Le Cimetière Marin

“Le cimetière marin” is a recital and orchestral piece based on a 16-minute poem by Paul Valéry. It was written in 1995 and debuted the same year in Montecarlo. It was performed in 1996 at the Palau de la Música Catalana by the City of Barcelona Orchestra and the National Orchestra of Catalonia, and was directed by Lawrence Foster.

Prince Rainier III of Monaco commissioned the piece to the composer for the celebration of his father’s one hundredth birthday. It was to be based on the poem by Paul Valéry, which was one of the prince’s father’s favourites.

The idea of celebrating a birthday by meditating on death highly attracted the composer who composed the piece based on a recital. He ruled out using singing voice or the introverted meditation of a choir in order to fully keep the text in its own rhythm (recited), where words reigned over an orchestral mass that would illuminate, expand on and focus on the recital in order to open the way for the mind, senses and heart of the audience.

The composer preserves parallelisms between the metric of the poem and its mathematics, in line with the circle of fifths and “Diabolus in musicae”.