Trois Préludes (1973–88)

D’ombre et de silence

Sur un même accord

Le jeu des contraires

Considering that he has long been married to Geneviève Joy, one of the leading French pianists of her day, Dutilleux has written surprisingly little for the piano. He dedicated his superb Piano Sonata to her in 1948, when she gave the first performance, but since then – unlike his late contemporary Olivier Messiaen, whose marriage to Yvonne Loriod inspired a series of major piano works – he has preferred to concentrate on orchestral music. There are a few minor items but, apart from the Sonata, the only other solo-piano score of any significance is the Trois Préludes, and even that is not so much a unified concept as a compilation of three pieces written years apart – in 1973, 1977 and 1988 respectively.

However, in agreeing to their publication in 1994 the composer must have concluded that the effect of each piece is enhanced by the presence of the others. Certainly, they are well contrasted and, in that the latest and longest (7 or 8 minutes) comes last, they make an interesting shape.

The shortest and earliest, D’ombre et de silence (Of shadow and silence), is a study in nocturnal sonority, somewhat impressionist perhaps in its use of pedal effects but with its own highly concentrated harmonic material and as much eloquence in silences as in the melodic lines that emerge towards the end. Only slightly longer, Sur un même accord (On one chord) is not the dry experiment the title might suggest. While a four-note chord (G, B, F sharp, B flat) is its harmonic basis, it does admit other notes which work their way, more or less discreetly, into linear episodes between the chordal passages, a D sharp being particularly successful. Resourecefully scored and precisely scored for the piano though the first two Préludes are, the most challenging and most brilliantly effective is the last, Le jeu des contraires (The game of opposites), which was written for the William Kapell piano competition in Maryland. It is a study in two kinds of opposites. On one level, it is constructed by means of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic palindromes and mirror images, apparently turning back on itself after a short silence in the middle. On another level, it is a game of opposites for the two hands, which sometimes run together but which are more likely to fan out in different directions on the keyboard or occupy extreme positions, as in its gently rumbling and glittering ending.