Avalanche, Op. 82
(1995)

In nineteen movements of varying lengths and moods, Denis Doufour’s monumental piano piece “Avalanche” invites us on a voyage across the infinite variation of the forms taken by snow, and the rich vocabulary established by the Innuits for it since their arrival on Greenland, the continent of ice. At work in this piece is a transposition, inspired by morphologies, of a certain kind of energy onto the relationships between the physical and musical realms. Thanks to his practice as a performer on analogue synthesizers, especially in the TM+ ensemble in the 80s, Denis Dufour developed this ability to see through our hearing, allowing him to distance himself from the reflexes of and dependence on preconceived clichés in sound phenomena. Denis Dufour is a craftsman of music, who, for the sake of a demanding and effusive finishing, invites us to immerse ourselves in the world of our own ears.

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Recording: Château de Jau/France, 1997 (first recording). Piano: Steinway lent by Delmas Musique (Perpignan).