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Francis Ponge used observation as a powerful poetic trigger; a squared observation so to speak, analyzing with both empathy and distance the writing process itself, as it unfolds – Poetry as Action. Thanks to this new vision of writing, often playful, never complacent, Ponge – who aimed for persuasion rather than seduction and declared that he used poetic “magma” only in order to better get rid of it – was able to find an objective angle that gave a critical edge, a vibrant sharpness to the simplest of his observations.

The titles and sub-titles of these six miniatures for viola, written for Gérard Caussé, are borrowed from works selected among various types and periods; the generic title, 'My Creative Method', designates an Ars Poetica of sorts. The music of these pieces follows the “Ponge-ian” method of self-observation, as it weaves its multiple strands, intertwining distanced or off-centered figures, building up with bricks of language that are intentionally simplified: false rhetoric in the prelude; imaginary folklore in 'Naïve Resources' (“rather nothing than too little”), where the viola seeks to imitate panpipes; a well-tempered cavalcade introducing “Thought as a Grimace”; mechanical neutrality in the eight short Metatechnical fragments; the virtuosity of a rush of air in Counterclockwise Courante, or the sound of a glass harmonica in 'Last Simplicity', inspired by a text in which Ponge soberly describes his grandmother's apartment at the end of her life. In the spirit of early music suites (which Ponge was fond of), these pieces alternate slow and fast movements, alluding with their stubborn tempi and sarcastic ways to the “unrepentant bransle of our folly” cited by Ponge in his 'Sarabande de la toile ourdie' (Saraband of canvassed conspiracy).

Francis Ponge, as he explains the word momon (mummery performed by masked dancers), comes to the conclusion that “one should thus be able to give this name to any work of art containing its own caricature, or in which the author might ridicule his own means of expression.” Ponge went very far in the task of creating critical distance with artistic means, thus transforming each nuance of his skepticism into pure (or impure) poetry – These six short pieces for viola endeavor to remember this.

[Gérard Pesson]

• Premiered on 26 November 2014 during 'Accrochages en Sorbonne' – Paris, by Gérard Caussé
• Dedicated to Gérard Caussé

Gérard Pesson's music is a radiography of musical gestures and rhythms, which he scrutinises with a fascinatingly refined evocative power. Within his music, the quest for the marvelous stirs up a surge of the mind, striking like a sound fit of involuntary memory.
– Ramón Lazkano

Find the complete works, dating from 2014 to future pieces, at Maison ONA.