Lebensfuge, a written improvisation, traces an imaginary escape, a way out of oneself, out of inner lock-up: Obscurity… prison life, the cell, the sentence, the sunless days, interior movement, a voluntary gesture to break the cycle of time without landmarks, Escape… from thoughts imposed from outside, from constraints that have become interior, from the image we have of ourselves, Awareness… of the choices we can still make, lucidity, detachment, painful freedom, since it is only interior, but nonetheless the bearer of hope.

(N.B. The title was inspired by Paul Celan’s poem Todesfuge)

Recordings, audio extracts: CD “Clairvaux, Or les murs …”, label Aeon AECD 1092, distribution Harmonia Mundi. On the piano, François-René Duchâble and Thierry Machuel
Filmmaker Julien Sallé has created a video about this musical work.