13 Visions

13 Visions is the meeting of two composers separated by eight centuries: Hildegard von Bingen and Pauline Oliveros. Clara Lévy recomposes Hildegard's medieval monodies in light of Pauline Oliveros' instructions recorded in the score of 13 Changes . She offers a sober harmonization of these songs on the violin through a variety of playing modes and timbres that reveal their contemplative depth.

Can you describe the “13 Visions” project you are working on?

This project was born from the desire to bring together music that particularly touches me (medieval monody and minimalist music), through the works of two composers who had a great impact on my musical trajectory: Hildegarde Von Bingen (1098-1179) and Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016). I found this connection interesting because, in my opinion, their music shares common points such as the meditative dimension, the relationship to improvisation, the importance of the voice and a great proximity to Nature.

As I am a classically trained violinist but have more and more projects around improvisation, I was keen to explore through this project the capabilities and limits of musical notation. The score of " 13 visions " thus sets certain parameters: the pitches and timbral qualities are given, but there remains a lot of data that is determined at the time of performance such as the duration of each piece or the dynamics – everything that contributes to creating a "musical tension".

What are the different stages of writing a project like this?

I used Pauline Oliveros' score-text, Thirteen Changes, as the structure of the cycle. It consists of 13 poetic instructions that allowed me to define the sound universe and the timbral qualities applied to the violin for each of the pieces in the cycle. I then chose as many monodies (rather arbitrarily) by Hildegard Von Bingen that served as a melodic framework. Indeed, these songs never appear literally in the cycle, but rather appear "in negative." This was for the overall concept, then there were many tests and adjustments on the violin that I systematically recorded - before fixing anything on a score.