Pierre Henry (1927-2017)
Dracula, ou la musique troue le ciel (2002)
Arrangement for amplified orchestra & headphones orchestra written by Augustin Muller and Othman Louati (2017)

Dracula is a monumental fresco in 8 episodes, merging excerpts of Wagner’s music and electronic music, is conceived as a “film without images”.

In its original version, this fusion is created by the musical mean and by the medium itself : pre-recorded tapes are broadcasted by loudspeakers. Their apparition is caused by the movement of the interpreter on the mixing console. Le Balcon presents here a different version, with instrumental ensemble and electronics.

Radical in his appetite of sounds and musical discoveries, Pierry Henry was a pioneer of electronic music but also of the “delicious bite of works” leading to popularization of sampling, remix and extended mix.

With Dracula ou la musique troue le ciel, Pierre Henry applied this metamorphosis on Wagner’s Tetralogy, transforming the Wagnerian mountain in a film without images, full of sighs, fires, fury and lust. With this project, a new aspect of spatialization is explored through this masterpiece created by Pierre Henry.