Jean-Baptiste Robin (1976-)
"Crop Circles", pour orchestre
"Tic-Tac", pour violon et piano
"Zenith", pour 2 hautois et orchestre à cordes
"Poèmes de l'aube et de la nuit", pour mezzo-soprano et piano
"Trois nuits", pour 2 violoncelles
"La lame des heures", pour orchestre

Delphine Haidan, mezzo-soprano
Sarah Nemtanu, violon
Romain Descharmes, piano
Victor Julien-Laferrière, violoncelle
François Salque, violoncelle
Orchestre des Pays de Savoie
Nicolas Chalvin, direction
Orchestre National de France
Jean Deroyer, direction
Marin Alsop, direction

Avec Time Circle, un album qui rassemble pièces pour orchestre et pour effectif plus resserré (violoncelles, piano et violon ou voix…), Jean-Baptiste Robin (1976-), qui enseigne l’orgue et la composition au Conservatoire de Versailles, présente une musique sensible (Crop Circles, pour orchestre), souvent expressive (Poèmes de l'aube et de la nuit, pour mezzo-soprano et piano), qui, si elle ne bouscule pas l’auditeur, se fraie un chemin vers une caractérisation propre (Trois nuits, pour deux violoncelles). Parfois plus virulente dans ses morceaux pour orchestre, l’écriture porte une attention spécifique au temps : le titre du disque en atteste, elle est évidente dans #Tictac, et rythme l’essentiel de la pièce dans La lame des heures, au long de laquelle s’écoule un goutte-à-goutte qui marque le temps avec ce qu’il faut d’obsession, dans une structure formelle similaire à celle de Crop Circles, et s’appuyant sur les éléments caractéristiques du langage du compositeur (modes symétriques – dits « réfléchissants » –, mélodies circulaires…) – « le temps [est] une lame qui blesse, laisse des cicatrices, ne s’arrête[…] jamais. » (Bernard Vincken)

There is a prevailing theme at the heart of Jean- Baptiste Robin’s work, one from which this album draws its name (Time Circles) and can only be translated by the language of sounds: that of time moving inexorably forward, gradually altering beings and things in its path, on into death and oblivion. This recording focuses on Robin’s more recent output. (2012–2020). The title of the first piece, Crop Circles (2012), refers to the man-made, symmetrical, geometric shapes found in crop fields. The slow introduction reveals two motifs: the first based on a symmetrical mode with a swirling melody, symbolising the geometrical designs of the Crop Circles in question; the second introduces the human element into this seminatural, semi-artificial world. In the Allegro, ‘the initial swirling becomes a whirlwind’ (J. B. Robin), then in the slow central section the second theme appears on the solo violin, evoking man at the centre of nature (the eye of the storm or the centre of the circle…). #Tictac (2019) was a commission from the Versailles Grand-Parc communauté de communes. This sonatina in five movements varies the tempi, rhythms and melodies, but is based throughout on the unrelenting movement of a pendulum. The opening tick-tock introduces the dominant motif, beginning the process of metamorphosis which develops throughout the movements. Following the example of Crop Circles, Zénith (2020) brings together man and passing time through two juxtaposing or overlaying themes. A first section introduces the pizzicato tick-tock of time, then later the human theme appears alone and rises to an intense lyricism. A brief coda on the tick-tock: the struggle between man and time inevitably ends in the latter’s victory. The theme of passing time is placed in a nocturnal setting in the three Poèmes de l'aube et de la nuit (Poems of the Dawn and the Night), wherein the unfolding of the night is ever perceived more slowly than the day. As such, there are no fast movements in these three poems, but instead alternating recitative sections and lyrical passages. The A-B-A' structure of the two first poems gives way to a through- composed structure in the third, which ends the piece with a piano postlude. Commissioned in 2014, Trois Nuits includes three movements and pays tribute to French composer Dutilleux. From the choreographic first movement to the recurring lament-like theme, the final increase of tempo leads the work to its infernal conclusion. Much of La lame des heures (2019) is punctuated by the symbolic tick-tock: ‘Dark, mischievous, illtempered, heroic, the tick-tock takes on different characters and gradually appears as a blade that wounds, leaves scars, that never ceases.’ (J. B. Robin). The near-constant dramatic tension of the piece is reminiscent of Crop Circles, and the final section culminates in the beating of twenty-four dissonant chords, symbolising the implacable cycle of the hours.