Escaich - Vers l'espérance

I recently discovered a fantastic new piece of music by the living French composer Thierry Escaich. The piece is from his book of Poèmes pour orgue. There are three pieces in the collection and all are based off of the work Le pays perdu (The Lost Country) by Alain Suied. The third piece in the set is the one I'm going to talk about though, Vers l'espérance (Towards Hope) and it's based off of the following excerpt:

Qu'est-ce qui nous traque
et nous tord
et se joue de nous
derrière nos masques?
Qu'est-ce qui souffre
et se révolte
au fond de nous malgré nos rêves?
Qui es-tu, triste
matière silencieuse?
De quel parage du ciel
es-tu messagère
oublieuse, de quelle détresse
es-tu le gouffre indéchiffrable?
Qu-est-ce qui nous porte
et nous appelle
et nous élève au-dessus de nous
dans l'espérance?

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to come across a good translation of the poem. 

As for the piece itself it seems to be a hit or miss sort of thing with different people. Some love it and others hate it. I've been working on it for about a month now and it's nearly there. Though very technically challenging I've found it extremely rewarding and very satisfying to play. Having listened to a number of Escaich's improvisations on YouTube I feel like this piece sounds very much like his improvisations.

Almost the entire piece is series of fast, dissonant chords with odd but satisfying rhythms, mostly 3+3+2. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who wants an interesting and modern piece to close a program with. I'll be using it myself as the final piece in a recital I am playing in October. I must finish it first though! The section that is giving me the most trouble is about halfway through where I have to play a fast triplet figure in the right hand against duplet chords in the left hand. It would be fine at a slower tempo, but the tempo marking is a dotted quarter = 132! Between that and figuring out some of the pedaling has been the biggest challenge for me because some pedal passages span the entire length of the pedalboard in about two measures. So it's been quite the experience learning this piece.


Here is just the first page, click on it to enlarge it. And trust me, this first page may be easy, but it gets worse as the piece goes on.

The only downside to the piece (apart from being very difficult) is that it's a fairly expensive score, which is typical for any French publisher anymore. It's only published by Gérard Billaudot and at 32 pages of music goes for approximately $30. However, if you are into modern music and enjoy the piece, like myself, it's a well spent $30. Also just as a heads up, Vers l'espérance is probably the easiest in the collection. So don't expect to be able to get anything you can sightread through!

Below is my recording of the piece, though there is a much better one by Olivier Latry on CD. Enjoy!

Yours in Music,
Jim