This work, commissioned by the Paris Conservatoire as a competition piece for instrumentalists, holds a special, perhaps precursory place in the work of André Jolivet. The aesthetic is situated within the general trajectory of Jolivet’s work that began after World War II: a synthesis of a magical, incantatory style still under the direct influence of Varese’s work of the 1930s and an attempt to create a more easily accessible music brought about by the war years. Introduction and performing note