Bells Works
Music for five bells — Royal Abbey of FontevraudBronze is a set of four pieces of music composed with the five bells in the garden of Fontevraud Abbey.
Using a mechanical system, they are played at precise times and for four different listening points: 11 am on the path; 1 pm at the well; 3 pm on the plateau; 5 pm at the bedside. In this work, it is the listening location that determines the composition. Each location has been chosen for its acoustic specificities, and modifies the perception of rhythms, space and the timbre of the bells. More than just the bells, the entire garden is an instrument: the geographical position, the slope, the walls and their echoes are all elements that shape the sound. In this environment, music becomes sculptural, material, and engages a physicality of listening. Here, architecture is a palace of mirrors, where what makes for cacophony in one place makes for balance and synchronicity in another. In this game of mirrors, the music follows the principle of anamorphosis, revealing itself only in the right place at the right time.
The ritual of bell-ringing once acted as a calling signal with a precise function: to bring together individuals dispersed in space and time, in the same listening posture. This work revives the tradition and gives the abbey a clock of its own.
