For 4-channel tape, voice, oscilloscope, commission of the Dutch Ministry of Culture, 19 & 14 min. versions

Having always been enthusiastic of text-sound poetry and its music partner, text-sound composition, the opportunity to work with Bernard Heidsieck was impossible to turn down. His œuvre is magnificent. After several discussions, we decided to focus on his Poème Partition A created in 1958. The back story of this poem score is that he met a cardiologist who was aware of what he was doing with words and utterances. The cardiologist offered him some records to borrow that student cardiologists listen to when studying the heart. Clearly there weren’t many recordings of healthy hearts. Heidsieck went on to compose a work focused on heart rhythms, healthy and otherwise, commencing with the ingenious repetition of ‘Qui bat’ (who’s knocking or beating). However, when the heart isn’t so healthy …

Mon cœur se recommande à vous is the title of a madrigal by Philippe de Vitry which appears twice in the work and means my heart offers itself to you. Heidsieck actually performed the work at the Bourges Festival but found sticking to time ‘prescribed’ through the 4-channel recording was difficult although he did very well. This recording is of the version the composer presented at Centre Pompidou and in many other venues in which he as a French as third language speaker may have missed some of the nuance of a Heidsieck rendition. At a later date, am abridged version was made for venues seeking shorter performances.

The full performance below has been reduced to stereo and its score follows below it on this page.

Its full score: