Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Triangle carré, for string quartet and percussion trio (1989)
Arditti String Quartet
Trio Le Cercle
1er Mouvement
2d Mouvement [5:34]
3e Mouvement [9:05]
Yes, it was my idea to create this unconventional combination. It brings together two opposing traditions: I wanted to create a kind of orchestra from nowhere, and I was interested to see what possibilities for unity or conflict would arise. I don't know if the piece is good, but I think it's a good idea: the differences in behavior between each group are very interesting!
It's about pushing the boundaries of two or three opposing ideas to see how interesting their friction is. For example, the combination of a string quartet and a more or less folk-influenced percussion trio, playing instruments from all over the world, singing, shouting, has to create friction: otherwise, I've wasted my time. I want to hear that friction, not a pretty piece of chamber music.
I ask the performers, according to my needs, what is possible and what isn't. There are problems that don't arise when working with abstract data, but which appear with physical data: for example, the fact that sounds are "forte" or "piano," or that they all fall together in a certain way, requires that they appear within a process of dramatization. When events are no longer governed by an abstract framework, or by chance, but when one senses a body that breathes and lives, there is a dramatization. My concern is that it not be the kind found in the nineteenth century! --Georges Aperghis
Art by Clive Head
Triangle carré, for string quartet and percussion trio (1989)
Arditti String Quartet
Trio Le Cercle
1er Mouvement
2d Mouvement [5:34]
3e Mouvement [9:05]
Yes, it was my idea to create this unconventional combination. It brings together two opposing traditions: I wanted to create a kind of orchestra from nowhere, and I was interested to see what possibilities for unity or conflict would arise. I don't know if the piece is good, but I think it's a good idea: the differences in behavior between each group are very interesting!
It's about pushing the boundaries of two or three opposing ideas to see how interesting their friction is. For example, the combination of a string quartet and a more or less folk-influenced percussion trio, playing instruments from all over the world, singing, shouting, has to create friction: otherwise, I've wasted my time. I want to hear that friction, not a pretty piece of chamber music.
I ask the performers, according to my needs, what is possible and what isn't. There are problems that don't arise when working with abstract data, but which appear with physical data: for example, the fact that sounds are "forte" or "piano," or that they all fall together in a certain way, requires that they appear within a process of dramatization. When events are no longer governed by an abstract framework, or by chance, but when one senses a body that breathes and lives, there is a dramatization. My concern is that it not be the kind found in the nineteenth century! --Georges Aperghis
Art by Clive Head
