The idea of the double has pervaded my work for ten years now, taking on different forms. The theme appears in the labyrinth of mirrors in my opera La philosophie dans le labyrinthe and again in a theatre project, never completed, based on Dostoyevsky’s The Double. Finally we arrive at this Double, which is called so for various reasons. Here I use special instruments with a double bell, a trumpet and a horn, created by the musicians of the ensemble musikFabrik. These instruments allow the simultaneous use of different mutes, doubling the instrument and thus creating an intricate interplay of sonic planes. Then there is the idea of the reflection of the sound and its movement through space: a single repeated note like an ostinato in the violin is echoed by the other instruments, which mark out the direction of a path. For these “reverberations,” I also use two recorders and four slide whistles to underline the rift/distortion/dialogue between baroque and modern instruments, and instruments linked to the world of childhood games. Finally, the form of Double is almost a palindrome. The return is however once again deformed, cut, transfigured. The pizzicato on E on an open violin string reappears at the end like as a low ostinato on the double bass that ends the formal development of Double.

Aureliano Cattaneo