Etienne Hendrickx Saxifrage - Printed version

Printed Version

Saxifrage

Alto Saxophone  and electronic background

Duration 8'

Saxifrages (from the Latin saxum, stone; frango, I break) are herbaceous perennials that grow in the cracks of old walls and, according to Victor Hugo, "love to gnaw the cement and dig their nails into the joints of stones" until they break the rock. This flower can be seen as a symbol of nature regaining its rights. Victor Hugo also sees it as an allegory of poetry, which feeds on the aridity of reality - shadow, misery and suffering - to grow.

The electronic tape suggests here a desolate landscape, crossed by distant vestiges of the thermo-industrial civilization. The saxophone proposes several thematic cells, which will try to develop in this hostile environment: some will be blocked in their progression; others, on the opposite, will circumvent the obstacles, will rush in the faults and will proliferate until making burst the mass of the reality.