Jean Balissat

Promenade avec J.J. Rousseau

Promenade avec Jean-Jacques Rousseau plays with excerpts of the Devin du Village (1752), instrumented, arranged and composed for strings. This work has been commissioned by the Christiane and Jean Hennberger Foundation and had his first performance June 5th, 2000 in Geneva (Switzerland) by the Soloists of Geneva (String-Sextet). The present version for string ensemble was written by the composer in 2005. That version has been recorded by the Chamber Orchestra Arpeggione of Hohenems, conducted by Jean-François Antonioli (Gallo-1199).
Jean Balissat wrote following notes to his work:
Played for the king, in Fontainebleau in 1752, Le Devin du Village [The Diviner of the Village] gained a considerable success and maintained for more than a half-a-century Jean-Jacques Rousseau's reputation as a composer. It is a pleasant lyrical pastorale which charm essentially relates to the melodic invention. Inspired in the same manner Stravinsky treated Pergolese's music in his Pulcinella, I concieved the Promenade for string sextet, using eight fragments of the Devin du Village, always quoted in their original key. One can distinguish five brief parts which are mostly linked together in the following way:
1. Ouverture with the addition of some imitations and, within the reapeat, an alternating binary-ternary metric game.
2. Lento on the rhythm of the Sicilienne, added with some chromatic sound-drawings in counterpoint.
3. Menuet with trio merging three different moments of the Devin.
4. Passacaille. Here Rousseau's part is limited to the first four bars. Then only the bass line remains on which I have composed 9 variations (in the 4 last ones, the theme is in augmentation).
5. As in the original score, the Promenade ends with the famous round dance 'Allons danser sous les ormeaux', newly instrumented and ornamente by some light counterpoints.
Jean Balissat