The Fifth Season (2023) is the fulfillment of our common desire, with Julien Martineau, to create the first major concerto for mandolin and symphony orchestra: an epic and moving work imagined as a fantastic epic. It is divided into three chapters:
I. The secret of the leaves begins with a rumor, a light breeze that spreads between the trees, amplifies and ends up waking up the entire forest. A first melancholy theme swirls in the air like a leaf blown by the wind; we then find it hovering, crawling, flowing under different emotions as the mandolin progresses in its quest. The second theme of the movement is a peasant tune, energetic and joyful which bounces in echo during the development to recall the village left at the beginning of the journey.
II. The source is an intimate and solitary round trip to the mysterious heart of the forest. The mandolin meets ancestral beings on its way embodied by the solo instruments of the orchestra until reaching, in the center of the movement, the legendary sanctuary from which the sap flows and Nature itself pulsates. After a moment of epiphany, she begins the way back to return, already transformed by her ineffable discovery.
III. Bonfire opens with a truculent party where mugs and stools collide in an over-excited atmosphere. The adventure is coming to an end but there is still one last moment to tell adventures, sing, dance under the stars. Suddenly the party is interrupted by a funeral commemoration resulting in a fire that consumes all the themes of the concerto in an immense brazier. Finally, in the silent night, the mandolin whispers a final farewell and rises, solitary, towards the eternal constellations.
Beyond its romantic breath, I chose The Fifth Season as a title for three reasons closely linked to each other: the evocation of Nature, the evocation of Time, and the discrete tribute to Antonio Vivaldi.
