Jeux d’humains, jeux de vilains – Jean-Luc Rimey-Meille

Description

Jeux d’humains, jeux de vilains – Jean-Luc Rimey-Meille

Score for a timpanist, 5 timpani and 2 large plastic bricks.

Commissioned by Jean Claude Gengembre

For 5 Timbales and 2 large plastic bricks.

This story isn’t just about children’s games, but also about history, psychology, literature, Latin, feet, hands, wordplay, and musical play…
A short piece for timpani that requires the performer to engage fully on stage, both vocally and with the timpani.
There are many modes of playing, but they are quite flexible, and humor must prevail; it is one of the driving forces behind this short piece. The tempi indications are also flexible, but the proportions must be kept. The performer must be comfortable in his or her instrumental and verbal playing and the voice/instrument balance is very important.
In the first part, “cleaning” is at the center of the musician’s verbal and instrumental preoccupations (washing his hands, cleaning the Timpani skins with the Legos, an innocent … with dirty hands …).
This is followed by a period more oriented towards “counter” psychology (Ego… or lego in Latin which means “to say”, the one who chooses his words, to read…), where the musician is going to reuse for a short time, the plastic bricks as “transitional objects”, replacing the mallets, so dear to the classical percussionist, replaying the second musical phrase (with an insert of the septuolet of the first musical phrase), progressively slowing down until the end.

The playing areas are totally free (except when indicated, e.g. bar 45) and this music is a space of freedom for the musician who wishes to seize it and make it his own.

Duration: about 7 minutes