Perspectives for the 22nd Century

by Jean-Jacques Birgé

File prepared by Jean-Jacques Birgé and Madeleine Leclair

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From dystopia to utopia

“The idea was to compose a work based on the International Archives of Folk Music (IAFM), and more precisely the collection of recordings gathered by Constantin Brăiloiu, the first anthological reference of traditional music.
I wrote a little scenario of anticipation where the survivors of the disaster, in 2152, live on the ruins of the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva! They decide to reconstruct themselves from the archives discovered on site. Dystopia becomes utopia.
So I spent my time attempting to ‘muddy the waters’ adding my sounds (music and phonography) to the archives of the 1930s-1950s, mixing acoustic instruments (mine and those of my guests) with virtual ones, preserving the integrity of the archives as much as possible, while inventing a ‘modern’ vision. If the ensemble is fundamentally musical, it obeys a logic of radio evocation, a kind of Hörspiel, while being inspired by the tradition of symphonic poems.
Like Brăiloiu, I considered music in its functionality before its geography.
If each piece obviously obeys a different logic, I have favoured unity, thanks to fiction and mixing, in the midst of this variety that makes up the world. In these times of questioning about the future of the planet and humanity, the dedication to C.F. Ramuz and Vercors seemed obvious to me.’’

Jean-Jacques Birgé

Interview with Jean-Jacques Birgé

Musical instruments and instrumentalists

Idiophones from the MEG collections

The scenario of Perspectives for the 22nd Century goes that among the early recordings gathered by Constantin Brăiloiu, the survivors of the disaster of 2152 also found in the ruins of the MEG a few small musical instruments that were once kept in the storage rooms of the museum. These are small cymbals from Thailand and bowl-bells from Japan and China. In order to integrate them into its composition, Jean-Jacques Birgé himself played them during a recording session which took place on January 24th 2020 in the MEG restoration workshop.

One can hear these instruments in the pieces «Éternelle» and «Gwerz de l’âme juste».

Ching cymbals from Thailand (ETHMU 038641)

Châp yai cymbals from Thailand (ETHMU 038644)

Kin bowl-bell from Japan (ETHMU K001816) and bowl-bell from China (ETHMU K002347)

The musicians who took part in the album

Jean-Jacques Birgé

From 1995, he became one of the most well-known sound designers in multimedia and the specialist in interactive musical composition, seeking to deepen the effects of meaning and to develop an ever wider range of emotions. As part of his work on major exhibitions, he recently worked at the Louvre Museum, the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, the Grand Palais, the Pantheon, the Palais de Tokyo, the ZKM...

In addition to about forty LPs and CDs, his website drame.org offers 82 unreleaed albums (157 hours!) free to listen and download.

His best-known works are the LP Defense de by Birgé-Gorgé-Shiroc (Nurse With Wound List), the short film The sniper, the CD-Rom Alphabet (with M.Lefèvre and F.Durieu), the opera for 100 connected rabbits Nabaz'mob (with A.Schmitt), the CD The 100th Anniversary and his French daily blog that he has been keeping for 15 years now.

Jean-François Vrod, violon

Antonin-Tri Hoang, clarinette basse

Nicolas Chedmail, cuivres

Sylvain Lemêtre, percussions

The Clips

Jean-Jacques Birgé asked several film directors to create videos based on the pieces on the CD, inspired by the libretto of his hörspiel. They arranged their images as the composer had done with the sound archives. Sonia Cruchon, Eric Vernhes, Nicolas Clauss, John Sanborn, Valéry Faidherbe, Jean-Jacques Birgé himself have thus let their imagination question the passage from our past to the future, a great gap in an unstable balance between dystopia and utopia. In a second step, the videos will be gathered together to make a film telling the adventure of the survivors of 2152, in a new form that will follow its own logic.

Éternelle
Film produced by Nicolas Clauss
It has been found again. What? Eternity. It's the sea going into the sun.

De vallées en vallées
Film produced by Eric Vemhes
Paracelsus: "I bring you plague. I'm not afraid of anything. I've already got it." Running wild under the stars...

Berceuse ionique
Film produced by Sonia Cruchon
Birth and rebirth. The silhouettes of the past inhabit the colourful shadows...

Ensemble Ratatam
Film produced by John Sanborn
Time runs out and collapses, so the masks will not fall off, the hive will save us if we protect it and the bodies will draw hypnotic flowers, but if the doves are clear the questions remain unanswered...

