest to me. The principle of the turn interests me because there is no repetition, and the repetition interests me because it is the foundation of all the transformations in time. In Loops, this principle is pushed to the extreme. Although repetition is predominant in all of my pieces, I had not utilized the turning so freely with only one instrument. Loops is a piece that I wrote rigorously, starting from intentive elements, often improvising vocally, in which I test the transformations possible in a playful manner. Since then I have written two pieces organized around the same principle, Loops II for vibraphone and Loops III for two flutes.' Philippe Hurel