Dystopia

A trip to India inspired Gauthier Dupertuis to write Dystopia for double wind quintet, a composition commissioned to him by the Swiss conductor Felix Hauswirth, on the occasion of the aVENTura Festival in Lucerne in September 2023 dedicated to Swiss composers.

In October 2018 Gauthier Dupertuis had the opportunity of accompanying the Wind Orchestra La Landwehr de Fribourg, (Switzerland), as an instrumentalist during a concert tour around India. Travel between the different cities was punctuated by the horns of the different vehicles on the road, which appeared to be in competition with each other in terms of their creativity. Their bus was no exception to this rule, and the composer ended up letting himself be inspired by this five-note pattern which, through repetition, ended up anchoring itself deeply in his brain, until it served as a musical basis for this work.

Dystopia exploits the notion of duality: in two parts (I. Preludio and II. Toccata), the work uses the double wind quintet sometimes as a single entity and sometimes as two or three groups in constant rhythmic, harmonic, or writing contrast. Like in a dystopia, where the hero constantly struggles against an oppressive society, the thematic group linked to motif A (that of the car horns, set out at the beginning of the Prelude) confronts that linked to motif B (exposed at bar 25) throughout the piece. Similarly, the free form of the Prelude contrasts with the more defined structure of the Toccata where the atmospheres linked to the two thematic groups alternate. Two short episodes highlight a third motif, more arioso, serving as divertissement and rhythmic appeasement within the Toccata.