Alessandro Perini – “Les Automates de Descartes. Concertino” (2015)
for string quartet

…when looking from a window and saying I see men who pass in the street,
I really do not see them, but infer that what I see is men (…).
And yet what do I see from the window but hats and coats
which may cover automatic machines?

René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, II

3rd string quartet, live at Festival “Wege der Wahrnehmung” • Südpol | Blackbox Kosmos, May 3rd 2024
Rather than a string quartet, this is a piece for solo cello with three more string players hidden elsewhere, and equipped with portable devices. The special arrangement in space makes it difficult to render in a recording. The piece is based on the acousmatic experience of listening where the source of sound is not always visible or imaginable.

“Les Automates de Descartes. Concertino” (2015) was originally commissioned for Quatuor Impact / Paris, initiated by Julia Robert. Around the piece, Impact created a full program of music/coreography/light performance with the support of La Muse en Circuit, the Royaumont Foundation, the Théâtre de Vanves, the Inter Arts Center in Malmö. In the fall of 2018, the full show of Les Automates de Descarteswas premiered at the Théâtre de Vanves. Lineup of the premiere:

• Szuhwa Wu & Irène Lecoq – violins
• Julia Robert – viola
• Anaïs Moreau – cello
• Or Katz – Stage direction, scenography & costumes
• Thomas Leblanc – Lighting design
• Mathilde Genas – Sound

The music constituting the full show:

• Alexandros Markéas – Obsessions
• Simon Steen-Andersen – Study for String Instrument #1
• Natacha Diels – Nightmare for Jack
• Alessandro Perini – Les Automates de Descartes
• Simon Løffler – B

(Image by Collectif Warn!ng / Quatuor Impact)