is constructed around the idea of “saturation.” The saturation of colours, pitches and events or musical gestures plays a crucial role. The allusion in the title to a technique of fine art is to be found at several levels: different instrumentation textures (always full and compact colours), a kind of musical “dripping,” and instrumental drawing or gestures of musicians are an integral part of the composition.
As the first of my works to generalise the principle of instrumental “saturation,” Action Painting shows playing techniques that are developed further in my following works: the use of distorted sounds in the strings, multiphonics in the woodwind and brass, use of oboe and clarinet mouthpieces by brass instruments, and so forth. The work is dedicated to Nouvel Ensemble Moderne.

Raphaël Cendo