Traffic Quintet - Divine feminin (2011)

After a first, fruitful experience in the music of Nouvelle Vague films, the Traffic Quintet is now tackling the rhythmical and symphonic structures of composers who have been working – in many a film – with women who are mysterious, pernicious, terrified or fragile, even icily blonde, like those whom Hitchcock liked to direct. So, listening again to the ritornello from Vertigo, and then the score from Psycho, written for string orchestra by Bernard Herrmann: insistent, hypnotic, with its dissonances inspired by Elgar or Ives: a nonmelody immediately recognizable, time becomes sound, permeated with dread; all becomes more intense(…)


When it was formed by Dominique Lemonnier to perform the music written by Alexandre Desplat for the film Un héros très discret (1996, dir. Jacques Audiard), the Traffic Quintet was making its debut in the film world. The Quintet took its name from that first experience in the Seventh Art – as a tribute to Jacques Tati – and the group has since gone deeper into film music. Surrounding violinist Dominique Lemonnier are other French instrumentalists from prestigious orchestras – Anne Villette (violin), Estelle Villotte (viola), Raphaël Perraud (cello), Philippe Noharet (contrabass) – and the avowed ambition of the string ensemble is to revisit soundtracks that have now become part of our musical heritage. Thanks to this meeting of musicians, all them open to the discovery of new music forms, the Traffic Quintet produces a sound that is dense yet malleable, both modern and classical: above all, it is a sound that is immediately recognizable. If arrangements are writing games played by composers, this brand new formation has introduced infinite freedom and variety into the rules. The Traffic Quintet’s public performances feed on productive exchanges between music and contemporary art – especially projected videos – and the Quintet’s members propose a space for a walk through the film music universe which precisely echoes their desire to move freely between genres and eras. The abstract videos of Dominique Lemonnier and artist Ange Leccia, together with the space created by stage designer Bruno Cohen, contribute additional poetic licence to a project which, for the listener-spectator, might well be transformed into a total experience. The Traffic Quintet has already appeared at prestigious venues in New York, Washington, Paris (the Cité de la Musique and the Théâtre de l’Atelier), Kuwait City and Rome (the Villa Medicis), and in 2007 the ensemble was invited to Cannes for a performance during the Film Festival’s 60th Anniversary.

The Quintet’s second show, “Divine Féminin”, was premiered at Strasbourg’s Musica Festival and in Belgium at the Handelsbeurs Concertzaal in Ghent; in November 2009 it was presented in Braunschweig and Thessalonica before its French premiere in Paris (December 6th 2010) at the famous Theâtre des Bouffes du Nord. The Traffic Quintet recorded the following soundtracks : Fantastic Mr Fox (Wes Anderson), Army of Crime (Robert Guédiguian) and Lust Caution (Ang Lee).


Tracks
01/ Basic Instinct (Jerry Goldsmith) – 5’56
02/ Vertigo (Bernard Herrmann) – 4’00
03/ Psycho (Bernard Herrmann) – 3’58
04/ Medeamaterial Extrait nº1 (Pascal Dusapin) – 2’44
05/ Fahrenheit 451 (B. Herrmann) – 2’39
06/ The Misfits I (Alex North) – 3’34
07/ The Misfits II (Alex North) – 2’27
08/ I’m Through With Love (F. Livingston / M. Malneck / G. Kahn) – 2’14
09/ Medeamaterial Extrait nº2 (Pascal Dusapin) – 4’34
10/ Chinatown (Jerry Goldsmith) – 6’49
11/ The Hours (Philip Glass) – 3’37
12/ Virgin Suicides (Air) – 4’52
13/ Medeamaterial Extrait nº3 (Pascal Dusapin) – 3’00
14/ Birth - Elegy (Alexandre Desplat) – 4’29
15/ Birth - Valse (Alexandre Desplat) – 1’49
16/ As Time Goes By (H. Hupfeld) – 2’43