Troubadours

Description

In Troubadours, the idea was not to be historically accurate but rather to embody an imaginative ambition of what poetic music could be today, supported by extremely simple instrumentation: two wind instruments, a drone, and some percussion. Sylvain Rifflet drew inspiration from recordings of medieval secular music (often by unknown authors). "I have never made a 'modal' record, and I wanted to embark on this adventure while ensuring I stayed as far away as possible from the clichés of the saxophonist venturing into modal music. In this case, the reference to Coltrane is quite complex to avoid. By turning towards a hybrid sound: modal music and Indian drones, I had broader and more interesting musical possibilities for this project." Troubadours A troubadour (from the Occitan trobador: "finder," trobairitz in the feminine: "finderess") is a composer, poet, and medieval musician of the langue d'oc, who performed or had his poetic works performed by jongleurs or minstrels. Modal music: Early medieval monodic music was initially accompanied only by percussion or a drone. The phenomena of tension/release are truly the sources of modal music. This is expressed through playing in a mode (a series of notes), and the combination of these phenomena with the note played by the drone. This is the basic principle of Indian music, in a very straightforward manner.