French musician Valentin Clastrier (born 1947) is one of the few performers in the world specializing in contemporary music for the hurdy-gurdy; before Clastrier, the instrument was used primarily in the performance of European Medieval and folk musics.
He began his career as a guitarist, and was introduced to the hurdy-gurdy in 1970. His instrument has 27 strings rather than the conventional six.
Clastrier’s strikingly original compositions for the instrument (in both acoustic and electroacoustic versions) have been recorded, in collaboration with other creative European musicians (including tubist and serpent player Michel Godard, accordionist Jean-Louis Matinier, saxophonist/clarinetists Michaël Riessler and Louis Sclavis, and percussionists Gérard Siracusa and Carlo Rizzo).
from the liner notes by Valentin Clastrier
Heresy
My guiding purpose has been to make music inspired by the heresy of the Cathars, and which would allow every possible shift in time, place and language.
By coincidence the wheel vielle (hurdy gurdie) appeared at the same time as the Cathar heresy in Occitana, in about the year one thousand.
Accordingly the vielle is omnipresent in this music, originally meant for it and enhanced by the timbres offered by the musicians.
With its archaic and modern features, its gusty shriek, its boundless drone bowed out from a raw wound, is not the vielle itself a heresy?
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1 comment:
Thank you. :)
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