composer
Olivier Greif was born in Paris on January 3rd, 1950. His father had studied piano in Poland before moving to France and becoming a doctor. A precocious child, Olivier discovered ...
related works
Three Poems of Li T'ai Po : Piano sonata N°18 / Olivier Greif
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
Piano
Scoring:
pf
Strange meeting : for baritone and piano, 1952 / (poem by Wilfred Owen), Rudolf Escher
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice and piano
Scoring:
bar pf
6 liederen : hoge- of middenstem en piano, 1978 / muziek: Wim de Ruiter, gedichten: C. Buddingh'
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice and piano; Vocal Ensemble (2-12)
Scoring:
high/medium pf ; 2voices
7 liederen voor hoge stem : (zang en piano), 1943 / (Guido Gezelle), Henk Bijvanck
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice and piano
Scoring:
high pf
composition
Les Trottoirs de Paris : for soprano, tenor and piano / Olivier Greif
Description:
The work, Les Trottoirs de Paris was written in October 1996 on a text by Yves Petit de Voize. This poem, originally conceived to serve as a literary counterpoint to an exhibition of photographs devoted to Paris at night, describes the nocturnal wandering of a walker through different parts of the capital, with their respective activities. At dawn - "at the hour when no train arrives or leaves" - the walker returns home to sleep. That is when the bugle of the military school suddenly sounds...
This melody uses a double musical sign, seemingly antithetical. On one hand, a waltz rhythm flirting with the Musette and Java, and on the other a reminder of one of Haendel’s harmonic marches. The work seems to rise gradually from the depths of the night. At the end of an inexorable crescendo, it will return there, vanishing into a silence filled with unsanswered questions and desolation.
Haridas Greif, November 13, 1996
(Translation: Anne-Elise Thouvenin and Lavanya Ghose Muller)