MEG Sound Archive integrated to Perspectives for the 22nd Century

Lists of pieces from The World Collection of Folk Music that are included in the work and that can be listened to on the MEG website :

• Walloons (Belgium). Dance of the ‘Gilles de Binche’. Drums, bells, 1950 (CD4 :18)
• Haussas (Niger Territory). Drums accompanying a wrestling display in Tahoua, 1948 (CD1 : 2)
• Tuaregs (Tahoua region). Program music: attack of a herd. Reed flute, 1948 (CD1 : 5)
• Ethiopians (Kemant and Amharas). Amhara declamation of war theme. Man’s voice, 1950 (CD1 : 16)
• Basques (French Basque country). Sword dance. Flutes and drums, 1952 (CD3 : 24)
• German Swiss. Alpsegen (Alp blessing). Alp horn. Canton of Schwyz, 1942 (CD4 : 26)
• German Swiss. Alpenfahrt (Going up to the alp). Canton of Appenzell, Wasserauen, 1942 (CD4 : 27)
• Fulahs (Niger territory). Flutes duet played within a mortar, 1949 (CD1 : 11)
• Norwegians. Dance (halling). Jew’s harp. Setesdal, 1938 (CD4 : 46)
• Turks (Central Anatolia). Program Music : The story of the black ewe. Flute without mouthpiece (kaval), 1938 (CD1 : 29)
• Estonians. Dance. Jew’s harp, 1938-1939 (CD4 : 52)
• Basques (French Basque country). Mountain dweller cries. Women’s voices, 1952 (CD3 : 23)
• Gaels (Hebrides : Isle of Barra). Work song (tweed weaving) : "Di Sathuirne ghabhmi mulad" (Saturday I was sad). Women’s voices, 1938 (CD4 : 10)
• Georgians. Dance song. Men’s choir. Western Georgia (CD2 : 3)
• Macedonia Serbians (Skoplje region). Navvy song. Men’s choir and two flutes (supilki), 1951 (CD2 : 26)
• Georgians. Farm work song. Solo and men’s choir. Eastern Giorgia (CD2 : 2)
• Caribou Eskimos (Hudson Bay). Magic incantation for seal-hunt, 1938 (CD4 : 56)
• Africans. Republic of Congo, Ouesso region. Yeli, magical elephant hunting song. Women’s solo and choir. Babinga Bangombé Pygmies. Pygmy camp near Gandicolo village, 1946 (CD1 : 18)
• Basques (French Basque country). Scenes of improvisation contest. Men’s voice, 1952 (CD3 : 22)
• Bretons. Song : "Gwerz of the just soul". Man’s voice. Léon, 1952 (CD3 : 14)
• Romanians (Old Romania). Dance song (sirba). Woman’s voice, guitar, two violins, bass. Oltenia, Gorj region, 1939 (CD2 : 17)
• Takasago Formosans. Ritual song for millet-sowing: "Passipot-pot". Men’s choir. Bunun tribe, 1943 (CD1 : 39)
• Kabyles (At Yänni tribe, Djurdjura Kabylia). Dance tune (in summer after the harvest on the threshing grounds). Flute (ajuaq) and frame drum (abandir), 1952 (CD1 : 28)
• Japanese. Afternoon ritual song of rice-planting : "Tave-Uta". Men’s voice. Gumma district (CD1 : 35)
• Bulgarians (Sofia region). Program music: "The lost herd". Shepherd flageolet (CD2 : 22) ;
• Fulahs (Niger territory). Calls to the herd, 1948-1949 (CD1 : 9)
• Greek (Asia Minor). Lullaby. Woman’s voice. Ionia, 1930 (CD2 : 31)
• Africans (Ivory Coast). Song for entertainment. Men’s choir and dyulu forked harp, struck bottles, 1952 (CD1 : 20)
• French (Berry). Two Bourrées (hurdy-gurdy), 1948 (CD3 : 12 and 13)
• Germans. March. Flutes and drums. Swabia, 1930 (CD4 : 30)
• Asturians. Cowherd’s song : vaqueirada. Man’s voice, tambourine (pandeiro). Luarca region, 1952 (CD3 : 32)

Listening on SoundCloud

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Berceuse ionique (extrait plage 15)

Track list

Total duration : 58’25