LAURENT METTRAUX

 

Route Principale 160, CH-1791 Courtaman (Switzerland),

tel. + fax: (+41) 26/684.18.65, E-mail : laurent.mettraux(at)bluewin.ch

 

 

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 Welcome  ¦  Biography  ¦  Principal works  ¦  Catalogue of works

 

Documents to download  ¦  Score excerpts  ¦  Audio excerpts

 

CDs  ¦  Critics and articles  ¦  (First) performances  ¦  Texts  ¦  Links

 

 

 

SOME QUOTES BY MUSICIANS

 

 

After I had heard a work by Laurent Mettraux, I have spontaneously written to him, asking him to compose a work for my orchestra. The “Concerto pour 15 soloist strings” (1994) was the result of my demand, a work of exceptional quality.  The innovative ideas, the subtleties, the contrasts, everything contributes  in forming a work of perfect homogeneity. It requires from the musicians a great sensibility, an important mastery of the instrument, without appealing to a mathematician’s austerity nor to the manual capacity of a circus artist. The musicians have played this work with an very great pleasure, the reaction of the public was spontaneous, enthusiastic. I hope to have the pleasure to listen to and to interpret more works by Laurent Mettraux. 

Tibor Varga, violonist

 

 

[About the first string quartet :] We enjoyed playing this lovely, thoughtful piece.

Jan Talich, violinist from the Talich Quartet

 

 

You have clearly your own particular way, which has not much to do with the musical languages of most of the contemporary composers. Your love for the grand phrase, for rhetoric in the noblest sense of the term, as well as your whole musical deport­ment associate you with a certain 'enlightened romanticism' and general independence of mind. That is the reason for which I want to tell you this : only listen to your own voice.

Luis de Pablo, composer

 

 

What moves me is the authenticity of his language. He never writes in a way that could be contrary to the instrument, but inscribes himself in its musical heritage. What pleases me as well is that he dares the emotion. Not a romantic emotion, but something powerful and personal. He writes what he has to write. Marianne Piketty, violinist, professor at the National High School of Music of Lyon

 

 

Laurent Mettraux is a young promising composer, following an atypical and personal way, creating free from the dogmas and fashions of contemporary music.

Jesus Lopez Cobos, conductor, after the first performance of the Symphony for chamber orchestra by the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra in 1993.

 

 

The sonnets by Michelangelo are intense and wonderfully written.

Dalton Baldwin, pianist

 

 

The “ Complainte” by Laurent Mettraux is the best compulsory piece of all competitions I have attended as a member of a Jury.

Prof. Herman Krebbers, violinist

 

 

Mr. Mettraux has been mandated to compose the compulsory piece of the 34th International Violin Competition organised by our Festival, (…) the Third Concerto for Violin and Full Orchestra (…). Everybody was struck by the work’s excellence and maturity, by the sensitivity of its details as well as by the use of large sequences leading to highest striving straining points. Laurent Mettraux knows how to draw the best of the soloist instrument with generosity and ability and his colourful orchestration develops all the shapes, from the darkest to the most luminous one. To my mind this work appears to be a first rank one. As for the composer, himself prize-winner of many distinctions – among others the prestigious Prize of the Festival “Donaueschinger Musiktage” – he has been known for years as one of the most important ones of his generation (…).

International Music Festival of Sion

 

 

The music of Laurent Mettraux expresses itself in a language unused until now. Nevertheless, it cannot be considered as revolutionary or innovative in the sense which the Avant-garde gives to these terms. It drives its inspiration consciously from the tradition, as well as what concerns harmony as what concerns the formal construction. The principal materials of Mettraux’ harmony are tonal elements. But these are bound to an extremely expressive polytonality and to a very varied rhythmical structure, near to that of Messiaen. The whole forms a very personal musical language, which one cannot confuse with another.

Erwin Messmer, organist