Pour que les fruits mûrissent cet été (In Order That the Fruits Will Ripen This Summer) is a composition by the Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts, for seven musicians playing fourteen Renaissance instruments. It was composed either in 1975 or 1976. A second version for modern instruments was made in 1988.
Contents
History
Pour que les fruits mûrissent cet été was written for the seven musicians of the Florilegium Musicum of Paris (Jean-Claude Malgoire, Jean-Claude Veilhan, Jean-Marie Nicolas, Françoise Bloch, Monique Bouret, Jacques Prat, and Jacques Bidart), each of whom is capable of performing on a number of different instruments. Goeyvaerts chose fourteen instruments for his composition: positive organ, lute, soprano shawm, bombarde (tenor shawm), two crumhorns, hautbois de Poitou, rackett, two recorders, discant fiddle, viola da gamba, baroque violin, and rebec (Beirens 2003, 220; Knockaert 2000). The year of composition is given variously as 1975 (Delaere 2001; Lysens and Volborth-Danys 1994, 23) and 1976 (Beirens 2003, 216; Knockaert 2000). In 1988, Goeyvaerts made a new version under the Dutch translation of the title, Voor het rijpen van de zomervruchten, for a chamber ensemble of eleven instruments (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, harp, violin, viola, and cello) (Lysens and Volborth-Danys 1994, 27).
Analysis
In 1975, Goeyvaerts began working with a personal interpretation of minimalism. Pour que les fruits is one of the earliest pieces composed in this new style, which the composer described as "evolving repetitive technique". A rhythmic cell within a fixed time-span is repeated and a new element added with every repetition. Once the cell is complete, it starts gradually to disintegrate (Delaere 2001). Goeyvaerts's minimalism of the later 1970s and 1980s, like that of most other European minimalists, uses a fully chromatic language, but Pour que les fruits is, like most American minimalism, diatonic. Goeyvaerts's choice in this case is undoubtedly conditioned by the instruments, which were designed to produce diatonic scales. A chromatic tonal language is consequently against their nature (Beirens 2003, 217).
Although the work presents itself as a continuous process, all in a unifying tempo of = 120 and constant 3/4 meter, it nevertheless is divided into five large sections, seamlessly connected without any breaks, but marked in the score as sections A through E (Beirens 2003, 218).