Who the H... is Georges Aperghis? 
- 1996 Opera Production 
 

Cabaret Aperghis "Music above all" (Verlaine) Program Notes on the Music Artist Biographies

Shannon Unger in Cabaret Aperghis. Photo by Don Lee

PROGRAM
(in random order)

Wise and artful recitations sweetened with eloquent and graceful enticements.
(1641, Milton)

Récitations #3 (excerpt), 5 10, 12, 14 by Georges Aperghis

. . . his task is to make his inventory complete.
(1857, Trench)

Attempt at an Inventory by Georges Perec

They Gormandize at their self pleasures.
(1632, Lithgow)

SELF (excerpt) by Georges Aperghis

That natural instinct which man hath to live in conversation.
(1594, Parsons)

Conversations #1, 11, 13 (excerpt), 14, 15, 19 by Georges Aperghis

The fixed delusional states without excitement or depression come next, the Monomanias.
(1883, T.S. Clouston)

Monomanies #2, 3, 5, 6 by Georges Aperghis

Even the Graffiti of Pompeii have scarcely more power to . . . summon as in dreams the voices and the forms of long since buried men.
(1873, Symonds)

Graffitis by Georges Aperghis

The physiognomy of laughter would be the best of elementary books for the knowledge of man.
(1793, Holcroft)

Le Rire Physiologique by Georges Aperghis

You have to count anxiously like one learning to tango.
(1975, Times)

Tango? by Conlon Nancarrow

A tempestuous Whirlewind of new calamities.
(1609, Holland)

Tourbillons #1, 6 by Georges Aperghis

Some sighes out their words. Some synges their sentences.
(1533, T. Wilson)

The Fine Art of Sighing (excerpts) by Bernard Cooper

(All quotes taken from The Oxford English Dictionary)

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Notes on the Music

From the monomaniacal rantings of the delusional to the formal tones of a public recitation, from casual conversation tossed over the shoulder to graffiti scrawled on a wall, from the physiology of laughter to whirlwinds of breath and sound; these are the raw materials for the music of Georges Aperghis' solo repertoire, as reflected in the titles of the works presented in this evening's cabaret program.

Implicit in each title is communication, a basic need shared by all humans. Aperghis' music celebrates the attempt to speak, as well as the joy, humour and frustration which surround that attempt.

Drawing from literary and mathematical models, Aperghis creates an intricate grammar of pitch, rhythm and sound/word. He then plays with this structure as a child plays with building blocks, delighting in the simple processes of repetition, accumulation and permutation. To borrow the words of Noam Chomsky, Aperghis "manipulate[s] symbols in ways impossible with the things they stand for, arriving at novel and even creative versions of reality . . . turn[ing] the universe symbolically inside out."

This universe is then brought to life by the performer on a spiral of breath, colouring the voice with the entire spectrum of human emotion from speech to song, with all the possible shadings in between. Aperghis pushes the limits of the singer's capacity for breath, essentially throwing the performer beyond the need for air, so that in one moment we feel s/he has both surpassed that need and yet remains completely controlled by it a perfect bubble of impossibility.

The resulting performance is a unique distillation of sound and sense, far removed from, yet intrinsically linked to our everyday surroundings; music which is at times playful, at times profound; music which, in the best tradition of the symbolists, holds "the ocean in a glass of water" de la musique, avant tout.

Marguerite Witvoet

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