A Matter of Joy (Where Parallels Meet...): Circuits parallèles, by Nicolas Gilbert
While listening to Circuits parallèles by the Montreal-based composer Nicolas Gilbert, a superficial evaluation might linger on the rather conventional instrumental writing, far from any use of extended techniques. But the piece throws the listener into a very rich formal adventure, eliciting perception of clearly defined and reiterated elements, constantly recontextualized and renewed. Among compositional choices as eclectic as the language they generate, the twelve-tone row makes a profound imprint, and some related numerical and distributional techniques maintain this metathematism in a fertile tension between strictness on the one hand, and remarkable expressiveness, playfulness and dramatic strength, on the other.