Xavier Dayer

Mémoire, cercles

In book X of his confessions, St. Augustin wrote: 'in the mechanisms of recollection, if oblivion were indeed total, reminiscence would be impossible. The piece 'Mémoire, cercles' [memory, circles] is a meditation over that old question. A melodic line, functioning in the form of a 'cantus firmus' buried within the musical texture of the quartet, appears only in altered, ornamented, or otherwise modified form, with the musical sentence itself being obfuscated by the melodic and harmonic textures, reflecting the subtle manner with which human memory functions when interacting with oblivion. On another level, the work imposes a circular musical form that revolves in perpetuity on its axis in a movement similar to an endless quest for a lost recollection. Among these 'circles' I have composed sections offering a soloistic role for each instrument, which include shimmers of sound reminiscent of those epiphanic moments when the human consciousness discerns a particular recollection in its struggle against oblivion. Xavier Dayer, March 2011, Bern, Switzerland First performance: May 9 2011, Gare du Nord, Basle, Switzerland Swiss Chamber Soloists Heinz Holliger, oboe Esther Hoppe, violon Jürg Dähler, viola Daniel Haefliger, violoncello