Nicolas Bucher - Le chant de la mine (2019)

In May 1956, Valenciennes had the first stage of the scenic creation of the Chant de la Mine, oratorio for choir, soli, narrator and orchestra, considerable work due to the collaboration of MM. Eugène Bozza and José Bruyr.

A kind of "generic" musically exposed from the beginning of the book warns us that they both created "one with words, the other with sounds". Close collaboration because the music comes out of the text without any contradiction, without any clash. Everything stands, everything is linked in the work that draws from this cohesion a convincing expressive force.

It required a musician as sure of his profession as Mr. Eugene Bozza, Grand Prix of Rome and knight of the Legion of Honor, not to retreat from such a heavy task. It is true that Mr. José Bruyr brought him a dramatically dramatic and well-balanced scenario, in-depth description - this is the case here - of the life of the minor. Difficult task that his also because it had, as much as the musician, to deviate from banality if not vulgarity, and yet to make true, then avoid the monotony that can result from an action narrowly circumscribed by the mine and in reality , developing an abstraction represented by a sequence of images.

The plan is simple: the oratorio recapitulates the day of the minor. But before a short introduction, made of the credits already mentioned then of a symphonic prelude, leaves the word to the reciter which evokes the slow work accomplished by the nature during the millennia, the transformation of a bushy forest, immense trees and excessive ferns becoming the black wealth, the coal mine from which today's men draw the sources of light and warmth necessary for their lives. We hear the clatter of metal peaks, the sound of hammers and the panting of machines ... And death omnipresent.

Without complacency the music remains the faithful translator of the libretto, and the Chant de la Mine is one of the best contemporary oratorios of the French school.