Memory is life’s best editor.
It has been some time since we have been treated to a new work by American composer, poet, software programmer, and experimental multimedia artist Akira Rabelais whose works are beguiling, beautiful, and here, on À la recherche du temps perdu, blur the line between now and then.
From the liner notes:
The focus of the set covers the time period and culture around Proust’s ‘À la recherche du temps perdu’ novels, and attempts to unravel his fascination with the illusive qualities of memory – most famously identified in his notion of “Proust’s madelaines”, outlined in the eponymous novels that inspired this release. Taking fifty-one works by Bartók, Bellini, Berg, Brahms, Caccini, Chausson, Chopin, Debussy, Delibes, Donizetti, Franck, Hahn, Jungmann, Lully, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Satie, Schoenberg, Schubert, Schumann, Scriabin, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Wagner, and Weber, Rabelais uses his Argeïphontes Lyre software, as well as specially commissioned new recordings (Bartók’s String Quartet No. 2 was recorded specifically for this album at half speed with minimal dynamics) to play with our perception of time via a prism of distortions and subliminal refractions.
The set comes in at about 5 hours which I plan to live through, moment to moment, when I return home.
